Mark Woodward

Media coverage has focused on the science of eruption, but they missed much of the local story.

President Obama was in Indonesia this week, but was forced to cut his trip short. As of this writing, Indonesia’s Mount Merapi is still spewing clouds of ash into the sky, and the death toll from the eruptions that began two weeks ago has grown to 191. Mbah Marijan was among the victims of he recent eruptions. He was eighty-three years old, and the juri cunci of the volcano, a “guardian of the key,” responsible for maintaining a relationship to the spirits of the mountain.

The people of Aceh have been resisting foreign domination for decades, and the territory has long been torn by violence. In the wake of the tsunami a theology—and a politics—of peace is taking root.