Taslim Sahlan, the director of the new center, said creating the institution was a way for his university to exercise its academic responsibilities.

“The main task of this center is to carry out academic work. The presence of this study center would be important amid a spread of religious groups, which often have inhumane faces,” said Taslim in the launch of the center in Semarang.

He said the real virtues of religion should be peace, justice and humanity. “However, the noble values of a religion have often been distorted by acts that contradict its teachings. Political interests have often used religious symbols to legitimize themselves,” said Taslim, a lecturer in religion studies at the university.

Meanwhile, Unwahas rector Mudzakkir Ali said his campus was committed to continuously promoting the spirit of a moderate Islam. “As an educational institution of Indonesia’s largest Islamic organization, Unwahas will strive to become a vanguard in efforts to cultivate Indonesian and nationalist values,” he said.

Tedi Kholiludin, one of researchers in the center, said: “We will strive to use social sciences efficiently as a scalpel in trying to understand religion-related phenomena.”

Tedi said religion-related phenomena could not be understood only from a theological viewpoint. “When we talk about conflicts in the name of religion, we cannot deny that there are many factors that can lead to the conflicts,” he said. (ebf)

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