NEWS FROM THE ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN MISSION CENTER (OCMC)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Crisis in Indonesia – March 19, 2007
The Metropolitanate of Hong Kong and Southeast Asia (Ecumenical Patriarchate) wishes to issue the following statement, concerning situations in Indonesia.
The Orthodox Christians in Indonesia have joined the list of those attacked by Muslim extremists. Father Methodios Sri Gunarjo, his family and other Orthodox were terrorized and threatened this past weekend. Although there are no reports of physical harm at this point, the verbal, psychological and other forms of abuse continue. At one point, a knife was put to the throat of Father Methodios, as his attackers demanded that he close the Churches in the Boyolali area of Central Java. It should be noted that there is a thriving ministry in this area.
A large group of Muslim protestors has gathered in the Church area and continues making demands upon Father Methodios and the Church community. The attackers are not from Boyolali, as local Christians and Muslims have joined in showing their support for Father Methodios, who is noted for the love and compassion he has shown all people in the area. Father Methodios and his family have been forced to leave their home, as their lives have now been threatened. The attackers have also promised to purge the area of Christians.
Metropolitan Nikitas has not been able to contact Father Methodios directly, although he is in constant communication with other clergy in Indonesia. He has requested that people pray for peace and an end to the violence and attacks upon the Church community.
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Well, what are we to do about this, besides pray?
You know, it’s funny really how things work.
I recently posted a blog on Redstate.com that was composed entirely of unattributed quotes from President Bush’s speeches on Islam. I strung them together to make them appear like an article, but did not edit them in anyway.
I was crucified. I was denounced as a liberal, a Democrat, an idiot, a moron, the list goes on.
Then I turned around and posted the quotes again, but this time I put in the attributes for George W. Bush and the speech in which they were delivered.
Dead silence from the right-wing blogosphere.
What are we going to do about some Christians getting abused in Indonesia?
Nothing. Islam is a religion of peace, love and tolerance.
Just ask the president.
Note 2. Got a link Glen?
What was true during the time of the Emperor Nero, is still true today; Christians are convenient scapegoats. In countries like Indonesia and Egypt Christians are a little more educated and economically advanced than their Muslim counterparts. This breeds jeaolousy and resentment that hate-mongering demagogues can use to their advantage.
Dean, your econmoic determinism rears its ugly head again. It could not be that the Muslim attackers hate Christians simply because they are Christian and the attackers are commanded by god to force them to submit or die could it? It has to be because of the economic status doesn’t it. That’s fantasy.
I am sorry. A Marxist approach to history, in which it is economic class versus economic class is interesting, but I refuse to believe that that is all there is to man. While you may be correct in that the higher economic status of Christians could be a contributing factor, it is probably not the only factor.
@ #5 I thought you were refering to me in your post for a moment, and was taken aback. Ha!
Unfortunately, history has proven that Islam is a religion of death. They can not be trusted. I pray that the Muslim world will renounce its heretical beliefs and join in full communion with the Orthodox Church, Christ’s Church.
History offers numerous examples of upheavals and revolutions that are economic in origin, many in countries that were entirely Christian, removing the religious component altogther. There was the great German Peasant Rebellion of 1525 that Martin Luther attacked so vehemently. The French Revolution, which led to a parade of aristocrats being led to the guilotine, was also of economic origin. the Russian revolution of 1918 was entirely economic as well.
It is a recurring theme in history that when one group of people feels humilated and oppressed they look for another group to blame for their troubles, and that there are always some some demogagues or agent-povacatuers ready to exploit their fears. After World War I the Nazis were able to exploit the anxieties of Germans who felt humiliated by the Treaty of Versailles and were economically devastated by the burden of reparations, hyper-inflation and the Great Depression. The Nazis were successfully able to present the Jews as the cause of all Germany’s problems.
After the American Civil War, groups like the Ku Klux Klan were able to exploit the economic fears and sense of humiliation felt by the former Confederates whose lands had been ravaged and ruined by the scorched earth tactics of Grant and Sherman, and turn the anger of Southern Whites against the former African-American slaves.
Even Nero, blamed the Christians for the fires in Rome because he needed to placate the Roman mob that the fires had dispossed, and which Nero may have intentionally have had set to clear land for one of his one new palaces.
Even in Ancient Greece during the Peloponesian wars, the “Democrats” of Ancient Athens sought to undermine other city states loyal to the Peloponesian League by inciting small farmers and tradesmen against the ruling aristocratic oligarchs and landowners whose sympathies were with Sparta. Ancient Athens played the economic card over and over again.
The ringleaders of the mob violence against Christians in Indonesia and Egypt may be Muslim extremists motivated by religion. But they are exploiting the economic insecurties of poor uneducated Muslims to drive them to mob violence.
Re: Note 7 – So, are we to understand that if the Christians in Indonesia made no more money than the Muslims in Indonesia, all of the persecution would come to an end?
Do we even know that the Christians in Fr. Methodios’s flock are financially outperforming their neighbors?
I believe money isn’t the only thing that motivates people to violence, and poor people aren’t the only people who can be driven to mob violence.