MEMBANGUN TEOLOGI ETNISITAS YANG INKLUSIF

Abstract

Failure to manage ethnic diversity in a nation may result in a tragedy. Cases such as the holocaust and ethnic cleansing in ex Yugoslavia provide historical examples for such failure.  The history of Indonesia records a series of anti-Chinese incidents that result in uneasy relationships between the ethnic Chinese and the rest of Indonesian society. The state’s politics of discrimination contributed to the heightening of the anti-Chinese sentiment among the people.  Recent changes in the government’s policy in favour of the ethnic Chinese may be expected to improve the situation, but philosophical and religious references are needed to help the people transform their perspectives of ethnicity. A religious reference for building a better attitude toward ethnic diversity can be based on a Christian theology of ethnicity, drawn from the experience of the Israelites in the Old Testament, Jesus’s resistance against the ‘closed morality’ of the Jews, and the concept of the family of God.