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Politik agama sama-sama menguntungkan yang menyerang dan yang diserang dan sama-sama merugi juga. Politik agama bisa dimulai dari korban yang memancing serangan, agar dapat diuntungkan. Atau dimulai dari penyerang untuk merugikan korban. Cara yang pertama yang sulit dilihat. Semua Negara, Ideologi dan Parpol Mempolitikkan Agama... Baca Di Sini

Pater Beek dan Komplotannya: Dinasti Politik Terkuat Indonesia dan Snouck Hurgronje-nya Zaman Orba dan Reformasi??

Jumat, 11 Oktober 2013

DIASPORA MURID PATER BEEK DAN KAUM SOSIALIS
http://meilono.50webs.com/politik/diaspora.html

Murid-murid Pater Beek yang dulu mendorong kelahiran Golkar,
Kini banyak masuk ke PDIP perjuangan.
Apa sasaran mereka? Kristenisasi?
Kecemasan akan terjadinya marjinalisasi umat kristen/katolik pernah di tulis dengan baik oleh mantan anggota dewan direktur CSIS J Soedjati Jiwandono. Ia menangkap, sejak sebelum pemilu 1992, ada kecemasan diantara kalangan katolik, tentang prospek peranannya di masa depan. ;

Gejala marginalisasi itu katanya, dilihat umat katolik dari berubahnya Golkar dan suasana anggota DPR/MPR setelah Pemilu 1992. ”Disitulah [Golkar dan DPR?MPR-Red] banyak orang Katolik sejak awal orde baru berpartisipasi dalam kehidupan politik,” tulis Soedjati dalam bukunya ‘Gereja dan Politik’.

Tokoh katolik lainnya Romo Dick Hartoko, pernah menuturkan tentang keterlibatan seorang pastur dari ordo Jesuit Pater Beek, dalam pembentukan Golkar. ”Awal mula dari Golkar adalah ide seorang romo Jesuit Beek,” ujar Dick seperti ditulis tempo. Menurutnya, Beek punya kedekatan dengan salah seorang pendiri CSIS Ali Moertopo, yang ketika itu aktif di Opsus dan BAKIN.

Sumber tekad yang dekat dengan kalangan militer menuturkan, di seputar 1950-an, Pater Beek telah banyak mendidik Sarjana Katolik yang militan. Pendidkan dilakukan di asrama mahasiswa Realino, yang terletak di Yogyakarta. Pusat pendidikan kemudian dipindah ke Klender Jakarta Timur, melalui wadah Yayasn Samadi.

Dalam buku ‘Soemitro dan Peristiwa Malari’, mantan Pangkopkamtib ini pun menyebut-nyebut nama Pater Beek. Soemitro mengungkapkan, ia menerima banyak laporan tentang siapa di belakang studi bentukan Ali Moertopo. Laporan yang di terimanya menyebut, lembaga itu dibentuk Ali bersama Soedjono Humardani, sebagian golongan katolik, dan sekelompok orang Tionghoa yang umumnya berafiliasi ke Pater Beek.Tak bisa di pungkiri, lembaga yang di maksud Soemitro adalah CSIS.

Masih menurut Soemitro, hubungan Pater Beek dengan orang Katolik lainnya tak selamanya serasi. Bahkan, mantan pejabat beragam Katolik juga tak menyukai kelompok Beek ini. Dick Hartoko pun mengakuinya. Dick sendiri cuma mau mengamati gerakan Beek ini tanpa terlibat.

“Jendral Sutopo Yuwono menurut pengakuannya pernah meminta Vatikan supaya Pater Beek dipindah dari Indonesia”. tutur Soemitro. Beek pun sempat ditarik, tapi tak lama kemudian balik lagi pada 1974, tahun ketika peristiwa Malari meletus.

Sumber tekad mengungkapkan, menjelang peristiwa Malari, BAKIN menemukan suatu dokumen yang terkenal dengan nama dokumen Pater Beek, yang berkaitan dengan tragedi itu. Dokumen ini menyebutkan beberapa nama yang terlibat dalam organisasi itu. Nama–nama itu antara lain Liem Bian Kun, Cosmas Batubara, Thomas Suyatno, Leo Tomasoa, Batubara, Fredi Latumahina, Harry Tjan Silalahi dan Jacob Tobing.

Beberapa nama tersebut, kini masih banyak yang aktif di Golkar.Tapi ada juga yang di PDI Perjuangan, seperti Jacob Tobing.Tapi ketua PPI ini menolak bila dikatakan punya kaitan dengan Beek. ”Itulah yang membedakan saya dengan kader lainnya” tuturnya.

Sumber tekad di tubuh PDI Perjangan, Jacob memang tak begitu menonjolkan gerakan katoliknya. ”Ia lebih mirip sebagai seorang Kapitalis Demokrat, yang mirip kebanyakan orang PSI,”tuturnya.

Maka itu, kata sumber ini, Jacob pun mudah membangun jaringan dengan sosialis lainnya. ia menyebut di tubuh PAN ia banyak berhubungan dengan Christianto Wibisono dan Goenawan Mohammad di Golkar dengan Fredi Latumahina dan Marzuki Darusman. Di lingkaran Habibie dengan Adnan Buyung Nasution, serta pengusaha James Riadi dan Glenn Yusuf. Hubungan sejenis juga terjalin dengan pengusaha Jacob Oetomo.

