ECUMENICAL REVIEW最新文献

This article discusses friendship mission as a healing process after a traumatic experience. It builds on a case study of members of the Toraja Church, South Sulawesi, Indonesia, regarding their experiences of the Darul Islam / Indonesian Islamic Army (DI/TII) rebellion, led by Kahar Muzakkar. Using a literature review and interviews, the article offers a model of friendship mission as a solution in the process of recovering from the trauma caused by violence of the perpetrators of Kahar Muzakkar's DI/TII rebellion.

Throughout their lives, people face many events – large and small, pleasant and unpleasant – such as illness, marriage, divorce, the birth of a child, or loss of a job. These can also include the traumatic experience of the death of a family member or a loved one. Relatives and friends have a vital role to play in mourning through understanding the situation of survivors, helping them cope with trauma, relieving their sorrow, and returning them to God. Muslims, especially Iranians, have specific mourning rituals, under the influence of Islam, to console survivors in times of disappointment and loneliness. Most of these common traditional rituals are performed in groups. In the Qur'an and the narrations, many chapters refer to death and invite believers to heal the trauma of survivors and help them to trust in God. This article focuses on the Azeri regions of Iran to introduce the traditional practices of Iranian Muslims and explain how they help support and heal survivors and mourners after the death of a loved one.

The 1965 tragedy in Indonesia marked a traumatic historical event which saw the start of an anti-communist campaign of mass violence that used religion as a tool of propaganda. For three decades, those accused of being members and sympathizers of the Communist Party of Indonesia suffered violence and various civil rights restrictions. The victims are still struggling to speak the truth. This article describes how victims and their families in East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia, formed senior prayer groups as a space for truth-telling and healing. The groups became new families, formed based on the commonality of memory. In the groups, victims were heard and honoured, mourned together, strengthened each other, and even became reconciled. Over time, the prayer group developed into a group that facilitated joint economic empowerment. Senior prayer groups provide healing journeys for victims of the 1965 tragedy in Indonesia.

This article examines the implied assumption that the concept of time in both Ecclesiastes and the Mahabharata presents a predeterministic view of human life. Such a postulation favours the argument that humans are prisoners of time who cannot overcome their plight because they think that suffering, failure, and oppression are their destiny, determined by time. The analysis suggests that Qohelet neither professes strong predeterminis‑m of time in human life nor gives humans absolute control of their life in time. The Mahabharata does not critique time and predeterminism outright but attributes importance to human endeavours and responsibilities. The acceptance of external forces like time or fate does not completely deny that human power influences destiny. Since humans have the freedom to act in the present time, it is not suitable to claim that God through time predetermines poverty, oppression, violence, and atrocities in human life.

Gender-based violence is a phenomenon that takes place in almost all societies around the world. It is violence directed against men or women due to their gender in various physical, sexual, psychological, and socio-political forms. However, the majority of victims are women. Undoubtedly, gender inequality is one of the root causes of many forms of violence against women, including their exclusion from social activities. Nonetheless, misunderstanding and misinterpretation of the primary religious sources play a significant role in gender inequality in both domestic and public realms and create wounded memories for women within different communities in the name of religion. This research does not aim to investigate different forms of violence against women; rather, it intends to probe the theoretical basis of the exclusion of women from social realms. The main focus is the thought of Ayatollah Murtada Mutahhari, a 20th-century philosopher, theologian, and traditional reformer in Iran. This study demonstrates how Mutahhari, with reference to the philosophy of natural rights, deals with unfair attitudes toward women's social activities and paves the way for their active participation in society. This study is based on library research and textual analysis.