Carlo Martini’s New World Order in Indonesian Context

Rafael Mathando Hinganaday

doi:10.26593/mel.v34i2.3388.129-144

Abstract

Diversity has been an unavoidable reality. People live with other people of different religions, tribes, or races. The falling of old ideological and political structures in the world has played a great role in making this happen. To replace the old ideological and political structures, populism tends to be widely accepted by people who want to erect great wall in order to avoid immigrants. In Indonesia, populism manifests in the ideas and attitudes that alienate others based on religions and ethnic groups. The author introduces the views of Carlo Maria Martini, who, as a Catholic bishop, has promoted the idea of creating a society that supports diversity to be a new world order. Martini based his ideas on a biblical analysis, mainly on the Old Testament books such as Genesis, Exodus, and Deuteronomy. In order to find inspiration of Martini’s views for the context of Indonesia, the author relates them to Anthony Giddens and Raimon Panikkar, and finds how Martini’s ideas can be practised not only by inclusivists and pluralists, but also by exclusivists.

Highlights

Once upon a time during a Christmas, Carlo Maria Martini (1927–2012), a Catholic bishop, came to a Coptic liturgy in Milan, Italy (Martini, 1995:79)
An example for nokrì is the Ishmaelites merchantmen, to whom Joseph’s brothers sold him (Gen 37,25-28). By elaborating those three terms and giving a special place for ‘ger’, Martini presents his vision on the new world order
Martini urges everyone to initiate interreligious and ecumenical movements in order to be able to keep the vision alive. He says that religions would make our earth “a place to live in” and to “give hope and strength to look upward to those whose faces are drawn with anguish, fear and strife” (Martini, 1995:43). Is It Better to be Inclusive or Pluralist? Martini’s ideas are relevant to the Indonesian context, because Indonesia has been a fertile soil for diversity and plurality, when people talk about races, tribes, and religions

Summary

Introduction

Once upon a time during a Christmas, Carlo Maria Martini (1927–2012), a Catholic bishop, came to a Coptic liturgy in Milan, Italy (Martini, 1995:79). In this case, building a nest is a form and symbol of building a new world order, parallel to the idea behind the story of Noah (Gen 6,18-20; 7,1-3; 8,16-17). By using the phrase “today Noah’s dove finds rest on our fragile olive branch”, Martini might refer to the idea of building a new and better world order, which has been very fragile through ages.

Results

Conclusion