Sementara di PDI Perjuangan, Kelompok Jacob ini berkolaborasi dengan sayap Protestan dan Purnawirawan militer seperti Sabam Sirait dan Theo Syafei. ”Mereka bekerjasama pula dengan orang sosialis seperti Arifin Panigoro, tuturnya sementara Meilono, ia diidentifikasi sebagai orang-orang bergaris PNI yang khas gaya Moh Hatta yang juga cenderung sosialis.

Kelompok–kelompok inilah, kata sumber yang pengurus DPP PDI-P ini, mampu menyudutkan kader-kader. Mereka, katanya, berhasil memberi masukan langsung ke Mega, ataupun lewat Taufik Kiemas. “Adanya kelompok-kelompok semacam inilah yang melahirkan banyaknya caleg non-muslim. Meski sebenarnya itu hanya akses,” tutur sumber ini.

Sumber ini telah mengingatkan Mega bahayanya bagi PDI bila memakai orang-orang ini. “tapi Mega tak berdaya,” ujarnya. Menurutnya, gerakan kelompok kapitalis demokrat dan sosialis ini, memang tak beda jauh dengan kelompok Beek di masa Orde Baru. Hanya saja, tujuannya bukanlah Kristenisasi, melainkan eksistensi kelompok dan kepentingan ekonomi. Perbedaan lainnya, yang kini lebih dominan pun bukan lagi katolik, tapi protestan.

Selain itu, kata dia, pengaruh purnawiran milliter ditubuh partai ini tak bisa dianggap enteng. Ia mensinyalir, mereka masih menjalin hubungan dengan KBA (keluarga besar ABRI), yang kini berada di hampir seluruh partai peserta pemilu. ”Belum lama ini purnawirawan militer di berbagai partai itu kumpul,” ujarnya.

Terhadap berbagai sinyalemen ini Jacob tegas menolak. “Tidak bisa kita menganalisa separti itu. Itu keliru. Saya tidak mempunyai basis PSI sama sekali,” paparnya kepada tekad.

Pengamat politik dari UGM Affan Gaffar pun melihat kemiripan antara PDI Pejuangan sekarang, dengan Golkar diawal Orde Baru. Parameter yang dipakainya, kesamaan dominasi Kristen/Katolik, yang tercemin dalam susunan DCT.

Pengamat politik dari LIPI Indira Samego, menilai dominasi tersebut punya tujuan laverage politic, untuk mempengaruhi kebijakan negri ini dimasa mendatang. “Jangka pendeknya ya mengurus Habibie,” ujarnya.

Apakah dominasi itu ingin memainkan Islam politik gaya ICMI? Meliono Suwondo berani menjamin hal itu tak akan terjadi. “Saya tak bisa jamin mereka akan mengembangkan agama mereka. Tapi saya berani jamin mereka tak akan melakukan Kristen politik lewat PDI Perjuangan,” ujarnya. Bahkan, janjinya, sebagai seorang muslim ia akan berusaha keras membentengi Mega bila hal itu terjadi.

Tentang banyaknya caleg-non muslim itu sendiri Meliono punya alasan lain. Ia melihat, dalam kenyataannya banyak kader Muslim yang bagus tak masuk PDI. Hal itu, menurutnya, karena berkembangnya pandangan PDI itu tidak Islami. Sehingga kader Muslim yang baik lebih suka lari ke partai lainnya. “kalau ada kader Muslim yang bagus disini ya pasti dijadikan caleg,” tuturnya. Anehnya adik Gus Dur yang ketua PDI Perjuangan justru tak masuk caleg.


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Buddhist radicals attack Christian church in Sri Lanka

Jumat, 20 September 2013

Led by a Buddhist monk, a group of radical Sinhalese Buddhists attacked a Protestant church in Sri Lanka during a prayer service, according to media reports. The pastor and his mother were injured in the attack.

A Buddhist attorney told AsiaNews that “such attacks show that there is a political agenda that aims to unite the Buddhists.”

Earlier this year, a Catholic bishop warned of the rise of a “Buddhist Taliban” in Sri Lanka.

The nation of 21.5 million is 69% Buddhist, 8% Muslim, 7% Hindu, and 7% Christian; almost all Christians are Catholic.

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Hinduisme: Radical Hindus step up attacks on Christians

On their fifth day of silent prayer, the nuns of the Adoration Monastery heard the pounding in the public chapel next door, the sounds of glass shattering and the statue of Jesus being broken. After the sacrament crashed to the floor, the nuns found their voices. They screamed and called for Jesus.

The attack was one of many by radical Hindus against Christians over the past six weeks in India, a nation striving for religious tolerance but wrestling with bouts of sectarian strife that seem at odds with its drive to become a modern world power.

In the eastern state of Orissa, the country's worst clashes, sparked by the slaying of a prominent Hindu priest, have paralyzed the state and killed at least 20 people. In the past two weeks, the violence has spread to six other states, including southwestern Karnataka and the coastal town of Mangalore.

The clashes have polarized many Christians and Hindus nationwide. Radical Hindu groups accuse Christians of killing the priest and converting Hindus, especially those from lower castes.

Christians say they have become the victims of anti-minority campaigns designed to win votes for the Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, the pro-Hindu main opposition political party, in national elections next year. The party just won control of Karnataka four months ago.

"It is very inhuman, what is going on," said Mother Superior Mary Carmel, 57, of the Adoration Monastery, a convent where the 10 nuns leave only to vote or for medical care. "What we find is the government is totally against us. Instead of helping us, the police are victimizing us."

