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Susianti Tinolele (also spelled Tinulele) was shot in the head while while preaching Sunday night at Effata Presbyterian Church in the Central Sulawesi capital of Palu, Indonesia.

"Local media reported Tinolele, 29, fell straight to the church floor after a bullet rammed through her skull, prompting around 100 churchgoers to frantically run for safety," reports Reuters. Four teens were injured—one critically—as the unidentified gunman sprayed bullets into the congregation.

Provincial police spokesman Victor Batara told the AFP news service that the gunman was "one of a group of five attackers" who arrived on two motorbikes.

Most news services suggest that the attackers were trying to reignite the country's religious war, which left about 1,000 dead between 2000 and 2001.

Here's AFP:

In Jakarta, acting security minister Hari Sabarno said the "inhuman" attackers were trying to trigger renewed conflict. … The attack was intended "to create a horizontal conflict," Sabarno said, using the Indonesian term for conflict between different sectors of society.

Here's Reuters:

The motive was not known, [police spokesman Victor] Batara said. "But clearly they want to disturb security as it has been relatively safe recently."

But here's Nathan Setiabudi, head of the Communion of Churches in Indonesia:

"[President Megawati Soekarnoputri] has ordered the police to catch the criminals. There is no religious motive. We should not be provoked."

No religious motive? The Jakarta Post notes, "Susianti was the second reverend shot dead in Central Sulawesi in the past four months. Another reverend, Freddy Wuisan, was shot dead in Membuke, Poso regency in March this year. Two weeks after Freddy's murder, two unknown assailants showered bullets on churchgoers attending an Easter sermon at the Tabernacle Church in the religiously divided regency of Poso. Seven people were injured."

And Reuters has another statistic: The attack on Effata Presbyterian "was the fifth on Christians in the province this year."

Setiabudi, surely, is trying to stop retaliation before it starts. But as Weblog has previously noted, absurd claims from leaders can exacerbate tensions, not relieve them. When gunmen pull up to a church during a service, shoot the minister in the head, fire repeatedly into the congregation, then leave, it's rather difficult to claim that religion had nothing to do with the motivation. One would think that many Christians would stop listening to Setiabudi at "there is no religious motive" and not hear the call against retaliation.

Yesterday's Weblog noted widespread expectations that the board of regents at Baylor University wouldn't vote again on whether to retain Robert Sloan as president, since they just did that in May.

What a difference a day makes. The Committee to Restore Integrity to Baylor, a group opposing Sloan, says the tide has turned, and there are now enough votes on the board to remove him.

"We're now convinced that the votes are there, and this is the first time we've been convinced," group president Bill Carden told The Dallas Morning News.

"We have good reason to think it's going to happen at this meeting," he told the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram. He must be very convinced to make such comments before Friday's formal meeting, since one imagines that doing so would provoke Sloan supporters to rally. Three students are doing just that with a pro-Sloan op-ed in today's Houston Chronicle.

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July (Web-only) 2004, Vol. 48