Religion Role To Shape Leader’s Character

Aprialdo Altrians Hermanus, Theology, STT GKS Lewa

The Indonesian government understands a term of ‘government is from people, by the people and for the people’ so that sovereignty is in the hands of the people. Simultaneous elections to vote leaders have been held on April 17, 2019. People have high hopes for the leaders who have been chosen, therefore the leaders must keep their promises made during the campaign by doing their duties as best and fair as possible. The community has responsibility to control and even ask promises or work programs to be carried out. Unfortunately, political promises during the campaign were often forgotten when the leaders got a comfortable chair and strong authority. Worse they committed corruption, did power abuse, involved in prostitution even domestic violence, and so on.

The importance of religion role

What kinds of effort should be taken to reduce those bad things above? We know that success of a country is closely related to the leaders’ ethics and morals. Indonesia is a country that upholds the values of divinity, proven from the first principle of Pancasila, Believe in one supreme God. It means that religion has strong influence on the whole life of this nation in which every religion teaches good ethics and morals in establishing good relations among people.

Any religion has a role and responsibility to prepare qualified leaders and to respect the existing norms in life. Religion is one of the drivers in creating nation leaders with good integrity values, daring to criticize when leaders violate norms of life. The magnificent worship construction should be in line with human quality development. The reinforcement of ethics and moral aspects in educational institutions from kindergarten to college, even workplace should be maintained continuously.

The writer believes that religion can play a role in creating cadres of honest leaders with good integrity that is supported by families at the basic level. Let us prove it to achieve Indonesia’s dreams to be fair, well-developed and prosperous.***