Covid-19 and the shrinking Church.

Covid-19 is much dreaded. It has changed the way churches run their services as we know it.

One churchgoer said: “The world is on pause mode. Things we take for granted, like flying, or even where to have a family meal, have changed. We ponder over what God is saying during this time. This is a message resonating in church circles.” (Zach Wong, 64).

In a way, we can’t do church the way we have been doing church. As churches “try to maintain a balance between social responsibility and faithfulness” (aka Bishop Terry Kee), most, if not all, religious and secular gatherings are mandated to limit gatherings to no more than 250.

If you must know, that number is 100 more than what is the ideal number for social gathering, which, according to Robin Dunbar, a University of Oxford anthropologist and psychologist, is 150. 

Robin said that “any more and...relationships cannot be sufficiently nurtured.” He added, “Sure, one can have countless social media “friends” these days, but those do not equate to real connections.””

So, I guess as church services go online or on livestream with a limited gathering of families, cell group members or ministry participants, we can start to establish real connection with our neighbours just as Jesus did with his twelve disciples?

Because if you think about it, it is how deep you go in investing in a life that will ensure how enduring the transformation in that life will become when the storms hit.

If you recall the parable of the sower, the seeds that fell along the pathway or rocky ground, where it did not have much soil, became food for birds, or got scorched by the sun at midday.

Eventually without depth and root, they wither away. Or worst, they become so comfortable with the status quo, they forfeit the opportunity to grow above the status quo. As such, their sacrifices are no more than arriving in church on time and leaving it most time, unseen.

Seen in this light, pastor Norman Ng of 3:16 church with an attendance of less than 250, has a point when he said that the current  mandated number of 250 is like a “return to roots”.

“We believe this is to be a spiritually significant moment where the Church can return to its historical roots of gathering in smaller groups as the early Church did,” he said.

“By providing safe spaces where people can have more authentic interactions, we get more opportunities to encourage one another and to care for the vulnerable.”

At this juncture, the sentiments above remind me of what a pastor said a few years ago. Pastor Francis Chan left the church he founded,  namely, Cornerstone Church in California, which grew from 30 to 4000 within 15 years.

He shared that the burning question in his heart at that time was this, “Am I the problem?” That started a deep soul-searching journey when he and his pregnant wife took a Sabbatical from church to explore the urgent needs of the lost and deprived in Asia. 

Further, in his book, Letters to the Church, Chan wrote that he often asked church leaders what their congregants expect on a Sunday. Below was their response.

“Typical replies include: “A really good service, strong age-specific ministries, a certain style/ volume/length of singing, a well communicated sermon…parking… coffee.”

“(Chan) then asks the same leaders to list biblical commands about church. This time, the responses are: “Love one another as I have loved you” (John 15:12), “Look after widows and orphans in their distress” (James 1:27) and “Make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19).” “What would upset your people more?” Chan asks. “If you didn’t provide the things from the first list, or if you didn’t obey the biblical commandments on the second list?”

Taking a similar approach, I feel strongly that every pastor owes it to their congregation to ask the same question pastor Chan had asked, that is: -

1) “Am I the problem?” and

2) “What would upset your people more? If you didn’t provide the things from the first list, or if you didn’t obey the biblical commandments on the second list?”

Ultimately, the fruits of our labour in faith is never about what I would metaphorically describe as “quantitative easing” - to borrow a finance or economic stimulus term, which means “the introduction of new money into the money supply by a central bank.”

In similar vein, we ought to be cautious in pursuing numbers by injecting newer programs and attractive packages to bring in the crowd. Mind you, it has always been about the great commission of investing in lives, one soul at a time, and not about the great attraction of filling up the seats in the building, by storing up wealth to sustain it.

Alas, admit it or not, the number game distracts, dilutes and divides eventually because size demands attention, and attention demands structure, and structure demands money, and money demands a system of collection, and that system of collection demands even more numbers, and such obsessive cycle goes on and on, risking the relegation of the genuine transforming work of Calvary a secondary consideration because the administrative leviathan we have unwittingly nurtured in our backyard demands constant attention, regular feeding and blind perpetuation at all costs.

