FIVE days after Nurcholish Madjids death, a preacher at a small mosque in Jalan Talan, Jakarta, spoke of something frightening: with an authority intensified by the mihrab and words in Arabic, he said something untrue. The face of the body of the departed, he said, had turned black because God punished him...

I no longer know what the role of a sermon is. I no longer know what lies are for. I dont know what use is slanderparticularly from a positi