Kong Hee and the megachurch trap (Part 1)

Kong Hee is out. Almost everyone involved in the costliest criminal trial in our little red dot, “possibly exceeding $10 million”, are out. They have served their sentences and are now back with their family. 

Only Chew remains behind bars. His attempt to leave Singapore in a sampan with about $5k in cash costs him an extended sentence. But he too will be out, possibly end of next year. 

Meanwhile, City Harvest’s board has issued a statement saying that Kong Hee will be “taking a period to spend time with his family, especially his elderly parents.”

In the statement, it also said that “while in jail, he spent most of his time seeking and studying the things of God.”

Kong Hee thanked his church and members for writing to him when he was in prison. He said that their letters had brought him comfort and joy.

Lesson? Three, actually. 

First, Kong Hee said he misses his family, especially his elderly parents. He wants to spend more time with them. 

Well, no matter how you are seen by others in the church or behind the pulpit facing tens of thousands of rapt members, when you go home, stripped of all your titles and honours, you are still your father’s son, your wife’s husband or your child’s father. 

Those roles and responsibilities define you more than any others. If you invest in them, given the time and devotion, at the end of an exhausting day, or in the end of a jaded season, you will still want - more than anything else - to return to them for understanding, forgiveness and healing.

Somehow, the tears shed with loved ones allow your sight to experience deeper clarity. And the soil of your heart where the seed of reform is planted is deeper too. 

That’s what family does to a broken soul. The mending comes with an endearing touch of love. It also comes with an embrace of hope and the enduring joy of reconciliation. 

Second, the board also said that Kong Hee remains “a spiritual leader of the church, although he has not been on the payroll since 2005.”

Mm...I wonder, how do you restore a fallen pastor? 

When a laymen strays, he serves his time and returns back to the fold led under the charge of a loving shepherd.

But what if the shepherd strays? What happens to his flock? How should his flock then address the issue? 

I have learned in law that there is a distinction between legal wrong and moral wrong. In the context of a fallen pastor, should we go further with spiritual or leadership wrong, that is, a wrong that goes deeper than time served and a public/private apology or apologies offered? 

Well, only time can tell as to what direction of change Kong Hee will take, in addition, of course, to his confession that he had in prison “spent most of his time seeking and studying the things of God“.

But my hope is for grace to take its full course before a fallen pastor is restored back to the commanding pulpit again, that is, if he ever returns (and somehow, I am sure he would). 

Here is what a fallen pastor once said about the divine partnership of time and grace. 

“The value of time in the process of healing and restoration is that it permits grace to have its effect upon the soul and spirit of the fallen man. In my own case, the magnificence of grace has been magnified over time and allowed me to see the sheer undeservedness of it, my inability to hear it and God’s consistent willingness to impart it.”

Truly, how is the sheer undeservedness of grace to be magnified in a broken soul if it is not given the time to do its work leading to full personal repentance?

And...

Third, the papers this morning asked, “Is this the end of the saga?” 

Well, for the criminal side, it has indeed ended. The law is simple. You do the crime, you do the time. It’s basically payment in kind. 

But how does a church move forward then? How does the body of Christ respond with his release? Is it essentially back to “business as usual”? I recall John Newton once said: “The Christian ministry is the worst of all trades, but the best of all professions.” Food for thot?

Mind you, I think this goes beyond restoring confidence and order within the board, and implementing a swift succession plan to ensure a form of human leadership continuity. (Don’t we all abhor a divine disruption of our pre-set institutional unbrokenness?)

Alas, if a church at this stage is still worrying about perception, instead of transformation, then nothing will change in the long run - just saying. 

I guess an AW Tozer quote will be apt here as I end. 

“I believe that the imperative need of the day is not simply revival, but a radical reformation that will go to the root of our moral and spiritual maladies and deal with causes rather than with consequences, with the disease rather than with symptoms.”

Yes, “go to the root of our moral and spiritual maladies and deal with the causes rather than with consequences.” That is clearly prescriptive, which has to lead to the restorative and the transformative. 

The last thing we want to see in the body of Christ is that which is emotive, selective and then dismissive. 

While Kong Hee has most probably learned his lesson in the incubation of time within solitary confinement, has the church learned theirs? Have they gone through their own genuine “solitary confinement”?