Sadly, as the church grows in this way, the sacrifices of a farmer-shepherd gradually becomes the building of a grain factory, the setting up of supply chain island-wide and the raking in of the financial harvest, while the planting of a soul gets subcontracted out to the impersonal hands of spiritual professionals with its excitable programs to boot.

As such, the silver-lining during this uncertain time provoked by Covid-19 is one where we ought to reflect deeply on the ends we hope to achieve with unchecked growth that ironically backfires rather than sets hearts aflame. This is therefore not a message against megachurches per se, but one for their consideration on the timeless purpose the Rock of Ages has established for us when the first cornerstone was laid towards the building of the Body of Christ from ground zero up.

Indeed, the church that returns to its roots in the modern context is one that not only comforts the afflicted, cares for the orphans and widows, loves and disciples one another, but one that also afflicts the comfortable so that instead of embracing the status quo, we reach out and make a difference in a life, one soul at a time, by planting the seed with depth in mind, however long it takes, so that when the storms come, each soul has a strong anchor or foundation to stand on  individually and communally.

By then, it is not the quantitative easing that attracts, which can only last for the short term, but it is about centering on qualitative transforming, upon which the church is built and is designed to last for all times.

Pray For Pastor Raymond Koh.

There is a saying, “The moral test of a government is how it treats those who are at the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the aged; and those who are in the shadow of life, the sick and the needy, and the handicapped." (Hubert Humphrey).

When I think about the shadow of life, I think about those forgotten, forgotten by their leaders, forgotten because it is convenient, and forgotten because those forgotten are not their problem, it’s someone else’s. They thus let the moral test quietly pass them by. 

Ms Susanna Liew has been named International Women of Courage (“IWOC”). Who is she? Well, you may know her husband, Pastor Raymond Koh. He was abducted in Feb 2017. 

On 13 Feb, a group of more than 10 men ambushed pastor Koh while he was in his car, commandeered it, and drove off with him. 

Since then, pastor Koh remains missing. And since then, Susanna (and her family) has never given up hope looking for her husband, their loved one. 

This is what the embassy who gave out the IWOC award said: “(Susanna) actively pursued justice for her husband and others during the Malaysian Human Rights Commission’s 2018-2019 public inquiry into enforced disappearance and continues to push the government to investigate these cases and prosecute those responsible.”

“Despite police harassment and death threats. She continues to advocate for her husband and others, not because of her faith or theirs, but because of their rights as Malaysians.”

Susanna was amongst 12 extraordinary women in the world who has “demonstrated exceptional courage of leadership in advocating for peace, justice, human rights, gender equality and women’s empowerment at great personal risk and sacrifice.”

Lesson?...

I started this post with the quote about the enduring moral test of government, because stripped of the title, the publicity and attention, and the power, the one who runs the government, or a group of them voted in to lead, are nothing more than husbands to their wives and fathers to their children. They cannot hide their vulnerable humanity behind the facade of power, wealth and fame. 

After an honest day’s work at the office, we all return to our family. We remember our vows and the fruits of our loins and we want to be there for them, in good or in the worst of times. 

Stripped of all the officious, if not pretentious, fanfare, the moral test of our government is really nothing more than the moral test of being a human, despite all our flaws and ego, and learning to see others as you see yourself, and feeling their pain and struggles as you feel it yourself when you go through your own. 

Adam Smith in The Theory of Moral Sentiments wrote this: -

“Two different sets of philosophers have attempted to teach us this hardest of all the lessons of morality. One set have laboured to increase our sensibility to the interests of others; another, to diminish that to our own. 

The first would have us feel for others as we naturally feel for ourselves. The second would have us feel for ourselves as we naturally feel for others. Both, perhaps, have carried their doctrines a good deal beyond the just standard of nature and propriety.”

