Blessed are the peacemakers: Christian religious education for peacebuilding in the pluralistic Indonesian context.

摘要

This study focuses on a model of Christian Religious Education for social transformation, which works close to social ethics, in the pluralistic and religiously conflicted Indonesian context. From my analysis of the background of those conflicts, it is clear that there are social, economic, and political problems at their heart. Religious symbols are used to fulfill certain political agendas. I go on to question how religions, which claim to be a source of peace, can become violent'? The ambivalence of religions towards their mission of peacebuilding has to do with the ways followers interpret their sacred texts. Because of this ambivalence, Christianity needs to emphasize its core teachings that support peacebuilding, namely, forgiveness and reconciliation, and to develop peacebuilding efforts, in which Religious Education forms part of long-term process.; Focusing on Calvin's teaching on diakonia, I analyze his legacy of contextual diakonia for the Indonesian context of poverty and religious pluralism. Although Calvin did not develop a peacebuilding concept, his emphasis on the church for the poor can lead Indonesian Christians to work together with people of other faiths for peace and justice in a liberation theology of religions framework.; Using a Shared Christian/Faiths Praxis approach, I go on to propose a model of Christian Religious Education behind, at, and beyond the wall. Religious Education behind the wall has to do with reading the Bible through new eyes and learning inherited Christian dogmas through a historical approach, which supports doing contextual theology. Religious Education at the wall has to do with learning about and from other religions, and taking part in interreligious dialogue. Religious Education beyond the wall has to do with working together with people of other faiths for peace and justice, and then reflecting on the shared work. The focusing activity and all five movements of Shared Christian/Faiths Praxis support raising critical consciousness, telling stories from life and ministry in dialectical hermeneutics with the sacred texts and dogmas of Christianity and other faiths, and appropriating how to live the Christian life in a religiously pluralistic and conflicted context.