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This story and photo available online:

www.pcusa.org/pcnews/2009/09073<http://www.pcusa.org/pcnews/2009/09073

>Promoting Muslim-Christian understanding

A missionary letter from the world's most populous Muslim
country

>by Bernard and Farsijana Adeney-Risakotta
>PC(USA) mission workers in Indonesia

YOGYAKARTA, Indonesia ― While listening to a panel on
Islamic economics in Sumatra, Indonesia, I surreptitiously
watched the U.S. election returns on my wireless laptop.
Strange. So far away and yet so close.

As the only Christian among several hundred Muslims, I
spoke on Islamic studies in a multi-religious,
multicultural world. It's a world where the son of a Kenyan
father and a mother from Kansas, with a Muslim name, who
grew up in Indonesia and Hawaii and attends a black church
on the south side of Chicago was elected president of the
U.S.A.

Amazing. The front page of our newspaper showed an old
picture of Obama wearing an Indonesian school uniform and
looking just like the other Indonesian kids sitting around
him.

Indonesians used to view America as a symbol of freedom,
prosperity and human rights. During the movement to unseat
the authoritarian Suharto, young people wore American flags
to signify their support for democracy. One morning in
1998, I woke up to find our neighborhood in Yogyakarta
festooned with American flags.

Prior to Sept. 11, 2001, 90 percent of Indonesians had a
positive view of the U.S.A. By the waning years of
President Bush's administration, the approval rating for
the U.S. had plunged to 10 percent. The primary reason for
this reversal was the invasion of Iraq and the "war on
terror." The image of America as a symbol of democracy was
replaced by an image of America as a brutal, global bully
and the enemy of Islam.

Indonesia includes more than 200 million Muslims, more than
the whole of the Middle East. The tolerant forms of Islam
followed by most Indonesians are a source of hope for the
world.

However, for the past eight years militant Islam has grown
rapidly in Indonesia. I was invited by a radical group
(MMI) to speak on a panel with the provocative title: "U.S.
Hegemony and Relations between Islam and the West." The
large auditorium was packed.

The other two speakers used sophisticated multi-media
technology to paint a picture of Western and Christian
decadence, brutality, immorality, violence and greed, which
they contrasted with the high and noble teachings of Islam.
Evidently I was invited as the representative of U.S.
hegemony!

After a spirited discussion, I asked them if they really
thought the world was so clearly divided into good and
evil, right and wrong. Did their portrayal of Islamic
teaching reflect real conditions in Islamic countries? I
said America was much worse than they thought. But it was
also much better.

I said, "I am a Christian and an American. Do you think I
am your enemy?" You could hear a pin drop in the
auditorium.

Finally the Islamist leader responded that no, I was not
their enemy. Americans were not their enemies, but only
U.S. foreign policies that attacked innocent Muslim
populations. After the meeting one of my former students,
who is a professor at the Islamic university, thanked me
with tears in his eyes. He said, "We really need to hear
other perspectives on the world."

The growth of militant groups in Indonesia is not primarily
a threat to America but rather to the great majority of
tolerant and gentle Indonesian Muslims.

It is also a threat to Indonesian non-Muslims. Indonesia
includes approximately 24 million Christians, equal to the
total population of Malaysia. Indonesia is one of the least
known countries in the world and its large Christian
population is even more invisible. For the most part
Christians live in harmony with their Muslim neighbors.
Peace doesn't make the evening news.

Peace is not just absence of conflict, but rather the
positive ability of people from diverse religions and
backgrounds to work together for the common good. Farsijana
and I are honored to be associated with many Muslims and
Christians who are working together to build a better
future.

Farsijana is a leader in the Indonesian Women's Coalition
(KPI) a predominantly Muslim organization that empowers
women. The local branch of KPI still uses our house as its
headquarters for helping women, especially victims of
disasters. Workshops with victims of the Yogyakarta
earthquake led to publishing a book on Women and Disaster
and founding a publishing house (SUP) that gives voice to
marginalized people.

With help from a church in Champaign, IL, a second book is
now out on women creating crafts from the waste of sagu
palms. Farsijana recently led an international workshop
that follows up her Fulbright fellowship in New York. It
will lead to another book on the impact of post-colonialism
and gender on relations between Muslims, Christians and
Jews.

I am honored to be director of the Indonesian Consortium
for Religious Studies (ICRS-Yogya), which exemplifies the
genius of Muslim-Christian relations in Indonesia.
ICRS-Yogya offers an international Ph.D. program in
inter-religious studies that is co-sponsored by three major
universities. Nowhere else in the world will you find
leading multi-religious (secular), Muslim and Christian
universities co-sponsoring a doctoral program.

ICRS-Yogya was declared a Center of Excellence by the
Indonesian government. In only its second year, ICRS-Yogya
is attracting students from all over the world. ICRS-Yogya
is certainly the greatest professional challenge of my
life. ICRS doctoral students are now participating in one
semester "sandwich" programs in universities like Capetown
in South Africa, Duke, Georgetown, The Graduate Theological
Union in Berkeley, Hartford, Melbourne in Australia, NU
Singapore, Temple and Union Theological Seminary in New
York.

We are very grateful to the PCUSA for supporting us in our
work in Indonesia.  We will be in the U.S. from July
through December, 2009.  Please write to us by email if you
would like us to visit you, lead a seminar on Indonesia or
preach in your church while we are in the States.

Information about and letters from PC(USA) mission workers
around the world are available at the Web site
[www.pcusa.org/missionconnections].

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