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The congregation also is helping to plant churches around the country. One building is going up in Kalimantan, a large island shared with Brunei and Malaysia. Another church will be constructed on the much smaller island of Sumba. The land has been purchased in both cases, but construction must begin before the permits expire, lest the new, restrictive requirements apply. The good news is that these churches are going up in communities dominated by animists and Christians, resulting in less local opposition.

Simply reaching the islands isn't easy, requiring circuitous back and forth air travel. Going inland is even more difficult: rural Indonesia is far less developed than rural America. Nevertheless, the KAO missions team is committed to helping fellow Indonesians construct their churches. Discovery is hoping to demonstrate that the worldwide community of believers is real, by donating money and bringing in a construction team to help on at least one of the sites.

Indonesia is a fascinating place with many friendly people who mean no one ill. But the violent few tend to dominate events, with too many men of good will standing aloof when the victims are unpopular--in this case, Christians. Alas, this is a microcosm of the problem in much of the rest of the Muslim world.

As a result, the entire debate over whether Islam is a "religion of peace" seems largely irrelevant. Whatever the faith teaches, traditional Islamic doctrine, at least, doesn't seem to emphasize tolerance, and a sobering number of Muslims choose brutality and violence, while even more choose acquiescence. America is often a target because of its foreign policy, but indigenous Christians usually are victimized because of their faith. In this world, our challenge is figuring out how to promote an engagement of civilizations rather than a war of civilizations.

topics:
Foreign Policy, Religion, Islam, Law, Military, Israel