Trump refuses to concede - election 2020.

You know, looking at Trump, I am reminded of what Hitler once said when the allied troops were closing in in 1944. He said: “I don’t give up at five minutes before midnight. I give up at five minutes after midnight.”

Well, I guess Trump is in his last five minutes after the midnight hour, and yet, he is not giving up. What’s more, he has done the opposite of giving up by tightening up the grip of government.

He has recently ordered all his officials to refuse Biden and Harris all access to government offices, secure communications and classified briefings. He is digging his presidential heels and not giving even an inch away of the Oval Office estate. 

Anyway, I hope he comes to his senses, (or reconcile with his continental ego), because it is said that “fish and visitors stink after three days". And as more than a week has passed since Biden secured the 270 electoral voters’ golden ticket, the stench coming out from the White House is gradually building up and it has breached international borders, with one of UK parliament members remarking, ”this is embarassing”. 

It is therefore ironic that Trump most famous electoral promise is that he would build the wall and make Mexico pay for it. Now, in some twisted way, that promise has come true. He has indeed built for himself a wall of denial, and the American people are paying for it. It is called the price of democracy, and the cost is the people’s unity. 

Alas, like Hitler, Trump takes the bunker mentality where he is holed up in his own fantasy bubble, with his most loyal officials (yet Hitler never really trusted them, even till his very end) huddling and praying together for a second coming (or term), or for a miraculous turn of the electoral battle (he is like an ostrich in the sand telling his closest associates that by summer, when the heat comes, it will all disappear, all go away). 

And talking about prayer, the embarrassment extends to some quarters of the evangelical Christians in America. 

Prosperity preacher Kenneth Copeland had recently let out a peel of maniacal laughter over the pulpit. He started with the president-elect’s name, but before he could finish calling Biden’s name in full, he convulsed into hysterical guffaw. Go look at it yourself, google it, and trust me, it’s spine chillingly weird.

(And I thought no one could top Trump’s spiritual adviser Paula White’s rambling “I hear a sound of victory” marathon prayer, rebuking the demonic confederacies for stealing the election from her religiously puerile leader). 

The truth - it is said - will set you free, after knowing it of course. But, for Trump’s close-knit christian community, the truth seems to have a different (if not dangerous) impact. It appears to have locked them in, in their own wall of make-belief (and let’s be clear, I am talking only about the election results. God knows, there are other confounding bewilderment of the faith of late that is beyond my earthly comprehension). 

In any event, here’s the bipartisan truth or reality. In today’s papers, the official word is out. A group of federal, state and local election officials have all issued a statement together. They declared flatly that “the election was the most secure in American history...there is no evidence that any voting systems were compromised.”

More specifically, this group that “issued the statement was the Elections Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council, which includes top officials from the cyber security agency, the US Election Assistance Commission and secretaries of state and state election directors from around the country.”

They added: “While we know there are many unfounded claims and opportunities for misinformation about the process of our elections, we can assure you we have the utmost confidence in the security and integrity of our elections, and you should, too. When you have questions, turn to election officials as trusted voices as they administer elections.”

With the above collective assurance in mind, Trump and his deluded family members are playing with fire. And let me derail here a little to call a spade a spade. For the past four years, the poor USA is anything but united. The racial, income, social and even religious divide have all increased, or deepened. You can’t possibly deny that. 

Now, it’s your fundamental constitutional right to blame that on anyone or anything, or concoct up conspiracy theories about it. But like it or not, the reality doesn’t change, for the fish still rots at its head. In other words, the leadership has to take responsibility. 

That is the first go-to response, or else, why bother with the once-every-4-year Election, or the 233-year-old Constitution, or her proud democratic heritage that Tocqueville couldn’t praise enough for contributing to, nurturing and facilitating the American Dream, right?

You see, when Trump was first elected in 2016, the Time’s Person of the Year was him, with this caption - “Donald Trump: The President of the Divided States of America”. Well, after 4 years, that has been the one consistent thing about his presidency. 

And so, in my view, Trump has been playing with fire on issues of race, nationality, immigration, income and social inequalities, and now, he is lighting a match to America’s most sacred and sacrosanct institution, her democracy. For you lose that, you lose all credibility, and you lose the nation, that is, the unity of the country. 

