Christ the Answer, Permit Pending

The church is called Christ the Answer.

I keep turning the name over, because for nine years the church called Christ the Answer has been waiting for one. Nine years of signatures, identity cards, village office stamps, and recommendation letters. Nine years of doing everything asked of them, and then being asked again.

Two Sundays ago, on July 19, a crowd showed up at their building in Medan, on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, and forced the service to stop. The reason given was that the congregation has no permit. Which is true. They have no permit because for nine years the offices that could grant one have not said yes and have not said no.

International Christian Concern, which reported the shutdown, laid out the file. The congregation bought land in 2017. When access to it was blocked, they bought the small building next door. They collected the sixty signatures from neighbors and the ninety from members that Indonesian regulations demand, and then kept collecting as the years and requirements rolled over. Morning Star News, reporting from Medan this spring, found they had spent nine years assembling congregant lists and ID cards to meet every request from the interfaith forum that vets church permits. In March the forum met with them for four hours and promised a site inspection. It promised no decision.

"Nine years is not a reasonable time," said Dedy Simanjuntak, a Christian council leader in North Sumatra. "A handful of people cannot rule the country."

Most of the neighbors, both outlets note, do not object to the church at all. The objectors are few. But few is enough when the paperwork never resolves, because a congregation without a permit is always one crowd away from silence.

I want to be careful here, because the temptation is to make this story a club and beat my own comfortable church with it, and that is not what it is for.