Religious Leaders Invite People to Respect Each Other and Strengthen Harmonization During Christmas Celebration
Christians in Indonesia and the world are currently celebrating Christmas with great joy. This joy and solemnity of worship needs to be supported by all religious communities.
Vice Chairman of the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) Dr. KH. Marsudi Syuhud explained that for society to be able to respect one another and to be able to respond to differences as a blessing.
“There must be room for mutual respect, because actually difference is a blessing. Do not let there be coercion of belief. There’s no need for swearing, because each one has room, so we have to respect each other,” he said.
In order to maintain harmony between religious communities, the teachings of religion itself must be understood in depth and broadly so as not to create extremist groups that threaten diversity.
In this regard, the General Secretary of the Muhammadiyah Central Executive (PP), KH. Abdul Mukti said that Indonesia has actually adhered to the principle of freedom of religion. So to be able to maintain harmony between religious communities, it must be balanced with the practice of broad and deep religious teachings.
“Many problems arise because we do not practice religion broadly and deeply so that it encourages people to become extremists and cannot accept differences. Then we have to turn faith back into a private domain,” he said in a discussion on a television show
A conducive society is one of the important things to continue to strive for. In order to realize this, religious understanding is indeed very essential.
Because when all people have the right religious understanding, diversity among Indonesian citizens will automatically be maintained.
Furthermore, Kyai Abdul revealed that harmony would be built if people did not consider religion to be just a quantification of numbers, because it is indeed private.
“Harmony is built when we try not to quantify beliefs, religions cannot be quantified like minorities and majorities, because religion is a relationship between humans and their gods and is private because religion makes humans feel that their lives can be safe in this world and in the hereafter,” he explained.
According to him, there are two important things in the concept of harmony, namely that people must understand the principles of harmony and balance.
“Harmony is necessitating the existence of differences, but these differences do not become meaningless, so that the existence of each of them must be respected and given the opportunity to appear. Therefore harmony requires the principle of harmony and balance,” he explained.
All of these efforts are a way to continue to maintain national harmony. Especially when the celebration of Christmas which is currently being celebrated by Christians.