His supporters (that is, those supporting his call for election fraud) is not helping to douse the fire, they are in fact throwing kerosene on it. And that unwitting action can result in a horrific backfire for the nation as a whole. 

Yes, it is said that without vision or hope the people perish. Yet, without unity, any vision/hope dies stillborn, and the people perish too. 

As an earnest plea (from a foreigner), I know without a doubt you love him as a leader, and still believes that he’s God’s chosen one. But, unless there is conclusive evidence of electoral fraud, by all conscionable effort, you too ought to agree that Trump’s final 5 minutes after midnight is up too. 

Mind you, leaders often draw their strength and resolve from their followers. They just don’t like to admit it. They are more comfortable with the illusion of sole command. You therefore have the power to make it right; if not in God’s name, at least in the name of democracy and the people’s unity - for your sons and daughters are at stake too. 

Alas, history’s inflection points are made up of people of moral clarity and courage who stand for what is right, what is timeless, and this is the time to stand up to be counted, since the votes have already been counted. What’s more vital is that it is also time to stand united against your nation’s common foe - the destroyer of the people’s democratic will, hopes and dreams.

 

Biden-Harris Won - Election 2020.

I woke up this morning to this headline: “BIDEN WINS.” He had managed to rally up to 284 electoral votes this early morning, crossing the Rubicon threshold of 270 to win. 

He also (thus far) won the popular vote with more than 74.8 million as compared to Trump at 70.6m, in a record turnout of 160 million.

But rubicon, why? Because Biden will be the most watched elected leader of the Free World after inheriting a bitterly divided country, one plagued with a global pandemic that has taken more than 220,000 lives and 9m infected, and an economy completely embattled. 

Biden said: “In the face of unprecedented obstacles, a record number of Americans voted. Proving once again, that democracy beats deep in the heart of America.”

So, once he crosses that line, his presidential battles are all cut out for him. It is an irrevocable decision with the burden of a nation on his aged shoulders. 

Mind you, at 78 (in two weeks), middle class Joe will be America’s 46th president. The oldest in US history. But why stop there, right? Historic also for this newly elected leader is his feisty co-pilot Kamala Harris. She will be his vice president. That’s a historical first too - a lady vice. 

What’s more, she’s not white. That’s another first, that is, America’s first African-American vice president. Kamala is also the first person of South Asian descent to hold the second highest office in the US. That’s a lot of shared firsts between Joe and Harris.

And I will not be surprised that, should the Biden’s presidency lasts only a term due to his age, you can then expect Harris Kamala to make history again by becoming the First African American Female President. 

Here is what Harris tweeted: “This election is about so much more than Joe Biden or me. It’s about the soul of America and our willingness to fight for it. We have a lot of work ahead of us. Let’s get started.”

Well, this is however a bad start (or end) for the incumbent Trump, who was playing golf when he heard the news. But, not surprisingly, Trump is not taking this lying or sitting down. With a belly bloated with lots of huffs and puffs, Trump is going to blow the White House away from team Biden-Kamala. 

He has repeatedly told his ardent supporters about this subversive plan. Bottomline is this: if he wins, it is legal. If he loses, it is not. That strategy is undoubtedly a win-win for him, and with that, he is taking the alleged election fraud all the way up to the Supreme Court, hoping that justices Neil, Brett and Amy will be considering his earnest plea favourably.

So, after all’s said and written, it has been a hell of a ride for the Americans the past four confounding years. And you won’t be faulted should you ask yourself this, “Where have all of it gone to?”

In any event, Trump will be Trump, and to give credit where credit is due, he did reshape the judiciary, reform the criminal justice system and the tax code, and create jobs before Covid, amongst other things. 

But now, as the American people enters a new Biden-Kamala season, a saner season (if I may say it), I pray for healing for a broken nation, torn by racial, social and political divisions. 

Honestly, I do not see any point today in casting any moral judgment on Trump. He is what he is, but democracy has nevertheless made her stand loud and clear. In other words, the people have chosen, and the majority have spoken. It is therefore time to move on, march forward and close the gap. It is time to be peacemakers, not warmongers. It is also time to heal wounds, not open them. 