Now, I won’t be surprised if some of their leaders or former leaders see the root issue as one that has little to do with Kong Hee and Sun Ho over time, but more to do with their followers. 

For at times, leadership is about followership, and they become sadly indistinguishable, thereby doing away with the all-crucial check-and-balance. And at such time, it is not the leadership that goes on the offensive, but its the followers that enable them to go on the offensive.

Kong Hee and the megachurch trap (Part 2)

When Sharon, John, Serina and Ye Peng left prison, there was little fanfare. All that they had received, at most, was a passing mention in the papers. They then returned to their family, loved ones, and it was a long-awaited rest and restoration for them.

Although they were the right-hand men and women of Kong Hee at that time, and were convicted in a long-drawn out trial and appeals together with him, the church they served with heart, soul and time did not receive them the way Kong Hee was received yesterday. 

It was reported this morning that when “the 55-year-old walked up the auditorium at Suntec Singapore Convention and Exhibition Centre yesterday to speak to the congregation, the crowd cheered.”

In fact, I read that before that, the congregation was specifically asked not to clap, but clap they did, to thunderous effect. Alas, so much adulation, so much respect.

Maybe, that was how things are supposed to be. The order of nature’s line of hierarchy. 

You see, Sharon, John, Serina and Ye Peng were the “followers” and Kong Hee was their leader, their shepherd. Therefore, his impact exceeds theirs, and so is his popularity. The adulation is expected, even normal. 

One of the long-standing members of 19 years, Alvin Lee, 39, said this: -

“He has always been a leader, a visionary and a shepherd to many of us. I’m basically looking forward to him bringing up our spirituality. 

Personally, I’m thankful that the chapter has closed and thankful that the church has stayed intact and the the congregation is still united.”

Now, when Kong Hee took the stage, he looked like Gandalf the white minus the overflowing beard. He appeared to have lost weight and was duly humbled. The flair of yesteryears was gone, or at least not apparent. And I guess he spoke sense this time, displaying earnesty, remorse and hope. 

He thanked the church for their support and said: “Having been away since 2017, it feels really surreal to be reunited with my family, especially my parents, siblings, in-laws, and all of you again.”

He added: “I have missed out on a significant part of my son's growing-up years with the long-drawn court trial and incarceration. My absence has also pained my parents deeply. Now that they are already in their 90s, I wish to be a filial son and take care of them, and catch up on all the time we have lost.”

Lesson? Two or three?

In the report (by Theresa Tan and Yuen Sin) Daniel, a 45-year-old engineer, said: -

"Because of that incident (over the misuse of funds), people may now judge Christianity based on City Harvest, which I think is a disservice to what Christians really stand for. To be judged alongside City Harvest and Kong Hee is a tragedy. From what I know, the church is still preaching the prosperity gospel and I don't think that is compatible with Christian values.”

At this juncture, I wonder, what do Christians today really stand for anyway? 

If we measure it against the timeless benchmark of the Beatitude, how do we stand up? Here are just three of what I mean. 

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Poor here doesn’t mean poverty. It has its spiritual overtones. It points to a spirit of dependence and contrition. That is why Spurgeon said: “The way to rise in the kingdom is to sink in ourselves.”

I feel that this is a constant struggle for megachurch leaders, who are at the center of it all, to sink in themselves. 

Even if they resist such adulation, it does not stop the adulation because prominence, tangibility and centrality bring about its own daunting temptations. And many have fallen because of it. 

They sadly become the creation of their culture, even though they very much want to think that all has been wrought by their charismaric hands.

How about blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted? Do leaders of prominence today even need to mourn to be comforted? 

If Kong Hee had not been prosecuted by the secular law, will spiritual discernment even trump the loud cheer of endorsement he regularly gets from the tens of thousands? At its peak, he had close to 30k rooting for whatever he was saying and doing. 

You know what is even scarier? That those who remain in his church (last count was 17k), or at least the majority of them, do not even think that he has done anything wrong. There are even camps within the church that believe wholeheartedly that he has suffered for Christ, a martyr for God’s glory. 

I guess judge See’s 200-plus ground of decision, based on more than 5 years of evidence, doesn’t even come close in weight, sensibility and truth when it comes to the sweeping emotive wave of charismatic leadership. 