Many religions converge

In many ways, India is a multireligious marvel, with a Sikh prime minister, a Hindu president and a Roman Catholic ruling-party leader. Indian coins proclaim "national integration," and TV commercials celebrate harmony between religions. But since India gained independence from the British in 1947, violence has flared every decade or so between the Hindu majority and Muslims, Christians or Sikhs.

Now, as India sets its sights on becoming a world economic power, such violence is a major embarrassment. Many moderates here question whether the country will ever accept a person's right to religious freedom, guaranteed by the constitution.

The central government has been blamed for allowing the violence to continue. This month, New Delhi officials warned the Orissa and Karnataka governments to stop attacks on Christians or face dismissal. Still, more churches have been ransacked.

Hindu fundamentalists say converts from Hinduism are somehow less Indian than Hindus. Seven states, including Orissa, ban conversion.

"The converted Christians, the converted Muslims, become cruel," said M.B. Puranik, an official with the radical Vishwa Hindu Parishad, or VHP, and in charge of the party in the Mangalore area. "Their nationhood, their loyalty, is not to the nation. Their loyalty is to the Vatican. Their loyalty is to Allah. Conversion is the enemy of the nation."

Catholic officials deny actively recruiting. Evangelical groups, especially in the south, have been very active trying to find converts, in one case setting up an illegal Christian orphanage after the tsunami for Hindu orphans. But Alwyn Colaco, a pastor with the Full Gospel Pentecostal Church in Mangalore, denied that anyone is forced into Christianity.

"That is a No. 1 lie, the No. 1 biggest lie," he said. "Everyone's free to propagate their religion. People are given enough time to evaluate and choose what they want."

About 2.3 percent of Indians are Christian, compared with 80.4 percent Hindus, according to the 2001 census. In the 1961 census, 2.4 percent of Indians were Christian.

Violence may worsen

Anti-Christian violence could worsen in the run-up to parliamentary elections next year, analysts say, citing past experience. The BJP grew from a minor party to the major opposition party 16 years ago, largely through pro-Hindu policies that sparked riots. The party has been accused of being complicit in violence against both Muslims and Christians to win votes.

Ravi Shankar Prasad, the national BJP spokesman, said riots were unfortunate but blamed clashes on the conversion efforts and the death of the Hindu priest. He accused Christians in Karnataka of handing out pamphlets insulting Hindu gods. He denied that the BJP used communal divisions to manipulate voters.

"That is wholly wrong, a motivated campaign, patently false," Prasad said.

V.S. Acharya, home minister of Karnataka, told journalists last week that the central government crackdown on the violence was an "overreaction." As home minister, he is in charge of police in the state. Acharya also met with Hindu priests demanding the state ban conversion.

Ashit Mohan Prasad, the police official who oversees Mangalore and three districts of Karnataka hit by the anti-Christian violence, said police were independent and doing everything possible to prevent future clashes.

India's young Hindu radicals

Inside the Mangalore city jail, Subhash Padil, a 29-year-old foot soldier in a far right Hindu organization, leaned in to make himself heard through the wire mesh of the visitor's window. Half a dozen of his fellow inmates crowded around him.

With an orange lungi wrapped around his waist, sarong-style, and a saffron towel draped over his shoulders, Padil dressed in the guise of a temple priest. His moralistic protestations against his incarceration for an alleged attack on a birthday party held at a local bed and breakfast last year make him sound like one, too.

“When we came in, the girls were half naked and everyone was drinking,” he said, through a translator. “They claim it was only a birthday party. But if that was all that was going on, why would they hold it at a guesthouse instead of at home?”

Last July, journalist Naveen Soorinje caught Padil and other alleged members of the Hindu Jagarana Vedike on video as they roughed up a group of 20-something party-goers they claimed were up to no good. For exposing the Hindu group's violent answer to moral policing, the journalist spent more than six months in jail.


The real shock, however, was the virulence of the young Hindu radicals he exposed.

More than half of India's 1.2 billion people are under 25 years old, a potential demographic dividend that optimists say could add two percent per year to the country's gross domestic product over the next 20 years.

But contrary to conventional wisdom, it's not all Facebook, MTV and sexting in “Youngistan” — Pepsi's clever tag for this generation now coming into its own.  Instead, even as English-speaking India appears to be growing ever more tolerant of dating, live-in relationships and even intercaste marriages, Mangalore's birthday party battle and similar conflicts across the country hint at a simmering culture war beneath the surface of India's economic growth.

“If they truly suspected that there were drugs at the party or that the boys were taking pictures of the girls in compromising positions to blackmail them, they should have stopped to assess the situation and confirm something like that was really going on,” said Soorinje, who was finally released from custody after months of protests from civil rights organizations and other media personnel.

“But you can see from the video that they just stormed through the gate and started the attack.”

The Morality Police
A small, coastal city in the southern Indian state of Karnataka, Mangalore seems like an unnatural hotbed for Hindu radicals. It's only about 200 miles from Bangalore, the IT hub that has become the public face of India's economic rise. And thanks to dozens of educational institutions like St. Aloysius College, whose colonial-era towers overlook the Arabian Sea from the center of town, the city throngs with young, upwardly mobile Indians studying to be doctors, nurses, executives and engineers.