And I know Trump will not go quietly into the night - recall he is who he is? He will no doubt stand defiant, making all kinds of allegations against the democratic process, and against the will and resolve of the majority. But that is to be expected. That is just a part and parcel of the democratic process too, which had its start in the 2016 victory and ended in today’s defeat. 

Team Biden-Harris will just have to deal with it, on top of managing a largely jaded and weakened nation. No doubt the remnants of Trumpism will still echo in the chambers of the White House. It comes as a lurking shadow reminding Biden and Harris that there will over time be backlashes (that is, a redux Trump-like victory in 2024 or thereafter) should they take the privilege of power accorded by the electoral vote for granted by neglecting the poor in favour of the rich and powerful. 

Let me end with the president elect. 

Joe Biden first entered into the political fray in 1972, at only 29. But, “one month later, tragedy struck: His wife Neilia and their one-year-old daughter Naomi were killed in a car crash as they were out Christmas shopping.”

“Mr Biden’s two sons were severely injured but survived, only for the eldest, Beau, to succumb to cancer four decades later, in 2015.” 

The current President-elect is one who is diametrically different from his incumbent. While Trump is born with a golden spoon in his mouth, Biden came from middle class. While Trump inherited a fortune, Biden made do with what he had, building from scratch. 

While Trump had close to zero political experience, Biden had more than forty years of experience. And while Trump lived in unimaginable luxury, building and bankrupting businesses and defrauding students attending his university, Biden still grieves over the loss of loved ones, the most recent being his own son, Beau. 

The differences between them is indeed stark. And I would like to think that one of them leads from the heart, humbled by the many soul-searching circumstances he had to confront, and the other leads from the heap of wealth and self-adulated intellect he stood upon and couldn’t stop boasting about. 

At this point, I am reminded of what Harry Truman once said and I call it the Truman’s humility test. Here is the test. 

“The President hears a hundred voices telling him that he is the greatest man in the world. He must listen carefully indeed to hear the one voice that tells him he is not.”

For Trump, there is no doubt in his mind that he is the greatest president in American history, save maybe for Abraham Lincoln. The voices he chose to hear had effectively drown out the one voice he needed to hear. 

But for Biden, his background compels him to always listen to the voice that matters most, and that is the voice of humility. For me, that is the pivotal hallmark of a true leader; for a leader is always a servant to and for his people, and a shepherd to and for his sheep. 

As such, he is defined by his humility, and that is what ultimately makes him great. He is therefore not defined by self-perceived greatness, which makes him delusional and complacent. 

And if the character of a nation depends on the character of her leader, then with Biden, I foresee not just the experience of political office he will bring to the White House, but also the experience of a broken and contrite spirit, one that can more deeply and enduringly relate to, touch and heal the broken soul of a nation.

Thank you democracy, you are back!

 

Trump vs. Biden - Divided States.

Who needs Russia, when you have Trump. Who needs fascism, when you have Trump. And who needs covid-19 to throw a nation into chaos, when you have Trump. Trump, alas, the salvation of our salvation? 

But, Trump or no Trump, he is not the problem. Make no mistake about that. He is but a means to the expression of the problem, and it is getting out of hand, or it has already gotten out of hand. 

They say over time the medium becomes the message, and the American people, in their plunge into the darkest depth of the divide in the mad-max fury road to the White House, is waking up to a monster they have created in the trumpish form of an empty-vessel demogague. 

Trump has thus become the embodiment of everything that the founders of the American Constitution have sought to avoid or prevent. And I can’t say that Plato was wrong about democracy as evidenced in the American election 2020.

“For Plato, democracy - the rule of the masses - and oligarchy - the rule of the rich - were dangerous because these were forms of government motivated by self-interest, lacking a higher purpose. They were also unstable, almost always degrading into the worst kind of regime, tyranny.” (p.39, “Ten Lessons For A Post-Pandemic World” by Fareed Zakaria).

What do you then call a political system made up of the adulterous union between democracy and oligarchy when you have a billionaire leader calling his millions of supporters to rubbish (or halt) the vote counting process in the name of electoral fraud, or was it puerile insecurity? 

And if democracy is the voice of the people, then we often forget that this voice, especially at such time, is no less than a deafening cacophony that is so loud, piercing and shrilling that it threatens to drown out the voice of reason, virtue, and hope. 

