ICC: Indonesians like most human beings, are trying to make sense of the immense tragedy that has beset them. This portion of a Washington Post article (below) details the inclination of Aceh Muslims to interpret the Tsunami as divine judgement for not being devout enough.
At ICC we have long detailed the undereported but massive persecution in Indonesia . From ’99 to ‘2003 approximately 10,000 Christians were murdered and 80,000 Christian homes burnt down by fundamentailist Muslims in Indonesia .
Would you join us in prayer that the average Indonesian would come to link these two events in their mind? That they would see the devastation they are suffering, as perhaps a result of the the death and destruction they visited on the Christians, rather than judgement for not praying five times per day?
Pray for a spirit of repentance and a return of the peaceful coexistence of Christians and Muslims that predominated in Indonesia for hundreds of years prior to Saudi influenced Islam gaining influence there.
Washington Post Foreign Service
By Edward Cody
Wednesday, January 5, 2005; Page A01
BANDA ACEH, Indonesia, Jan. 4 — Aceh’s highly influential Islamic clerics have explained the giant wave that devastated this overwhelmingly Muslim region as a warning to the faithful that they must more strictly observe their religion, including a ban on Muslims killing Muslims.
“God is angry with Aceh people, because most of them do not do what is written in the Koran and the Hadith,” the collected sayings and actions of the prophet Muhammad, explained Cut Bukhaini, 35, an imam. “I hope this will lead all Muslims in Aceh to do what is in the Koran and its teachings. If we do so, God will be merciful and compassionate.”
