A Christian Victory in Indonesia?

https://www.persecution.org/2021/01/23/indonesia-appoints-christian-man-national-police-chief/

This is presented as some kind of victory, something to celebrate. In truth it's tragic, a case of compromise on display. We have a professed Christian who will now wield the sword of state – and what state? A state with a horrific and bloody past that the present administration is unapologetic about, a president who protects the criminals still living associated with the American-backed genocide of the 1960's.

Joko Widodo may run Indonesia (and even be popular in some quarters) but that doesn't mean he's exempt from criminality or that his hands aren't dripping in blood – the blood he has shed and the cover he gives to those who shed gallons of it and know where the bodies are buried.

So what we have is a Christian who has formed an alliance with a violent criminal, one associated with hard-line policies and extra-judicial killings. Widodo has rekindled Indonesia's relationship with the Pentagon and the regime is keen to make massive purchases of military hardware. Will some of this materiel be utilised in a law enforcement capacity? There's a history in Indonesia of the military turning on its own people.

Widodo is the target of Islamists. A Muslim, he is nevertheless somewhat secular and no friend to Salafism. While Christians certainly are not going to be upset over a state suppressing that movement which so often targets them, is it right or wise for a Christian to now ally with those forces that go after the Salafists? Will it not provide fuel to their narrative about the nature of Christians and Christianity?

We are led to think that this Christian's ascent to high office is an occasion to celebrate – a type of cultural victory that will help the greater cause of the faith.

There's nothing to celebrate and yet much to mourn. This Christian police chief (a contradiction in terms) needs to be denounced and called to repentance and if he refuses to do so – put out of the Church.

But that won't happen. And this is all the more true in the present context in which Western Dominionism continues to spread and influence global Christianity – ushering in a new and unprecedented age of Christ-invoking but functional apostasy.