In governing a nation, the common good must win, or eventually win. But in order to win, it must be commonly shared by the critically-reflective majority. Yet, at this moment of American history, we are indeed living in uncommon times where the common good is anything but common. 

America needs to heal. And getting Trump out, with all his holy-moly pretentiousness and obnoxiousness, is just a part of the solution; not even a big part (and this, Trump will insist otherwise to placate his tremendous ego). 

Unfortunately, Joe Biden (I am assuming he will finally win in a knife-edge election) has inherited not the White House, one that is united, but a White-and-Black House that is so divided he may possibly spend a major part of his first term closing the gap, instead of doing what a president is expected to do. 

And when he does, that is, close the gap, he must never forget that he and his ex-boss, Obama, and their predecessors, were the main part of the problem. Mind you, Obama may be black, and Joe white, but the problem transcends the colour of one’s skin. It is essentially the problem of inclusivity, human dignity, and common humanity. 

In the book “The Tyranny of Merit”, Professor Michael Sandel identified one of the root causes of the problem. An extract of his observation by Thomas L. Friedman in the latter’s article “There was a loser in election night. It was America” is as follows: -

“Even though Joe Biden emphasised his working-class roots and sympathies, the Democratic Party continues to be more identified with professional elites and college-educated voters than with the blue-collar voters who once constituted its base.” 

“Even so epochal an event as a pandemic, bungled by Trump, did not change this. Democrats need to ask themselves: Why do many working people embrace a plutocrat-populist whose policies do little to help them? Democrats need to address the sense of humiliation felt by working people who feel the economy has left them behind and that credentialed elites look down on them”. 

So, put it in another way, you can say that Trump (as a symbolic-head) is the people’s middle finger, and it is stuck right up the rear end of the pretentious elitists in society. 

As Rich Lowry (editor of National Review) wrote: “Trump is, for better or for worse, the foremost symbol of resistance to the overwhelming work cultural tide that has swept along the media, academia, corporate America, Hollywood, professional sports, the big foundation, and almost everything in between.”

So, have no illusion or delusion about it. Trump is not the real problem, not even close. At best, he is a mascot, playing or performing to the crowd, devouring their attention to feed his fragile ego, not because he is on to something, but because the crowd sees no other way to point their middle finger at the exclusive and extractive world the snobbish establishment has built for themselves. 

Trump is therefore their loud hailer, the national megaphone to vent their deep-rooted frustration heaped up over the decades of being ignored, dismissed, discarded, disowned and disembodied. For all that, they have found a body-puppet to make their voices heard, and that body-puppet comes in the form of a clueless billionaire who will say anything, do anything, and represent anything, just to bathe in naked shame in the global stage, where he will get all the attention he desperately craves after. It is a mutual blood-sucking symbiotic relationship. 

PS: Alas, I am so tempted to end here. But when I look at Trump’s spiritual advisor, Paula White, cussing and swearing in the name of God on national television, for the sole benefit of Trump, with an unknown sloppy teenager walking up and down the stage, as if mugging for a term paper, I lament for the religious in America; once a God-fearing nation (now a god-images making nation). 

And that reminded me of what Jesus once said: "My house will be called a house of prayer,' but you are making it 'a den of robbers." At times like this, we need a voice of spiritual renewal and resurrected hope, not in any man, however loud and rich, but in the one who has never changed, and the same one who has promised us that in this world, there will be trouble, but “behold, I have overcome the world”. 

Where is then that voice in the desert? Where is the sober voice on the hill in a city divided and drunk with power? Where then is the voice that cries out for the bitter cup to be taken away, yet not his will but thy be done? And where is that same voice that screams out, “"Eloi Eloi lama sabachthani?" ("My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?") and then goes on to reign in the hearts of men? 

Alas, we went to do just the opposite by downing out that voice to embrace the world and became her trouble personified. As a result, we are hopelessly divided, even willing to use God’s name in vain, siding with men, whoring with vain religious ideals, calling for death or treason to those who disagree with us or for not standing by Trump, and playing god at every desperate turns and twists of events. 

And if this world is not our home, why is it then that we are living our life as if it is by embracing unquestionably a man who represents everything that Christ is not? 