On a typical afternoon at a local branch of Cafe Coffee Day, the unofficial capital of Youngistan, several couples from the local colleges sit together, their heads drawn together over the excuse of a notebook. In one corner of the cafe, a Muslim girl sits with her bearded boyfriend, strappy pink sandals peaking out from beneath the head-to-toe black of her chador, while in another, a Hindu guy with a soul patch has pulled his chair around the table to sit next to his girlfriend. And later that night, at a local bar called Froth on Top, the crowd of young college students drank pitchers of beer, looking no different from any such group in any country around the world.

But there's more here than meets the eye.

Over the past five years — according to news reports collected by the People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), India's oldest and largest human rights organisation — Mangalore and the surrounding coastal area has witnessed more than 100 incidents of so-called “moral policing,” similar to the homestay attack in July.

“If a boy and girl walks together, that is not Hindu culture, they will say,” said Swebert de Silva, principal of St. Aloysius College, where students have protested against the self-appointed moral police.

“Or women drinking in a pub. Or young people gathering together and drinking a little beer. That is not Hindu culture.”

Most of the incidents compiled by PUCL involved members of radical groups such as the Hindu Jagarana Vedike, Sri Rama Sene and Bajrang Dal. In January 2009, for instance, around 40 alleged members of the Sri Ram Sene attacked young men and women drinking at a local Mangalore bar called “Amnesia — the Lounge,” claiming they were violating Indian culture. In August 2011, some 30 to 40 alleged members of the Bajrang Dal reportedly broke up a birthday party being held at a local farmhouse, claiming it was a rave.

“If I'm married and I'm having children of age 20 or 25 and I flirt with a girl who is the age of 14, and my intention is to spoil her, and some alert social activists ... stop us, how can you say it is moral policing?” said Franklin Monteiro, a local leader from the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

“First they will ask whether they are married or they are lovers, or whether they are having the permission of their parents,” Monteiro said. “These three questions they will ask first. If they belong to the same [religious] community, they [the vigilantes] will leave, just like that.”

But in contrast, in dozens of cases compiled by PUCL, members of various right-wing outfits reportedly dragged young people off buses, sprang on couples and hauled them into the police station, or beat them up on the spot.

Many of these attacks stemmed from the real or imagined perception that a Muslim boy had sought a connection with a Hindu girl — which right-wing ideologues have characterized as “Love Jihad.” And in almost all of these instances that involve the local police, the authorities appear to have tacitly sanctioned the vigilantes' actions by holding the couple for questioning, calling their parents to retrieve them, or releasing them only after ascertaining that both the boy and girl are Hindus.

“Nobody is stopping it,” said Suresh Bhatt, vice president of the Karnataka chapter of PUCL. “We're terribly concerned that the lawkeepers, the police and the politicians, are turning a blind eye.”

Activists from PUCL and other like-minded organisations trace such incidents of moral policing — as well as dozens of reported attacks on Muslims accused of slaughtering cows and on Christians accused of trying to convert Hindus — to the recent rise to power of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Karnataka.

The BJP and the Hindu Jagarana Vedike, Sri Rama Sene, and Bajrang Dal are all official offshoots, or ideological allies, of a massive, informal political “family” known as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), PUCL activists said.

The increase in these interreligious skirmishes — whether they're related to the bogey of “Love Jihad,” cow slaughter, or conversion — is part of a well-planned RSS campaign strategy, according to critics.

“For us, the final is the Sangh Parivar (RSS family), we are all activists of the Sangh Parivar,” said the BJP's Monteiro. “For us, the final and the most holiest part of life is to protect this country, as well as the culture of this land, which has been practiced by our elders.”

In Mangalore, the campaign began in the late 1990s, when a communal clash between Hindus and Muslims offered the RSS and other proponents of its ethnic nationalist ideology of “Hindutva” or “Hinduness” an opportunity to woo low caste Hindus away from competing socialist and communist movements, according to K. Phaniraj, a professor at the nearby Manipal Institute of Technology.

But since 2008, when the BJP came to power in Karnataka, the lines have blurred between the grassroots exploitation of tensions between religious communities and official sanction from the authorities. When the government proposed a bill to ban cow slaughter, for instance, local police tacitly allowed hooligans to enforce the ban, though it never became law.  And for more than a month last year, the official police website for the district that includes Mangalore featured a photo collage highlighting the supposed public service activities of the RSS (which the group's opponents say are nothing more than recruitment efforts).

“I call it Hindutva fascism,” Phaniraj said. “I make no bones about it.”

Class and caste, town and gown
As disturbing as that sounds, that aspect of the issue is little more than politics as usual forIndia, where the RSS and Hindu nationalism has been a potent force since 1925.

And though various speeches reported by local media suggest otherwise, some RSS members and sympathisers say that the organisation has quietly shunted to the side the outright fascist ideas of Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar, one of its principal early ideologues. (In his written works, Golwalkar calls for non-Hindus to adopt Hindu culture or submit to remain “wholly subordinated to the Hindu nation” and appears to endorse Hitler's decision to purge Germanyof the Jews, though perhaps not his methods).

“There might be a small section of the RSS which is anti-Muslim,” said 31-year-old Brijesh Chowta, an RSS member who cautioned that his statements represented only his personal views. “But if you look at the organisation, they say Hindutva is not a religion. Everybody can practice their religion, but it's about being Indian first.”

What's new, and of greater concern to the more liberal citizens of Youngistan, is the idea that India's modernization may not be diminishing the ranks of the true believers, and their conservatism may be contagious — encouraging Christian and Muslim fundamentalism.