Nowadays, the need for mourning is only experinced when you get caught and through solitary confinement, you hopefully mend your ways. 

But all that (trust me) risks being completely unravelled and undone in a brief season should the repenting leader still have the unwavering support and praises of the adoring crowd. 

Alas, the counsel of pride is never far from such occasion when the self is given an opportunity to explain itself. Self-justification always gets in the way of self-renunciation.

This leads me to my third point, “blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.” 

After what I have written, in a megachurch context, meekness risks becoming a means to an end. And if vice pays homage to virtue, then pride in this case may just pay tribute to meekness. The risks are always there, and we discount or dismissed it at our own peril. 

We therefore need independent and discerning check and balances. And my fear for Kong Hee is that his rehabilitation in prison may be undermined, disrupted or confounded outside of prison, and this fear is not unjustified starting with these words by his spokeman: “(Hong Kee’s) role in the City Harvest Church is a spiritual one; he has no executive role.”

For what is a church leadership if it is not essentially a spiritual one? For its administrative arm is nothing without its spiritual head. That is his existential call and purpose. 

And the church spokesman may think he is assuring the public authority that Kong Hee has been administratively or executively “de-fanged”, but the reality, if we are not blind to it, is that the church has been waiting for his return. I dare say that all the church events quietly culminate to this moment. The wild, irrepressible cheers undoubtedly attests to it. 

Therein lies the danger when a wounded leader returns to an alternate-reality world that instead of supporting his healing and rehabilitation, it unfortunately makes him question whether he should complete (or worse abandon/suspend) the full course of his reform. 

Let me thus end with what Gandhi once said when he was asked what would he do if he was given the powers of omnipotence. He replied that he would immediately renounce the powers, all of it.

I believe he would readily renounce it all because he knows that ”we are at our most powerful the moment we no longer need to be powerful.” 

The same principle here applies to our personal healing and reform. It is about brokenness, about being poor in spirit, with a contrite heart, and subjecting ourselves to the refining process of godly grief. 

And the last thing we want in our Christian journey of restoration is to give the self an avenue to arise by satisfying its desires for recognition, attention and power. This is the building blocks of the cult of personality, and we are all vulnerable to its insidious effects, in particular, megachurch leaders.

Truly, where are the faithful stewards of the Church?

City Harvest has done the Jubilee-esque thing, that is, they have forgiven a debt. 

Mind you, it is no small debt. It’s $26.5m. It is owed by their former church member Chew Eng Han and a company he had managed (AMAC). 

The papers report this: “In its civil suit against Chew and AMAC, the church claimed that the company had "solicited" it to participate in AMAC's "special opportunities" investment fund in 2009. Chew, however, claimed that the church had used his firm as a vehicle to lend money to others, which the church denied.””

Chew had “decided to stop contesting the suit after he failed to reach an out-of-court settlement with the church board.”

Mm...does this show the magnanimity of the controversial megachurch both in spirit and in deeds? Has this magnanimity anything to do with the recent release of their spiritual leader, Kong Hee, who might have had “peaceable encounters” with Chew in prison to talk about settlement? 

Well, before going wild on speculations, here is what is reported on events that led up to the recovery efforts of the people’s money of $26.5m.

“The church had two options.

The first, where it writes off the debt, demonstrates the Christian virtues of mercy and forgiveness, said a notice on the church's website.

The second, where it pursues all avenues to recover some money, follows the Christian principle of being a "faithful steward of what the Lord has put in our hands", the church said.

The church's lawyers advised it that in the second option, the potential legal fees could range from $30,000 to more than $350,000, and further legal action may not yield any returns.

Some 50.6 per cent of the executive members voted for the first option.” (underlined mine)

Lesson? Mm...so it is more a case of “no economic value in flogging a dead horse”? 

But, of course, just barely though, because the gods of democracy may have saved the fate of Chew (and his company). 

Clearly, it was a knife-edge split of just 0.6% in his favour, while the other 49.4% was still bent on draining the swamp for whatever economic sediments they can dig up from a broken and broke man languishing in prison. It is worth pointing out that Chew was someone who once claimed that he had given his life’s savings to the church he thought he could trust with his life. 