Our faith and hope should never be born out of desperation, or the need to hide behind worldly power and fame, living vicariously off it. It should instead be born out of a furnace that makes us more like Christ. Mind you, Jesus did not take the presidential road filled with idolising crowd to the Cross. He took the road of grief, a road many avoided, because salvation is not in men, but it belongs to God.

 

Allan Wu - The Only Thing you need.

A life can be complicated. We never have enough. We are taught to have more than enough, always pile it all up for a rainy day (well, more like in anticipation of a second Noah flood). We are even encouraged to believe by faith in a god who is so eager to bless us beyond what we thought should be enough. 

So when we are taught that enough is not quite enough, will we then ever come to a point of sudden dawning that what we already have is good enough? Or, putting it another way, at what point do we start to live a life of lasting and trusted rest, rather than one lusting after it, and never getting it because nothing we ever have is enough in our brief lifetime on earth?

When God completed the creation work in Genesis, on the seventh day, it is recorded that he rested. In Hebrew, that rest is interpreted as, “And God exhaled.” 

Our Creator diligently took a breath, made full use of it, and released it. He let go. He knew when to let go. It comes after what needs to be done is done. And when He saw it was all good, he exhaled. He rested.

Well, do we? Do we embrace what we have and then exhale, coming to full rest? Or, do we see what is good as an enemy of great (or best), and because of that, we are always struggling to catch our breaths between our endless/mindless worldly pursuits? 

I wrote this because I read this morning about what actor Allan Wu said in an interview. He was interviewed by Choo Yun Ting. 

Allan’s ex-wife is another celebrity, Wong Li Lin. They have two kids, a daughter, Sage, 16, and a son, Jonas, 14. 

He was born in California to Chinese immigrant parents. They were upper middle class. Allan studied integrative biology at the University of California, Berkeley. He recalled that he grew up in a “frugal environment.”

“My mother was the one who taught me to be grateful for what I have, because a lot of people out there have a lot less than we did.” 

Living in the fast-paced world, Allan had his own demons to fight with. He admitted that for a time, he was “more preoccupied with keeping up with the Joneses, especially working in the entertainment industry, where he would see peers driving nice cars or owning luxury items.”

Allan said: “There was a time that I was influenced by that, and felt that I had to be that way too. But then I realised that trying to be like everyone didn’t increase my quality of life or made me happier.”

Going full philosophical mode, Allan has this advice for his two kids: “It is more important to go out into the world and discover what makes you happy.”

“If you’re able to make a living out of it, then you will never have to work a day in your life. Also, never spend beyond your means, because we don’t really need much to be happy - we just need to find out what are the surprisingly few things that we actually do need.”

That reminded me of what Jesus told Martha when she complained to him about not asking Mary for help out in the kitchen. He said, “Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her."

For me, Allan’s “surprisingly few things” coincides with Jesus’ “only one thing”. And the point is not about numbers, whether it is one or a few. But it is about the condition of our heart. For there are many pursuits calling out to us, and our goals and ambition can be innumerable and unquenchable. But there is only one heart to receive all that, to process them, and to commit over a lifetime. 

Jesus is thus reminding Martha to always choose what is better, and what is better always satisfies. In other words, it is always, and unfailingly enough, or more than enough. True rest therefore comes from our intentional choices to pursue what is worthy, fruitful and timeless. And that one thing always grant a life unhurried rest. 

So, if our life is about the house we have built for ourselves and our loved ones, where do we then spent most of our waking moments? Is it in the kitchen, busy cooking up a storm to impress, yet seldom around for the people we love, or profess to love? Or, is in the living room, striving for intimacy, building relationships and finding lasting rest and contentment in it? 

While Jesus is not saying that kitchen work or ministry is not important, he is however saying, at what cost are we paying for such breathless pursuits? For in the end, only a fool counts not the cost when he builds his house. He can always build a grand mansion with manicured garden, but his heart never feels complete, and the work for him is never finished. 

Or he can build a modest home, without all that empty space, yet his heart is always full, knowing full well that the lives living in it are always content, joyful and resilient even in the midst of a trial. 

Let me end with these words by poet William Stafford.

“There‘a a thread you follow. It goes among things that change. But it doesn’t change.

People wonder about what you are pursuing. You have to explain about the thread. But it is hard for others to see. While you hold it you can’t get lost.

