Persecution of Churches in Java - A wake up call for denominational unity in Indonesia?

Martin Luther is the culprit. No doubt, he managed to bring the church into awareness on the need to reform. He succeeded. He never intended to be separated from the main Catholic church, but it happened. And alongside with it, the floodgate of denominational proliferation occurred and more so in the twentieth and twenty-first century.

Denominational disagreements with regards to fundamental issues of doctrines are understandable. The interpretation on the role of holy Spirit, how to do the holy communion, are some of the major dividing factors among the churches. However, churches are splitting and new church denominations are popping out like popcorns or unwanted pop-ups in the internet, and the reasons for the splitting can be due to petty disagreement between the leaders.

The Christianity world today, 2000 years after the Founder of Christianity came for the first time to establish His Church, divided Christianity into more than 30thousand denominations. In the country of Japan, where the number of Christians are below 1%, there are more than 120 denominations.

Let's zoom in to the church persecution in Indonesia, and more specifically, in Java. In the place, where by, the majority of the populations are embracing a different faith, namely, Islam, it is understandable that the government will put a tighter control on the number of Church buildings to be around.

Unlike Christians, Muslims are contented to have a mosque in their vicinity, to allow them a space and chance to worship. Christians claim that they cannot go to this church, because the denomination is different. They said they want a church building of their own denomination and complained that the government, local or central, disagreed to grant them permission to have a church building. And so they conducted their worship, secretly, and also openly in shop houses.

Two duties of a Christian given by its Founder is the Great Commandment and the Great Commission. To Love and to spread the love of God to others. So, to be a Christian, chances are, you will love others and cause others to follow your faith.

And so, some moslem get converted (some Christians are converted to moslem too!) along the way and this angered the defender of the faith, which is what we know as "Front Pembela Islam" and other organizations of the likes. Their primary motivations were to defend their faith, preventing Christians from proselyzing their members. Unfortunately, in carrying out their 'defence', they resorted into violence and the local law enforcers are endorsing their actions by simply ignoring the situation.

What they are doing is not right! I am not going to say that they are right or ok. However, it strikes me, whether this is a wake up call for the Christians. Do we really need a new church building in a certain area, whereby the other church down the road is still quite empty? Can we cooperate with people from the other denomination, so that we can worship together without causing too many uproars and unnecessary discomfort by wanting to build more and more churches, which to the people of the area, looks all the same?

I know, many readers will have something to say about this posting. I am not saying that what I say is right. However, could the persecution be a tool used by God to keep the Christians more united, not in fighting for Christian right in general, but also to fight their petty differences between and stay united?