Religion
in Private and Public Space
A
discussion of the book downed Love Rumi held at Galeri Indonesia Kaya, among
others, remind them about the nature of religion.
Speakers
in the discussion, Haidar Bagir, penggelut Sufism, and Albertus Good Laksana
SJ, rohaniman Catholic, came to the conclusion that convey the same: the love
that is the essence of religion.
Interpret
religion as a faith system that originates and leads to love is a way of
approaching religion from spirituality.
Here
religion is understood in its essence that work in the private sphere. The
carrier teachings and messengers is a figure that shows the greatness of moral
and behavior.
Religion
is thus exist in the frame to realize the divine will. Each religion has
rituals of different although all leads to one point of interest: submission to
the will of the Almighty.
However,
the meaning of religion as love and surrender to the Creator that often collide
when the interpretation of any religion as an ideology imposed in the public
space.
Once
dragged religion into the public sphere and used as ideological banner to show
their identity, and then used to confirm the identity of an exclusive tool,
that's when the seeds started sticking problems of humanity.
There
the religion began to be used as a weapon to justify the motives rooted in
human selfishness. Here was an emerging contradiction within the interpreter of
religion.
Religion
is essentially born to be a solution to the problem of human greed, violence
and social and economic inequities. All religions, as shown Huston Smith, an
interest in living in a world of peace, away from greed, lust killing
malignancy, and arbitrariness humane.
However,
conflict-ridden life and economic scarcity made fellow mansuia fighting each
other in an effort to survive for survival themselves.
Inevitably,
religion was used as a powerful weapon to fight, win disputes and enforce
hegemony. Novelist Umberto Eco, in The Name of the Rose ', described this
phenomenon and to show the reader that the spirit of the devil perched on a
figure that portray themselves as clergy.
At
the present time, when spiritualism was no longer efekktif resolve various
disputes humanitarian triggered scarcity of economic resources, the religious
are also required to take part in the resolution of the humanitarian problems.
Unfortunately,
the role of religion in the public sphere is not entirely showing encouraging
results. Not infrequently, even religion is no longer viewed as a variable in
the settlement of humanitarian problems. Sometimes even religion menjadfi
source of conflict. This phenomenon is, among others, led to a dialogue of
religions antarpemeluk never stopped.
And
intrapemeluk friction between religions often happens when political factors
come into play in the dynamics of daily life.
Internal
strife adherents of religions and even sometimes no less hard than the
inter-religious conflict. All the major religions in the world are experiencing
internal conflicts and external bleeding as recorded in history.
Why
does all this happen? Why religion whose essence love but sometimes sparks of
hatred? Answers to this question really is to the religion itself but failed
immortalized in awareness and behavior of followers of the religion itself.
Sacrifice,
that's the key word that echoed the teachings of religions but immersed in a
blaze of human ego.
Love
and sacrifice are two sides of one essence that is called religion.
Apparently,
the mystics, the Sufi poet, philosopher, theologian, a contemporary thinker
inexhaustible complexity peeling the nature of love and sacrifice. Treasury of
human knowledge about the two central themes of the increasingly diverse and
deep, but the unresolved humanitarian issues. Why? Yes because there is no
correlation between the accumulation of knowledge and the problems of everyday
life.
Contemporary
thinkers such as Professor Syed Vahidudiin and Kathleen Bliss shows that
various changes and dynamics of modern life increasingly made religions are in
a situation of crisis and dilemma.
The
crisis that had struck the religions was sharpened by the growing secularism
rampant. Most recently, religions increasingly faced with the problematic
phenomena such as the desire of homosexuals, lesbians, bisexual and transgender
people are demanding to be accommodated in the process of their mating rituals.
The religious leaders-religious split in view of this recent problem.
It
seems that, for the sake of peace of daily life, saw religion with glass eyes
of a mystic, and treat it as an ideology that operates in a more private space
afdol compared to leaving it as an ideology that showed his face in public
spaces.
Actually,
bring religion into public space is not a problem as far as it was aware of the
figures that carried him to treat it as a force to unite rather than divide.
In
other words, religion should be used to build bridges instead of building
walls. But the ethical imperative it is often the opposite when a politician
must campaign to appease constituents and seize their voices.
In
the wrong hands, even religion becomes dangerous devices, instrument eradicate
and suppress opponents who do not seideologi. Here, they are gone essence as
love, which must be turned on to the road of sacrifice.