Tragedies happen; people get hurt or die; and you suffer and get old. Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding. You don’t ever let go of the thread.”

Mary did not let it go. That thread was all she held on to. That one thread accompanied her throughout her life. Things may change, but not that thread. It is the only thread she knew, and the only choice she had made that gave her unsurpassed peace. She had indeed exhaled, in full rest, and left the things of this world to go strangely dim as she turned her eyes to what matters in life.

 

Ash Dykes - Crossing the Yangtze River.

We all have our journey. The toughest one is no doubt life, where we take centrestage, where we are judged by our performance. 

In Life section of ST, adventurer Ash Dykes, 29, shares his journey of trekking the entire length of China’s Yangtze River. It is has been made into a two-part documentary that airs tonight at 9 pm on National Geographic.

This journey is daunting. It took Ash 353 days to complete a distance of 6,437km last year. It was a Guinness World Record feat no less. 

Ash said: “The river cuts through immense diversity - it would take me through 11 provinces, show me both the wild and urban sides of China, and lots of traditions, cultures, dialects, wildlife and weather systems along the way.”

Ash shared that it took him and his team two years to plan the route. The logistics was equally daunting, and the intense preparation was essential due to the political sensitivity. 

He said: “The source of the Yangtze is close to Tibet and you need special permits that are difficult even for locals to get.”

“Then one has to contend with landslides, bears, wolves and the altitude, which is about the same height as Mount Everest base camp, so just over 5,400m.”

He added: “In winter, it can drop to minus 40 deg C and you get blizzards. And it’s just so wild.”

Ash said that what he had learned is perseverance. And it was perseverance in the smallest task, even the most mundance ones. And this is how he broke them down. 

“On day one, when I had so many struggles even getting there and I still had 352 days left, it was important not to look at the end goal and let that overwhelm me, but to focus on breaking it down into lots of little sections to make it more achievable and make sure I’m managing my expectations.”

That is the avalanche of a life plunging all at once on us - turning a daunting moment into a lifetime’s burden. 

I recall a friend who once told me that when you climb a mountain, there is no point looking either up or down. When there is still a long way to go, and when you have come so far up, he said just focus on every grip you have on the rocks. 

Look for the crevices for support. Focus on how to scale each small step that takes you forward. It is the daily task that adds up. They are the anonymous (seemingly inconsequential) steps that bring you up to the summit.

I also recall a saying that God is gracious with us by creating time. One that is spread out over a lifetime. Each second carries a moment and no more. And each minute carries sixty of those moments. 

Our life is thus not designed to pack every pain, sorrow, shock or trial into one moment and turn that moment into a boulder we carry for a major part of our journey. When we make that happen, that moment becomes unforgettable, and it also becomes overwhelming. 

Soon, it also becomes a dead weight, which sinks us deep like an anchor that drowns our resolve to move forward, and to savour what the other moments in life have in store for us. 

And soon, it also becomes a point of reference, an emotional benchmark, where we see all things through it; thereby turning even hope into a dreaded dead end. 

They say you take the color of your surrounding, and becomes the hue of the choice you make. That applies to a weighted moment too, where we compact it with the shock of a trauma or trial at that moment it happened. We too become that moment as it defines our present and discolourises our future. 

Alas, one defining moment, especially the bad, and it controls all other moments in our life and make them either invisible or truly inconsequential. 

So, I return to Ash, the adventurer, who practically took one step at a time to surmount the challenges he had to confront. His was the Yangtze River, the journey of great endurance and perseverance. 

Ours may be an event that happened to us in the past or a sorrow that has stopped us in our track or trek. Such moment of pain or fear is never meant or designed to stop time. For in time, God has given us a lifetime to spread the event however daunting (or crushing) it may be. 

Let the burden be shared (or spread) as we take each step affirming our healing and towards restoring our faith and hope in this journey that is given unto us for a season. That is, a season meant for overcoming, and a season meant for rejoicing as we finally reach the summit to savour the empowering view, including the view of what we had once overcome below, that is, those moments that once threatened to halt our journey, but we moved forward nevertheless, one moment at a time. 

Indeed, at that vantage point, those moments become exceedingly small and truly inconsequential in the larger scheme of life itself.