And if one applies the right approach to morality to government, we ought to see, feel and act towards a shared and common humanity, and come to the aid of those in the dawn, twilight and shadow of life. 

Let me end with this observation.

Just a few days ago, I incidentally saw a video of Dr Siti Hasmah Mohamad Ali walking over to her husband (Mahathir) and gave him the longest hug I have ever witnessed in the history of Malaysian politics (see pic below). 

She didn’t want to let go. She held on tight. The crowd applauded, was inspired, and it was a truly touching sight. The whole room warmed up with their radiant devotion, a testimony of a resilient marriage since 1956. 

Their fate could not have been more different from that of Susanna’s (or for that matter, Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail’s, Anwar’s wife, who stuck by their spouses thru the good and bad times). 

Yet, aren’t they all demonstrating the same timeless love for their spouses? Aren’t they all the same, sharing a common passion, unyielding, regardless of circumstances? Yet, what sets them apart, so starkly and ironically, is the circumstances they find themselves in; alas, their struggles differ so much. 

Recently, Susanna Liew met up with Muhyiddin ”after the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia – a parliamentary-backed investigative panel also known as Suhakam – released a 95-page report concluding that Koh and social activist Amri Che Mat were probably “abducted by State agents.””

She said: “My hope and appeal is that since he is now the prime minister, he has the power to arrest, to prosecute the culprits who were involved in this case of enforced disappearance.”

“I still believe my husband is still alive. We have dreams, my family and I ... and we hold on to this hope that one day we will reunite with him.”

And I truly pray that that day will come when our leaders finally and courageously pass the moral test of government.

What smarts has to do with it? Yale/NUS sexual assault case.

They caught another one. This one is smart. Young as he is, he is 26. Bright as he is, he is a student in the graduating class of 2020. He was student council President from 2017 to 2018. The accolades go on. 

He is the “first batch of 20 Singapore Sports School student-athletes on the through-train Republic Polytechnic-Singapore Sports School Diploma in Sports and Leisure Management programme.”

Mind you, he “represented Singapore at the 2009 Asian Youth Games held here and won a silver and a bronze in bowling events.”

Brandon Lee has not only the academic grades, but he is also a great sportsman representing our little red dot. And let’s not forget too that he’s someone’s son, just to add a minor detail to the list of achievement any parent would be proud of.

Well, he is featured today because he will be returning on Oct 22 to court to answer to multiple charges in respect of taking upskirt videos of women and filming them showering on campus. 

Yale-NUS spokesman Prof Joanne Roberts said: “Brandon Lee..., a student at Yale-NUS College, has been charged in court with insulting the modesty of a fellow student. He was suspended the day after the college was notified about the incident in March 2019.”

It reports that “Lee allegedly used a smartphone between August 2017 and March 3 this year to film at least four women, and faces 24 counts of intruding into a woman’s privacy to insult her modesty.” 

“Lee is alleged to have used his iPhone to film women showering in the dormitory by placing the phone above the cubicle doors. The upskirt offences took place in classrooms.”

Lesson? Just two. 

My first lesson is about smarts. 

Brandon is smart, even atheletic and I guess charismatic to be able to secure the student council President ticket for two years. 

And with the recent media frenzy over a NUS student being sentenced to probation for similar offences with one consideration being his potential to excel academically, a lot of people out there are given this impression that if you have good grades, academically inclined, you will get lighter sentences. 

Although the AGC had appealed against the sentence, it is one appeal that our law minister personally agreed with in a FB post. 

So, what smarts has to do with it? Is this some sort of elitist discrimination? 

Just like if someone is the CEO of a major corporation or a colonel in the Army, should he get a pass on misdemeanor committed because of his proven track record in the past and his bright career prospect in the future while, say, cleaners or hawkers, for example, because they are less educated and some are barely making ends meet, have to bear the full brunt of the law?

Well, let’s just say that we should give our justice system more credit. 

If you bother to read the reams of judgment on each case adjudicated, though not perfect, they are essentially facts- and principles-centered justifications by most judges who conscientiously comb through the evidence and facts submitted. 

