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?