 

Church and the devout's misdirection.

This morning, someone I know for decades wrote to me. That friend said that she’d met an ex-church worker. That ex-church worker had been working for church for decades and said it was a wake-up experience. This is that person’s own words as expressed: -

"I came out of the darkest pit. I am no longer a Christian. I am a free thinker". 

Ironically, it seems like that person has found the truth, and it had set that person free, at least free from the “darkest pit”. 

After hearing that, my friend stood there in shock, speechless. Me too. I read that and it took a while before I snapped out of it.

I however needed to write this note this morning to set the record straight. And the record has always been that we pay the price when we mistake the Church for Christ. That is the price not of the Cross, but the price of a devout’s misdirection. 

This reminded me of the sad City Harvest saga. It took a trial of many years, and many lives and faith destroyed, before the leaders came to their senses and apologised. 

As Peter denied Christ thrice before he bowed in utter remorse, it took the head of City Harvest that many times, three that is, before he ceased all struggles and accepted the verdict. But by then, many, I believe, had come out of their own “darkest pit” and...well, became free? 

Returning to the price of a devout’s misdirection, we are all never too innocent when we are embroiled in our own church’s saga. I always believe that humanity itself is already a struggle to make ends meet, that is, to untie the Gordian knot of our own unmaking as we confront the common temptations in the different contexts in which they unravel before us. 

But when you light the match of religiosity and toss it carelessly into the rapid kerosene river of the mess that we are struggling with, that is, the hypocrisy, the pride, the lust for power and the ego, what you get is an institutional inferno that perpetuates itself indefinitely. 

Alas, truth be told, the church is supposed to be the bride of Christ. That much is clear. But this is one bride that has her own issues; some of which are deep, dark ones that seldom see the light of day. 

Let me nevertheless make this controversial statement, and it is this: the rise of a leader is often taken to mean that it is an anointing of and from God. That is another bold presumption over the long and convoluted history of church leadership. 

But let’s face it, the rise of a leader can be for many reasons, and for some, the predominant reason can be one other than an anointing of and from God. Or it may start with that, in the Spirit, but end midway in the flesh. That is, to me, is one of the manifest symptom of a devout’s misdirection. 

And for this sacred reason, it is indeed a blessing for a leader to start in His Spirit, persevere no less in His Spirit, and complete the race gaining the crown of Life, yes, in His Spirit. 

Let me return to my point about misdirection above, and let me ask you this: which came first, Trump’s Office of the President or God’s anointing? In my view, it is (most of the time) the former. The office of the President brings about the coveted legitimacy. And the anointing is therefore its afterthought.

So, by default, he or she who enters that office is deemed anointed, not the other way round. It is the chicken-and-the-egg quandary all over again. But the difference, in the context of a country and a church, is that one is an academic teaser, while the other concerns lives, thousands, if not millions of them. That’s the sin of misattribution, the close cousin of misdirection. 

When Christ declared to Peter that upon this rock, I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail, made no mistake about it, He is not referring to a human means to a glorified end. He is however talking about a Godly means to a Godly end. Any other way conceived by men is no more than men building their own tower of babel to reach not the One who created us in His image, but to reach the ones who create gods in their own image.

This is the mark of a devout’s misdirection. It is as insidious as it is deluded. For the price of the Cross is not in building the church for all to marvel. It is in the building of the temple within us, so that all could be transformed by the power of His name that we bear. Make no mistake about that, because committing that mistake is the allure of the pit that turns ever darker every time we tell ourselves otherwise.

 

Have an overcoming mid-week. God bless.

 

My talk with a church member - authenticity.

I had a good talk with a church member recently. It was about the church. 

Covid-19 has indeed changed the way we do church. It has challenged how we make the connection with people. When you take away the weekly physical mass gathering, what becomes of the church? When the numbers are down to five, when only zoom is allowed, how do we relate to one another? Are we then taking a walk down memory lane to the time when Jesus ministered to just the defining twelve, spending his life and most intimate hours with them? 

I felt that when I talked to the church member, what remains unchanged before and after Covid is the brokenness of a life struggling for authenticity in the faith. Whether you are in a crowd belting out catchy worship songs or attending a cell group in someone’s home, that brokenness is readily identifiable in a world that has become more confounding than ever. 