At a recent regional meeting, 80 percent of the 85,000 uniformed “volunteers” that turned out were between 16 and 35, according to a 28-year-old member of the RSS who lives at its center in the city and works for the organisation full time. (He asked not to be named because he is not an official spokesman.)

Meanwhile, the regular attacks on Muslims that accompanied the Hindu vigilantes' moral policing sparked local college students to adopt the burqa and chador as a kind of badge of honor in the tussle between modernity, freedom and identity.

And the socio-economic dimensions of the conflict hint that it may soon grow more serious.

Apart from the alleged political machinations of the Hindu right, there is a class-and-caste, town-versus-gown element to these incidents of moral policing that some observers believe augurs trouble on the horizon.

While educated, upwardly mobile young people move forward to take better jobs, free themselves from the authority of their parents and embrace more liberal attitudes toward love and sex, another group may be growing increasingly lost, hopeless and angry.

According to Soorinje, the journalist jailed for his reporting on moral policing, for instance, four of the young men facing charges for the alleged attack on party-goers at the homestay in July do not have electricity in their homes.

“The reason that young people are attracted to these kind of [radical conservative] outfits is the uneven development we see in Mangalore,” Soorinje said.

“While we have so many colleges and shopping malls, the backward and uneducated tend to take what the leadership says about 'Love Jihad' and so forth at face value, because young men and women socializing together like the college students do is completely outside their sphere of knowledge.”

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Beware: Dominionis dan Fundamentalis Kristen Menyusup ke Politik

Chances are you really don’t know what the Dominionists are all about, and that’s just the way they like it. At one time, they were content to operate under the radar screen. Today, they are much more militant and outspoken about just exactly what their long-term goals are. So, just what are the Dominionists all about? The short answer is that the Dominionists are members of one of the most extreme forms of Fundamentalist Christianity, and their goal is to replace the American democracy with a theocratic form of government.

The modern form of Dominionism is Christian Reconstructionism, which was founded in the 1970s by R.J. Rushdoony. Reconstructionists believe that Christians alone should control civil government, conducting it according to Biblical law, not secular law. It is estimated that 35 million Americans who call themselves ‘Christians’ adhere to Dominionism, some without really understanding its dangers. This may seem unbelievable to you, but consider the transformation of the Republican party since the Ronald Reagan era.

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Dominionism and Christian reconstructionists

Dominionism – A Christian plot to run America

Dominionism, in the context of politics and religion, is the tendency among some politically active conservative Christians to seek influence or control over secular civil government through political action, especially in the United States. The goal is either a nation governed by Christians, or a nation governed by a conservative Christian understanding of biblical law.

Put simply, follows of Dominionism believe they have a God-given right to rule. GOP presidential candidates Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry have a history of being affiliated with Christian Reconstructionists, such as Perry’s relationship with New Apostolic Reformation and Bachmann’s relationship to John Eidsmoe, an Oral Roberts University professor, and nationalist historian David Barton who are both Christian Reconstructionists.

dominionism bachmann perry Dominionism   A Christian plot to run America


The origins of Dominionism – R. J. Rushdoony

Dominionism derives from a small fringe sect called Christian Reconstructionism, founded by a Calvinist theologian named R. J. Rushdoony in the 1960s. According to Rushdoony and other Reconstructionists including Gary North and Greg Bahnsen, the idea of dominion drawn from Genesis 1:28 implied a theonomy (“rule of the law of God”), which would require all citizens to observe the strict Reconstructionist form of Christianity, and which would punish moral sins ranging from blasphemy to homosexuality with death. Rushdoony wrote that “man is summoned to create the society God requires . . . bringing all things under the dominion of Christ the King.”

An integral part of the message put forward by Dominionism is to conquer the seven mountains of society, or the seven mountains of culture, if they are to impact any nation for Jesus Christ. The seven mountains are business, government, media, arts and entertainment, education, the family and religion.

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Dominionisme dan Politik Agama di AS

The term "dominionism" is used different ways by different people. When new terms are developed, that is to be expected. If we are to use words and phrases to discuss ideas, however, it pays to be on the same page concerning how we define those terms. This is especially true in public debates.

In her 1989 book Spiritual Warfare, sociologist Sara Diamond discussed how dominionism as an ideological tendency in the Christian Right had been significantly influenced by Christian Reconstructionism. Over the past 20 years the leading proponents of Christian Reconstructionism and dominion theology have included Rousas John (R.J.) Rushdoony, Gary North, Greg Bahnsen, David Chilton, Gary DeMar, and Andrew Sandlin.

Diamond explained that "the primary importance of the [Christian Reconstructionist] ideology is its role as a catalyst for what is loosely called 'dominion theology.'" According to Diamond, "Largely through the impact of Rushdoony's and North's writings, the concept that Christians are Biblically mandated to 'occupy' all secular institutions has become the central unifying ideology for the Christian Right." (italics in the original).

In a series of articles and book chapters Diamond expanded on her thesis. She called Reconstructionism "the most intellectually grounded, though esoteric, brand of dominion theology," and observed that "promoters of Reconstructionism see their role as ideological entrepreneurs committed to a long-term struggle."

So Christian Reconstructionism was the most influential form of dominion theology, and it influenced both the theological concepts and political activism of white Protestant conservative evangelicals mobilized by the Christian Right.

But very few evangelicals have even heard of dominion theology, and fewer still embrace Christian Reconstructionism. How do we explain this, especially since our critics are quick to point it out?
The answer lies in teasing apart the terminology and how it is used.

