Death Toll Rises Above 30 As Unholy War Continues in Indonesia
Plus: Toledo priest accused of killing nun, Britain's new religious education guidelines, looking for Noah's ark, and other stories from online sources around the world.
Maluku Islands again a violent center of Christian-Muslim wars Less than a month ago, journalists were reporting peace in Indonesia's Maluku Islands. "A peace deal signed in 2002 appears to be holding and on the region's main island Ambon, the first tentative steps towards reconciliation are now being taken," reported the BBC's Rachel Harvey.
About a year ago, Christianity Today's Jeff M. Sellers reported the tragic reason for the "peace"—after more than 5,000 people were killed in two years of religious warfare, Muslim extremists had completed their mission. "They're done with religious cleansing there," Freedom House's Paul Marshall said. "There are refugees who have fled, and there are refugees who have been driven out of their villages but are starting to move back."
Last weekend, the religious violence moved back, too. Trouble reportedly began at a parade of some local separatists.
"Police arrested people trying to raise the banned flag of a little known and mostly Christian rebel group, the South Maluku Republic Movement, on the anniversary of a failed independence bid 54 years ago," Reuters said.
Violence broke out with six people killed and dozens more injured. Retaliation escalated, and by Tuesday afternoon the official death toll was 31, with 145 injured.
"In a particularly telling incident one man, likely a Christian according to local people, was stabbed to death at the Yos Sudarso port in Ambon, as he was trying to escape from a Muslim area," The Jakarta Post reports.
The paper says that clashes "finally began to tail off" yesterday: "Ambon was a ghost town as night fell, as the hundreds of police paramilitary reinforcements were deployed to the troubled city to prevent the conflict from escalating."
United Nations employee Olin Tutamahu told the AFP news agency, "We seem to have gone instantly back to the same conditions as at the beginning of the conflict in 1999. The Christians remain in their sector and the Muslims remain in theirs."
"It's still tense in some spots, but less so than yesterday," police spokesman Endro Prasetyo told Reuters. "We can hear gunfire but it's not often."
Still, the paramilitaries' presence does not mean peace has returned to the area. Australian media are reporting that hardline Muslim leaders in Jakarta have promised to send "7,000 Islamic warriors" to move the clash into the next phase.
"The clash in Ambon that erupted last Sunday has the potential to be used by certain groups to provoke the people of Ambon into becoming involved in a prolonged conflict like that in 1999," Natan Setiabudi, chairman of the Indonesian Communion of Churches, told The Jakarta Post. He also said that Christians in Ambon don't support the South Maluku Republic Movement. Unfortunately, the Muslim extremists who torched local Christians homes and schools (including the Indonesian Christian university) don't seem to care.
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Priest jailed for major embezzlement:
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The Joachim Kang fan club | Supporters of convicted priest posted his $1.2 million bail and pleaded for him (The Straits Times, Singapore)
The Joachim Kang pan club | Some are disgusted, think he betrayed parishioners' trust, wish him defrocked (The Straits Times, Singapore)
Stealing Christian music:
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Humanism becomes one of the new gods of religious education | Humanism, attitudes to sexuality and the ethics of wealth are to be taught alongside Christianity and other faiths in the first national curriculum for religious education (The Telegraph, London)
Ministers' guide on teaching religion | Atheism and other secular philosophies can be taught to children aged seven and up - if schools decide it is "appropriate", according to the first national religious education guidelines (The Journal, Newcastle, England)
United Methodist General Conference previews:
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Homosexuality to dominate Methodist convention | Over the next two weeks of deliberations, delegates from Methodist churches across the country will decide whether to change the church's Book of Discipline to allow gay ministers and perhaps bless gay unions (Morning Edition, NPR)
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Searching for Noah's ark:
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Launched in 1999, Christianity Today’s Weblog was not just one of the first religion-oriented weblogs, but one of the first published by a media organization. (Hence its rather bland title.) Mostly compiled by then-online editor Ted Olsen, Weblog rounded up religion news and opinion pieces from publications around the world. As Christianity Today’s website grew, it launched other blogs. Olsen took on management responsibilities, and the Weblog feature as such was mothballed. But CT’s efforts to round up important news and opinion from around the web continues, especially on our Gleanings feature.
Ted Olsen is Christianity Today's executive editor. He wrote the magazine's Weblog—a collection of news and opinion articles from mainstream news sources around the world—from 1999 to 2006. In 2004, the magazine launched Weblog in Print, which looks for unexpected connections and trends in articles appearing in the mainstream press. The column was later renamed "Tidings" and ran until 2007.
While we pray for peace, we need moral clarity about this war.
A Christian reconciliation group in Israel and Palestine warned that war would come. Now the war threatens their relevance.العربيةFrançais
The Grammy-winning artist was found dead at her home in Nashville at age 47.
