Auteur: Handri Timbuleng

The story I share with you is one of my own transformation. The experience of having my church attacked by a crowd of Muslims temporarily closed my heart with anger and bitterness. I wanted revenge. I wanted others to hurt as I had been hurt. But then God reached into my heart and mind and opened me up again. God used my memory of my childhood friendship to fashion a new beginning. I rediscovered a truth I had known from an early age—that not all Muslims are extremists. This rediscovery was a gift from God so that I could move to forgiveness and be free of my anger and bitterness. What I have been trying to clarify with regard to the situation in Indonesia is that not all responsibility for the crime and violence in Indonesia can be blamed on people of the Muslim faith. The history of Indonesia suggests a much more complicated picture in which social and economic gaps were created between the rich and the poor. While Muslims have been blamed for this situation, it was often the failure of Christians to tend the needs of the poor that contributed to the environment of conflict. My hope is that my story will enable others to discover what I have been blessed to rediscover. Islam is not a religion of violence. Though people who claim to be Muslim have engaged in acts of violence, they do not represent the core of Islamic belief. Rather, they seek their own ends. Often, the pain of 9/11 is still so great that it is hard to separate an extremist impression of Islam from one that is loving and generous.