Christian Reconstructionism is a form of theocratic dominion theology. Its leaders challenged evangelicals across a wide swath of theological beliefs to engage in a more muscular and activist form of political participation. The core theme of dominion theology is that the Bible mandates Christians to take over and "occupy" secular institutions.

A number of Christian Right leaders read what the Christian Reconstructionists were writing, and they adopted the idea of taking dominion over the secular institutions of the United States as the "central unifying ideology" of their social movement. They decided to gain political power through the Republican Party.

This does not mean most Christian Right leaders became Christian Reconstructionists. It does mean they were influenced by dominion theology. But they were influenced in a number of different ways, and some promote the theocratic aspects more militantly than others.

It helps to see the terms dominionism, dominion theology, and Christian Reconstructionism as distinct and not interchangeable. While all Christian Reconstructionists are dominionists, not all dominionists are Christian Reconstructionists.

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Kristenisme Dalam Politik AS

Apakah Amerika Serikat telah berubah menjadi negara agama???

Jawabannya lihat di sini: Rise Of Faith Within GOP Has Created America's First Religious Party


It's time for the pancake breakfast in the basement meeting hall of St. Peter's Catholic Church in this faded but proud industrial city on the Ohio River. It's Sunday morning before the 11 o'clock mass, and as swarms of kids dig into their syrupy meals, the parents talk politics and religion.

"This country is in trouble and has to get back to the Christian values it was founded on," says Tracy McManamon, an insurance salesman. "We can't be afraid to talk about it. We have to speak up."

Later, upstairs in the sanctuary, Father Ray Ryland echoes that sentiment. In his "prayer of the faithful," he hopes that elected officials will take a "pro-life" position on the issues of the day.

Rick Santorum plans to spend Super Tuesday evening in Steubenville High School, across the street from St. Peter's. The parishioners in the church on Sunday were uniform in their support, even if they acknowledged that he might never be president. "At least he's willing to say out loud what we all believe," said McManamon.

If Santorum hopes to stop Mitt Romney's fitful but effective slog to the GOP nomination, the former Pennsylvania senator will need a massive turnout from church basements and sanctuaries such as these. But whether he wins or loses is almost beside the point. Santorum's unexpected and, in some ways, astonishing rise from semi-obscurity is symbolic of something far more important in politics.

Whatever happens on Super Tuesday, the Republican primary season already has made history. The contest has confirmed the establishment of America's first overtly religious major political party.

The signs are numerous, but it's still easy to miss the big picture: that the GOP now is best understood as the American Faith Party (AFP) and its members as conservative Judeo-Christian-Mormon Republicans. The basement of St. Peter's is just one clubhouse.


"There has never been anything like it in our history," said Princeton historian Sean Wilentz. "'God's Own Party' now really is just that."

The new GOP does not seem to be sitting well with the American people as a whole, or even with many traditional Republicans. Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine is only the latest non-AFP-type Republican to decide to leave politics and/or the party. In the new ruling class, "revival tent" proponents are driving out the old "big tent" advocates. And a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll shows that 40 percent of American adults think less of the party after watching its transformation this electoral season.

The American Faith Party is a doctrinally schizophrenic coalition bound by faith in the power of biblical values to create a better country; by fear of federal power, especially that of the federal courts and President Barack Obama and his administration; and by fear of rising Islamic political power around the world.

The AFP unites Catholic traditionalists who especially revere the papal hierarchy; evangelical, fundamentalist and charismatic Protestants; some strands of Judaism, including those ultra-orthodox on social issues and Jews for whom an Israel with biblical borders and a capital in Jerusalem is a spiritual imperative, not just a matter of diplomatic balance in the Middle East; and Mormons, who ironically aren't regarded as Christians by most other members of the coalition. Romney, a devout Mormon, is their man.

The four still-standing Republican presidential candidates are all AFP members in good standing on most of the party's key agenda items. The GOP platform is sure to feature all of them, including opposition to abortion and gay marriage; measures to counter what Republicans regard as attacks on religious liberty; expressions of fear about the extent of federal power, especially from the courts, on social and medical issues; libertarian economic policies that limit regulation and taxes (for religious conservatives and economic libertarians share a common enemy: government); denunciations of Islamic political power; and support for Israel. (Ron Paul is a dissenter on the last two points.)

All the candidates, including Paul, adhere to the AFP's central operational tenet: that professing your own faith -- once verboten in American politics -- is a necessary precondition to being taken seriously.

In the American Faith Party, in other words, every day begins with a prayer breakfast, a public ritual that used to occur only once a year.

Religious parties are familiar phenomena in most of the world. Europe has Christian Democrats in every country. Egypt has the Muslim Brotherhood. But the Bill of Rights ban on the establishment of religion and religious tests pushed American parties away from such overt identification. Historians say that never before has the U.S. had a party whose central identity and avowed cause was the profession of religious faith in politics.

A generation in the making and like the original Republican Party it has supplanted, the AFP is the product of a fundamental moral conflict -- in this case, over the relative roles of church and state, and over the role of religion in guiding public policy.

Ronald Reagan began the process a generation ago, reaching out to evangelical, Bible Belt Protestants, who had shied away from politics ever since the Scopes "Monkey Trial" in Tennessee in the 1920s. In Reagan's case, the motivating force was the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision supporting a woman's right to an abortion, which led Catholics to ally themselves with conservative Protestants.

To be sure, there have been other avowedly religious presidential candidates in recent years, among them Pat Robertson, a televangelist, in 1988 and Mike Huckabee, a preacher in his spare time, in 2008.