The sentencing principles are well established and they involve balancing these four considerations: retribution, deterrence, prevention and rehabilitation. 

But I will not go further than that. You can read it up, and you can google that seminal drink-driving case named “Major Stansilas Fabian Kester” @ para 94 onwards to understand more. 

My point however is about smarts. Or, putting it another way, it is about natural stupidity, that is, smart people doing the most stupid thing. 

Now, why do we even think that the smarter the person is the less prone he is to committing crime as compared to less smart or less distinguished people in society? 

It is a troubling correlation (between smarts and honesty or being crime-free) that has stuck in our mind because of how they tend to get all the attention while common folks get almost none of it. 

And with a little twist of the advice Peter Parker got from his uncle, I would say that, with more attention comes more responsibility, or better still, more expectation. That is how uncritical the society can get when the rule of thumb logic is this, if you are up there, with smarts, wealth and status, you ought to be much more exemplary, leading in morals, and showing the way for all to follow. That is the default-setting expectation, very much unthinking. 

Well, of all the fairy tales we read to our children, that is one fairy tale that we love to believe, but real life can’t be more further from it.

After all said, we should be an idealist or an realist when the time calls for it. And on smarts, on expectation, and on the fairy tales we hold on to, we should be a realist. 

The common denominator for all of us, whether smart or not, is our vulnerability to mistakes, to fall and stumbles. In fact, the higher up there you are, whether by merit or luck, the more vulnerable you are to temptations. 

And you would be no smarter than the common folk, even much dumber, if you think for a moment that by being up there, you are immune to temptations and deception. Come to think of it, there is a saying that for people who think that way, they can’t be deceived by others, because they themselves do a better job at it. 

For my second lesson, it is about Brandon being someone’s son. I know I may be accused of being insensitive to the victim since she too is someone’s daughter. But let me say that my sympathies are not with what he had done. He has to face it, and if found guilty, pays it. 

My sympathies are however with how collective disapproval and/or social condemnation can get out of hand and risk compounding the effect of punishment very much equivalent to what is known as double jeopardy, that is, serving time in prison and serving it out of prison. The latter is normally more punishing than the former to the extent that a life willing to reform has to struggle with much social deformation and pressure that can push him or her to cross the mortality line. 

Sometimes, our hate is over-brewed, and it spills over into the extreme, without considering that at times, given the same circumstances, we ourselves may be equally vulnerable and fallible. 

Every society will do well to always balance mercy and justice, humanity and penalty, forgiveness and accountability, and rehabilitation and prevention. Such is a society that is mature and compassionate. Alas, such is a society that is hopeful, fair and truly balanced, and such balance is the ideal we should always strive for.

Yale/NUS saga: Ong Ye Kung and Alfian Sa'at.

Strong words. Strong sentiments. Strong stand.

Starting with Tommy Koh and various local illuminaries including Dr Anne Lee, a cultural medallion winner and poet Gwee Li Sui, and ending with veteran architect Tay Kheng Soon, they all took a stand with poet Alfian to tell Minister Ong Ye Kung (OYK) to back off. 

The backdrop is what OYK had said about Alfian. He took his poem, written about 20 years ago, when he was only 21, out of context. The poem is entitled “Singapore, I assert you are not a country at all.” 

This is the selective quote OYK used in Parliament: -

“Singapore, I assert you are not a country at all/ Do not raise your voice against me, I am not afraid of your anthem" and "...how can you call yourself a country,/ you terrible hallucination of highways and cranes and condominiums/ ten minutes' drive from the MRT?"

OYK however qualified by saying that it is a poem, so we might concede some artistic licence. “But Mr Alfian Sa’at continues this attitude consistently in his activism,” he nevertheless said. 

Mm...I wonder, when OYK said that the government can concede some artistic licence, what does he mean by that? 

Well, being all too familiar with a strictly rule-based leadership, you can understand that there will be OB markers for such artistic creativity. Mind you, the Freudian slip here is “licence”. 