So, I wonder, when it comes to truly enduring Christian virtues, where does mercy and forgiveness fall when it clashes with the Christian principle of being a “faithful steward of what the Lord has put in our hands”? That was what the church is preaching about when they arrived at that borderline split to drop the dead donkey of litigation and debt enforcement. 

Now, for those who bother to read my posts and blog since the City Harvest saga exploded into the legal scene more than five years ago, I would like to believe that I have tried my sincerest best to write from an objective standpoint. 

And it is evident that I have ceased to write about its crossover project since the saga ended two years ago. I had even conscientiously avoided its spiritual leader’s name because every man deserves a second chance. That has and will always be my life’s philosophy because no man is perfect. 

But perfection or otherwise, what is scary, and for me beyond correction, is a church that uses religiosity as a cover so as to avoid self-examination and repentance. 

While a broken reed, the Lord will not despise, a reed that is broken and yet refuses to admit it, and then goes on the pretense that other reeds are far more broken than theirs is indeed a posture of the most ironic hypocrisy, especially for a church. Alas, what have we reduced the body of Christ into? Has it become so bloated a body that they can’t see with godly discernment what their feet below are standing on? 

Let me get to my point of this post and I will end (of course, after some ventilation here). 

You see, the church talks about suing and they had in fact sued. The church talks about the recovery of $26.5m of the people’s money and they had in fact taken judgement and enforcement action until they dropped it all as reported. 

The church has also talked about Christian virtues of mercy and forgiveness and the same Christian principles of being “faithful steward of what the Lord has put in our hands", yet it is divided by 0.6% of which is which - more like a hairbreadth of democratic dispensation for the most economic of reasons (as it is more a case of avoiding throwing good money after bad than living up to the enduring virtues Christ died for). 

And here my friends comes the biting irony...where is the ultimate accountability? Where is the admission of the true cause of the whole saga? 

Yes, they have served their time, that is undeniable. But I am not talking so much about them. I am writing however about the body of Christ. 

No doubt legally they have a responsibility to pursue the suit to a certain cost-effective extent, but where is the St James’ mirror to reflect back their own tarnished image so as to pursue the past deeds of the leadership because, how do you even end up with more than $50m of misappropriated money and then elevate the culprit to the pedestal of spiritual leadership, thereby whitewashing it and calling it “CHC 2.0”? 

Alas, is it a case of legal wrong paid for, but moral wrong celebrated by all? (As a side-note, Kong Hee now returns to a "three-storey terraced house in Upper Bukit Timah" and it reports "that the property is owned by real estate firm Lucky Realty, suggesting that he is renting the house" and possibly renting it at a "quoted monthly rent of $12,000 for the property." Can the irony my friends be any more biting?)

Let's get back to my point....

And if being faithful stewards of what God has placed on their blood-soaked hands is their main consideration, then whose blood are they drawing from when they drop the suit - that is, from the blood of Christ that was spilled for all unconditionally, or the blood of the one whom Christ has died for until it is drained empty, scapegoated to save their own name and repute, and bankrupted both spiritually and physically because the past leadership just refused to take full responsibility?

Surely, the blood of my Saviour would have result in a personal sacrifice. But the blood of men goes otherwise, and it only yields the blood of other men. 

Let me just say that I make no apologies for what I have written here because I once thought that the church was the gatekeeper of our moral conscience. But some time ago, I realised that I was right about the gatekeeper part, but was so wrong about the moral conscience part. 

Ps: Trust me, it is with great restraint that I write this because of my life philosophy of second chances. 

I sometimes feel that I stand alone on this because the voices of virtues would remind me to hush up as the prodigal son has returned to the Father. Things are different now, they whisper with the best of intentions. But have we ever thought that this case may not end up like the parable of the prodigal son(s) that Jesus talked about?

Has anyone ever thought that this case may just be one where the younger son returns not to a household led by the Father, but one led by the elder brother who had by probate inherited the other half of his Father’s fortune and is now calling the shots. 

Truly, where are the faithful stewards of the lives sustained and held deeply within the heart of God, and not just worldly possessions? Or have they just become over time faithful stewards of their own self-interests?

How do you prepare your child for life, for society?