But never before has the entire party essentially been singing from the hymnal. Candidates in 2012 who did not do so, such as Jon Huntsman and Herman Cain, went nowhere; implausible entrants such as Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry went further than they would have in an earlier era of the Republican Party.

As seen from strongholds such as Steubenville, the new party is built in equal measure on hope and fear. Its leaders and adherents deny their goal is theocracy and say they only want religious freedoms protected and an acknowledgement that biblical faith and morals were central to the founders' vision of America -- and must be central again if America is to survive at all.

There's enough resonance to their concern about the secularization of American culture to give their grievances credibility and even populist nobility. "When they frame their cause in terms of religious liberty, that's something that Americans agree with," said Wilentz. "That approach creates an inspiring sense of mission."

According to historians, the closest entity akin to the new AFP was the anti-Catholic, anti-immigrant Know-Nothing Party of the early 19th century. "They were all Protestants, but they were entirely about what they were against, not what they were for," said author and historian Michael Beschloss. The Prohibition and civil rights movements were church-based, but their objectives weren't per se religious, said Wilentz.

To the parishioners of St. Peter's in Steubenville, this history is beside the point. Their point is that government alone can and will never nourish the proper regard for the sanctity of life, the dignity of humanity and the role of faith in creating moral character that Americans need to govern themselves in a democracy.

"We can't ever think that a fetus is somehow undesirable or even disposable," said Justine Schmiesing, a mother of seven who noted that she does not "contracept." "We don't want government to act in ways that ignore life, and that is why we are speaking up."

Islamisme AS dan Obama di Myanmar

Obama Desak Myanmar Hentikan Pembantaian Muslim

Presiden Barack Obama mendesak presiden Myanmar pada Senin, 20 Mei 2013, untuk menghentikan kekerasan terhadap minoritas Muslim di negara itu. Pada kesempatan yang sama, ia memuji reformasi ekonomi dan politik di negara yang sebelumnya dikucilkan itu.

Ia menyatakan hal itu saat menerima Presiden Myanmar Thein Sein. Kunjungan ini adalah yang pertama ke Gedung Putih dalam 47 tahun oleh pemimpin negara di Asia Tenggara itu.

"Saya juga berbagi dengan Presiden Sein tentang keprihatinan kami yang mendalam tentang kekerasan komunal atas komunitas Muslim di Myanmar. Perpindahan orang, kekerasan yang ditujukan terhadap mereka perlu berhenti," kata Obama.  Obama menyeruhkan diakhirinya pembunuhan Muslim Rohingya di negara bagian Rakhine di bagian barat Myanmar.

Presiden Myanmar berjanji untuk menyelesaikan konflik etnis dan membawa pelaku ke pengadilan. Setidaknya 192 orang tewas tahun lalu dalam aksi kekerasan antara umat Buddha di Rakhine dan Muslim Rohingya, yang ditolak oleh warga Myanmar. Sebanyak 140.000 orang yang kehilangan tempat tinggal dalam serangan adalah Muslim.

Obama mengatakan pemimpin Myanmar telah meyakinkannya bahwa ia akan membebaskan para tahanan politik dan melembagakan reformasi politik yang sudah mulai mengubah wajah negara itu dan mengakhiri kerenggangannya dengan Barat. Pejabat Amerika Serikat mengatakan bahwa reformasi oleh Myanmar - antara lain dengan membebaskan aktivis demokrasi Aung San Suu Kyi dan ratusan tahanan politik, memperlonggar sensor, legalisasi serikat buruh dan unjuk rasa - yang transformatif pantas mendapatkan dukungan.

Dalam pidatonya di AS, Thein Sein menguraikan upayanya untuk memajukan negaranya yang kini menjadi negara termiskin di Asia Tenggara itu. Sejumlah langkah yang dilakukan antara lain merombak lembaga warisan rezim lama, menghapus model pemerintahan otoriter, dan membangun identitas nasional baru yang inklusif dari puluhan kelompok etnis.

"Untuk mencapai semua ini kita membutuhkan dukungan maksimal internasional, termasuk dari Amerika Serikat, untuk melatih dan mendidik, berbagi pengetahuan, perdagangan dan investasi, dan mendorong orang lain melakukan hal yang sama," katanya.

Soal pembantaian Muslim, ia menyatakan pemerintahnya "harus memastikan tidak hanya kekerasan antar-komunal terhenti, tapi itu semua pelaku dibawa ke pengadilan."

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Religion and Intolerance in Contemporary American Politics

In a 2008 report from the Pew Research Center on religion in American life, one of the principal findings had to do with the tolerance believers extend to those affiliated with other religious denominations and sects. The New York Times hailed these findings with the headline, “Survey Shows U.S. Religious Tolerance.” The article goes on to note that 70 percent of Americans affiliated with a religion agree that “many religions can lead to eternal life.” From this frame of reference, tolerance seems to predominate in the contemporary United States.

While the conclusions of that study are on their own terms believable, they ought not be taken to mean that religionists have a propensity toward tolerance more generally.

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Islamisme Belanda: Politik Agama 'Islam Politiek' Belanda di Indonesia

Prof. Dr. Snouck Hurgronje (1857-1936) selama ini merupakan tokoh yang sangat kontroversial. Disanjung dipuja sebagai sarjana Islam yang cemerlang, tetapi juga dicaci maki sebagai seorang ahli muslihat yang hendak menghancurkan Islam dari dalam dengan pura-pura masuk Islam.