For this reason, I feel that the church should stop pretending to be a place where they put the Christian ideology before the Christian community, however good the intentions are. My qualms are not against the latter, but the obsession of the former. 

Sometimes we can worship the idea of a thing more than the thing itself. We then see a life/soul through the lens of professionalism instead of the lens of Calvary, where not all brokenness demands healing, not all sorrow can be prayed away, and not all personal gratification is about getting what you want; for sometimes, it is about receiving just the opposite of that, and then demonstrating the cultivated fruit of the Spirit within us.

Pastor Charles Swindoll once said: "The church was never meant to be a "professional organization". We'll let the world have all of those. The church is not a slick, efficient corporation with a cross stuck on its roof. It is a ministry. We do not look to the government for support or to the state for direction. We don't seek the counsel of Wall Street for financial suggestions. We have one Head, the Lord Jesus Christ. We do not rely on any earthly organization or some rich individuals to sustain the ministry. The church is a spiritual entity, built up and supported by its Founder, Jesus, who promised to build His church."" 

Now, I am not saying that we should not seek after righteousness embodied in Christ, the kind that results in an overcoming life, but what I am concerned is that that road often leads us to become complacent with efficiency, dispensing with one impersonal scripture after another, rather than finding peace, assurance and comfort notwithstanding the uncertainty and unpredictability of a broken life that is embarking on a journey that is not meant for quick fixes. 

Alas, the paradoxes of our belief are that sorrow and joy, pain and growth, and faith and doubt are not mutually exclusive. At most times, they are mutually empowering if we see beyond the vain struggles to make human sense of it. These borrowed words of Theologian Ray Anderson make the same point: “Prayer is not a means of removing the unknown and unpredictable elements in life, but rather a way of including the unknown and unpredictable in the outworking of the grace of God in our lives.” 

Here, I recall what Benny Hinn once said. He recounted that his own 11-year-old daughter had a difficult time figuring him out. In an interview, he said, "One day she asked me a question that absolutely blew me away - from my own child! "Daddy, who are you? That man up there (onstage), I don't know." He added, "If my own child is asking that, surely the whole world is asking that." I guess we are all asking ourselves that: “Who am I?” 

When we lead in a church, or as leaders in a ministry, who are we? Are we projecting what we want others to see, the part of us that avoids looking weak, looking broken and looking defeated? Is our optimism too contrived because we are still struggling with our own insecurities to be candid with our members? 

From his book The Emotionally Healthy Church, Pastor Peter Scazzero once made this candid observation about leadership in a church. “We can be spiritually mature while remaining emotionally immature.” He then went on to list the following frailties of humanity: -

* You can be a dynamic, gifted speaker for God in public and be an unloving spouse and parent at home.

* You can function as a church board member or pastor and be unteachable, insecure and defensive.

* You can memorize entire books of the New Testament and still be unaware of your depression and anger, even displacing it on other people.

* You can fast and pray a half-day a week for years as a spiritual discipline and constantly be critical of others, justifying it as discernment.

* You can lead hundred of people in a Christian ministry while driven by a deep personal need to compensate for a nagging sense of failure.

* You can pray for deliverance from the demonic realm when in reality you are simply avoiding conflict, repeating an unhealthy patten of behavior traced back to the home in which you grew up.

Alas, I recall 2 Corinthians 12:10 which reads, “For when I am weak, then I am strong.” Sadly, for those who privately believe in their own invulnerability, or at least struggle to keep up with appearances, it is a case of “for when I am weak, then I am not strong.” 

So, I return to the church member I spoke to. The cry for authenticity is real and I resonated with what the member had to say. It was also a cry for leaders to unmask themselves, to show their cracks, so that light can come through. 

Let me leave you with this poem by John Newton about enduring spiritual maturity and how God works in ways most disagreeable to our human expectations.

“I ask the Lord that I might grow

In faith, and in love, and every grace,

Might more of his salvation know

And seek more earnestly his face.

I hoped that in some favoured hour

At once He’d answer my request,

And by His love’s constraining power

Subdue my sins, and give me rest.

Instead of this, He made me feel

The hidden evils of my heart;

And let the angry powers of hell

Assault my soul in every part.”