But, by airing a small part of the poem in parliament, while leaving the rest unsaid, isn’t that like feeling only one part of the elephant whilst blindfolded and being expected to identify the whole animal? 

Be that as it may, Alfian came forward to say in his FB post that his 100-line poem was taken out of context. He said he is not an activist. He is a poet. And more relevantly, he affirms his love for his country. He is just critical of her development over time into one that is, well, rather soulless, with the class and social divide and the obsession with material tangibles, if I may add. 

In his defence, Tommy Koh said: “We should not demonise Alfian Sa’at. He is one of our most talented playwrights. I regard him as a loving critic of Singapore. He is not anti-Singapore. I admire very much his plays, Cooling Off Day and Hotel.”

He added: “It is of course true that some (of) his writings are critical of Singapore. But, freedom of speech means the right to agree with the government as well as the right to disagree.”

Demonise? That is a strong word. 

Well, I am sure OYK does not have that intention, at least not intentionally. Architect Tay said: “Mr Ong is a good guy, I like his honesty and activism - that’s why I think he made a mistake to run down Alfian Sa’at by referencing his poem.”

So, between demonise and mistake, between out-of-context and good guy, I feel that the ones who hold/set the ”licence” in our country has this tendency, almost knee-jerk, to rally (or dig up) disparate evidence of one’s past and then select the incriminating part and air it to support its case. 

(For a minute, reading OYK’s mischaracterisation by one-part poetry, it almost felt like the GE 2020 came earlier than scheduled). 

In any event, levity aside, I think of all the defences, Dr Anne Lee made the most intimate sense. 

She said: “Singapore You Are Not My Country was the work of a young person bewildered by the whole struggle to grasp the anomalies in the life he had paused to try to make sense of.”

“Unfortunately, it seems that it is all too common to find that unless one overtly expresses love and praise of country anything that voices distaste, doubt and dissent tends to be labelled “unpatriotic””.

She added: “Admitting suffering and uncertainty seems to me more honest in a search for the truth, than claiming a clarity that is still beyond one’s reach.” Kudos to that.

I think Dr Anne Lee smoked out the fear of our government. It is a fear that is liable to turn them dualistic, even tribalistic. That is, seeing things from a binary perspective - black and white, with little tolerance or patience for the greyish expression or ventilation in-between of “a young person bewildered by the whole struggle to grasp the anomalies in the life he had paused to try to make sense of.”

So, patriotism, from this limited interpretation, has only one rule-of-thumb definition: if you are not for us, you are against us. 

And the effect of that dualistic/tribalistic sentiment mutates into knee-jerk reactions of defence and attack should you be someone of some repute and influence in society, like an artist or a professor. 

As such, you are either an activist for the government, or you are, well, an unpatriotic dissident. 

Now, at this juncture, I want to be clear that I am not talking about the controversial program that Yale-NUS had scrapped, though the process could have been more transparent and organised. I am however specifically referring to the poem taken out of context just to shore up one’s point. 

And although I do not always agree with what Alfian writes at times, yet on this issue aired in Parliament, I felt that OYK could have left out Alfian and his work altogether without sacrificing an iota of his reasonably crafted speech in parliament. In fact, that segment about Alfian’s poem only tainted the aim and intent of his speech about balancing academic freedom, its cultural and social context and the autonomy of tertiary institutions. 

Let me however end with a segment of OYK’s speech about exercising common sense. 

“I much prefer the test of an ordinary Singaporean exercising his common sense. He would readily conclude that taking into consideration all the elements and all the personalities involved, this is a programme that was filled with motives and objectives other than learning and education.”

“And MOE's stand is that we cannot allow such activities in our schools or IHLs. Political conscientisation is not the taxpayer's idea of what education means.”

In other words, OYK is reminding Singaporeans not to play politics in schools. That’s not the taxpayer’s idea of what education means. 

But, the question is, will a Singaporean exercising common sense also view his taking the poem out-of-context in his speech another means whereby one plays politics in society?