What advice do you give to your son? How do you prepare him for society, for life, for marriage and for being a dad? 

Today’s papers (by K.C. Vijayan) is about a son and his father. His father is Subhas Anandan. He was a tireless champion of pro bono work and president of the Association of Criminal Lawyers of Singapore. 

His most memorable cases included Anthony Ler (who murdered his wife in 2001), Took Leng How (who murdered an eight-year-old girl in 2004) and Leong Siew Chor (who killed his lover in 2005). 

Subhas passed away in 2015 at 67 and his legacy lived on in the hearts of many practitioners here. 

At that time, his son (Sujesh) was in his second year of law school (University of Nottingham) and he said, “Leaving my mother and me alone, that period was difficult.”

Sujesh has always wanted to work with his father, but his sudden demise took away that opportunity.

He is now working with his cousin, Sunil Sudheesan, doing largely criminal work, carrying his father’s legacy forward. No doubt, Sujesh has big shoes to fill. 

But having said that, Sujesh said that although his father wanted him to join him after law school, he wanted his son to chart his own path. 

In fact, Sujesh said: “Growing up, my father never put any sort of pressure on me to do law. He said, “You do whatever you want, just be a good person, that is important.”

Lesson? Just one. As a father with my own son, that is good advice. 

Needless to say, which father doesn’t want their children to be “a good person”. But, we should never take that as always a given. 

Some parenthood can wish for that, but take on a different pathway with their own conduct and speech. In other words, it is a case of doing more of what I say and less of what I do. 

Some parenthood is quite loaded pursued with divided messages. They do not hide their vicarious ambition for their children. They want them to strive to be up there in society, to get the best job and benchmark that by reminding them that wealth is a sure and only sign of success. 

With such success, they tell their kids that they will then earn the respect of their peers and society at large. They equate status and wealth with respect and affection. 

No doubt there is some truth to that, but there is also a certain shallowness and pretentiousness to that which prevents our children from living a life of authenticity, a life that they can take ownership and responsibility for. Most importantly, a life that would give them meaning beyond the endless pursuit of the glitters of this world. 

That is why Subhas’ advice to his son is a good reminder to us as parents to always keep our eyes on what is truly enduring and important for our children.

In the article, Vijayan reported that “in a 2014 interview with The Straits Times, when (Subhas) was struggling with heart and kidney disease, he said anybody could become a good lawyer with hard work.”

“But I want my son to be a good human being, not chasing after money all the time, and to show compassion to people less fortunate. I would have rather people say he’s a good man than he’s a good lawyer.”

I guess if my son is reading this now, I would like to tell him that being good at what he does is an achievement. And he should keep up the good work. 

But there is a difference with being efficient with one’s work and being a good person (although I don’t deny that often they do overlap). Nevertheless, the difference is played out more apparently in the different roles we take on in life. 

As a husband, being efficient is to be responsible, providing and planning for the family. But a marriage is more than that. It is more than just crossing the t’s and dotting the i’s. 

In many of the divorce cases, most husbands provided well for the family with their kids graduating from tertiary institutions.

A good husband however builds the relationship. He does not see the marriage as an obligation, but as a commitment. And he does not just see his role as an efficient provider, but a relationship builder. 

Ultimately, you can’t professionalize love or marriage, because a union of a lifetime goes beyond meeting quotas, instituting rules, delegating authority, and establishing lines of accountability. 

No doubt, such things have their place and time, but a good husband takes it up to the next level by making the effort to connect with his spouse. He makes sure that it is not just about a roof over her head, but a home where there is assurance, trust, hope and love. 

Likewise, at the workplace, my son should know that you can be hailed as an efficient corporate leader, but in getting to where you are, you leave a trail of broken lives, distrust and disillusionment, and the respect you receive is not because of the character you have demonstrated, but the fear and insecurity you have instilled (more like subservience than respect, to be honest). 

It is the same with religion, for when faith is professionalized, what you end up is a church which is obsessed with numerical and structural growth on the outside and less on growth within.

So, Subhas’ advice is worth repeating to our children. It is an advice that many take for granted. For the last thing we want for our sons and daughters is to encourage them to rush up the social ladder of life, and congratulate them when they reach the top only to find out that it has always been leaning on the wrong side of the wall. Cheerz.