Betapapun diakui oleh semua pihak bahwa pemerintah Belanda baru mempunyai garis kebijaksanaan tentang Islam didaerah jajahannya yang bernama Hindia Belanda (Indonesia) setelah Snouck Hurgronje menjadi penasehat pemerintah dalam hal-hal yang berkaitan dengan Islam.

Lanjut Di sini

Testimony: My Problem with Christianism

Are you a Christian who doesn't feel represented by the religious right? I know the feeling. When the discourse about faith is dominated by political fundamentalists and social conservatives, many others begin to feel as if their religion has been taken away from them.

The number of Christians misrepresented by the Christian right is many. There are evangelical Protestants who believe strongly that Christianity should not get too close to the corrupting allure of government power. There are lay Catholics who, while personally devout, are socially liberal on issues like contraception, gay rights, women's equality and a multi-faith society.

More

Judge backs U.S. right to seize Manhattan building allegedly controlled by Iran


The United States is set to seize control of a midtown Manhattan skyscraper prosecutors claim is secretly owned by Iran, the U.S. justice department said, though the ruling is to be appealed, AFP reported.

According to the report, a federal judge ruled in favor of the government's legal case this week, claiming that the 36-storey Piaget Building's owners had violated Iran sanctions and money laundering laws.

Manhattan Federal Prosecutor Preet Bharara said the decision upheld the justice department claims that the owner of the building "was (and is) a front for Bank Melli, and thus a front for the Government of Iran".

Prosecutors allege that the building's owners, the Alavi Foundation and Assa Corporation, transferred rental income and other funds to Iran's state-owned Bank Melli.

Alavi also ran a charitable organization for Iran and managed the building for the Iranian government, the statement said.

Built in the 1970s by a non-profit organization operated by the Shah of Iran - and financed with a Bank Melli loan - the building was expropriated by the new Iranian government after the 1979 revolution, prosecutors allege.

The U.S. Treasury Department has instituted tight sanctions against Iran, blacklisting a number of Iranian companies and organizations and putting very tight controls on the ability of any group or business to transfer funds into Iran.

The restrictions seek to pressure Tehran into giving up what the West claims is a program to develop nuclear weapons, a charge Iran denies.


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Kristenisme Dalam Dunia Politik

Kristenisme saat ini sudah menjadi aliran politik. Politik kristenisme banyak dipraktekkan oleh partai-partai politik di Amerika Serikat, khususnya oleh kalangan Partai Republik.

Lihat pengertiannya di sini.

This morning a friend sent me a definition of Christianist from The Urban Dictionary

Christianist*

1. Christianist
One who claims to be a follower of Christ and His teachings but who actively engages in acts and deeds that are contrary to His teachings.
A pastor who calls for the murder of someone whose political beliefs are disagreeable to him (or her) is a Christianist, not a Christian.

2. Christianist
A member, or members of the Christian religion that uses it as a negative weapon against a person, or an entire group of people.
An anti-gay Christianist group, NOM, believes they're protecting marriage by banning gay marriage.

3. Christianist
A member of the Christian faith who seeks to use a religion of peace and tolerance for political and personal gain.
Pat Robertson and his band of Christianists are doing everything they can to keep the Republicans in power.
*Definitions from the Urban Dictionary


Perhaps Rep.Akin fits this definition. This sort of thinking escapes the NTS category. While I struggle with the distinction, I find I must believe that there is a difference between Christians and Christianists.

Politik Agama Hary Tanoe, Cawapres Hanura

Sabtu, 07 September 2013

Hary Tanoe Tak Khawatirkan FPI Soal Penolakan Miss World

CEO MNC Group, Hary Tanoesoedibjo menjelaskan jika kontes Miss World 2013 di Bali tidak akan menampilkan sesi peragaan bikini. Lantaran itu pula, ia tak khawatir dengan gelombang penolakan yang utamanya dilancarkan Front Pembela Islam (FPI).

Hary Tanoe, begitu ia biasa disapa, mengaku tak setuju jika even ratu kecantikan sejagat itu menampilkan sesi bikini.

"Saya tidak akan terima jika ada peragaan bikini. Jadi, Miss World di Bali tak akan ada sesi bikini," katanya di Nusa Dua, Bali, Rabu 4 September 2013.

Ia menanggapi penolakan yang gencar dilancarkan sejumlah ormas Islam. Menurutnya, penolakan itu terjadi lantaran kurang komunikasi dan soal Miss World.

Katanya, kondisi diperparah oleh mereka yang tak faham permasalahan, sehingga membuat masyarakat yang tak mengerti menjadi terprovokasi. Polemik Miss World, sambung Hary Tanoe, sudah berkembang luas di kalangan masyarakat akibat hal tersebut.

Padahal, kata dia, kontes ini membawa dampak positif bagi Bali dan Indonesia pada umumnya. Salah satu keuntungannya adalah pakaian yang akan dikenakan para kontestan berasal dari desainer Indonesia, termasuk batik. Para kontestan juga akan dikenalkan budaya Bali dan mengunjungi pura Besakih.

Karena itu, Hary Tanoe mengaku tidak khawatir dengan penolakan kontes Miss World. "Kuncinya adalah mengembalikan segala sesuatunya ke informasi yang benar. Kalau ini bisa dijelaskan, kita tidak perlu khawatir, karena tujuannya sangat baik, lebih untuk kepentingan bangsa," kata dia.

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