How dare you! Greta Thunberg's Climate Fighter.

How dare you!

...climate activist Greta Thunberg, only 16, cried out almost in tears as she gave a speech at the UN Climate Action Summit on Monday. 

We’ll be watching you. This is all wrong. I shouldn’t be up here. I should be in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet you all come to us young people for hope. How dare you!

...in case you are wondering, world leaders were all present hearing her speech. Some applauded. Some kept quiet. Some nodded. Others avoided eye contact, pensive about their investments worldwide. 

You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet, I’m one of the lucky ones. 

...fyi, President Donald Trump was there too. It reported that he had made a brief stop, just 15 minutes. He was on his way to a forum on religious freedom. Here is his sarcastic tweets on Greta’s speech: -

“She seems like a very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future. So nice to see!”

People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!

Well, that about sums up the polarity of the debate. On one side, we have countries like Saudi Arabia, Australia and US led by the inimical Trump who once called climate change a “hoax”. 

And on the other side, where Greta is fighting for, that is, for our children’s future, for hers, are countries like China, Germany, France and even India, trying their darnest to keep the average global temperature below the Paris accords target at 1.5 deg C. 

Currently, we are moving towards 1.3 deg C. The gloomy forecast is that it will hit 1.3 deg C. in five years. The point is to limit the temperature at 1.5 deg C. and this would “prevent severe climate change impact and limit sea-level rise.” 

The stark reality is, as it stands now, global warming and pollution “are ravaging the earth’s oceans and icy regions in ways that could unleash misery on a global scale...the observed and projected impact includes vanishing glaciers and expanding marine heatwaves, leading to an irreversible sea-level rise that could eventually displace hundreds of millions of people...”

So, does Greta’s urgent and desperate message have a point? And how do you receive public snubs (or condescending tweets) from the leader of the free world whose boardroom and situation room talk are mainly about money and the fairy tales of eternal economic growth?

Alas, the irony is that the word “trump” may mean some form of victory secured, but it is definitely not a victory over our human nature, that is, a nature that only seeks to profit self over others. 

It is on the contrary a victory of self, a celebrative chant for self-aggrandisement at the expense of a world inching towards mass extinction. And that is how polarised the world stands today where the pursuit of profit has no limits, and those who have the responsibility and power to do something about it is scarce to even act, not to mention take the stand forward to be counted. 

But Greta is not done yet. As young as she is, she saw through our hypocrisy, our double mindedness. Sometimes, a child embodies more sense and purpose than a corporate honcho sitting regally in his high rise office or the head of a nation overlooking with self-conceit from the seat of power and authority. 

This is what she has to say...

You say you hear us and that you understand the urgency. But no matter how sad and angry I am, I do not want to believe that. Because if you really understood the situation and still kept on failing to act, then you would be evil. And that I refuse to believe.

Alas, I believe that Martin Luther King was right when towards the end of his life, he realised that there is a deeper problem of value under capitalism. He believed that it is not just about reforming policies, but more relevantly, our consciousness. 

For capital gains will always struggle with the common good in a bid to redistribute wealth, because greed is valorised in a system driven by the market, which is held spellbound by the promise of “the winner shall take all”. 

Everyone wants to be a winner, that is, to trump others, and in its blind pursuit, the trail of destruction - whilst taking our climate and earth with it as its final ”jericho-shout” ambition - is all the evidence we need to harken to the cry of a young girl’s broken heart. 

So, the last word here is the voice of unembellished reason. It is also our last call to board before human nature effectively takes over Mother Nature and unwittingly (or with careless abandonment) ravages her in the name of progress. 

...You are failing us. But the young people are starting to understand your betrayal. The eyes of all future generations are upon you. And if you choose to fail us, I say: We will never forgive you.We will not let you get away with this. Right here, right now, is where we draw the line. The world is waking up. And change is coming, whether you like it or not.

Ps: scripturally speaking, the unpardonable sin may just be to allow our greed to take the earth and the future of our children down with it.