Kong Hee vs. Eng Han: The ultimate church?

The friendship started in 1995. At that time, Kong Hee’s church services were held at the old Hollywood theatre in Tanjong Katong. The congregation was only 1,300-strong, but growing fast. A demon possession brought them together. Eng Han’s wife suffered "attacks" and had no control over her actions. She had a history with the occult as her father was a medium.

At one of the church services, Eng Han’s wife was doing a handstand and shocked everyone present. But Sun Ho came to her aid in 1996 when she prayed for her for two hours. She cast the demons out of Eng Han’s wife and the couple were very grateful. Their faith grew after that.

From there, Kong Hee and Eng Han bonded like brothers. Eng Han then rose quickly through the ranks. He was appointed to the church board in 1998, eventually becoming vice-president and treasurer. For the Crossover project, he was CHC’s investment/fund advisor. He was also Kong Hee’s confidante, mensch, trusted friend.

But things went down-south fast when the investigation of fraud started in 2010. Their friendship was put to the test when Eng Han was asked to draw the battle-lines of his allegiance. Accordingly to Eng Han, he “confronted Kong about the above, where Kong simply responded by asking him if he was still on his side. When Chew urged Kong to “just apologise and repent” by coming clean, and he didn’t, that was his last straw, where he finally left, in a signal he hoped to send to others to think about the church more critically.”

From foxhole buddies, they became two strangers standing on the opposite side of the fence or chasm, and the latter is getting wider of late. The bitterness between them spilled over during the 142-day trial when Eng Han told reporters that Kong Hee was a liar and deceived those closest to him. Eng Han then left the church in 2013 in utter disgust and disappointment.

But the feud did not end there. His woes worsened when CHC sued him last year for $21 million being unreturned investments. Mind you, this was the same church he once gave tens of thousands of dollars to without flinching or batting an eyelid. In total, about S$600,000 of his own money was poured into the building fund and a multi-purpose fund, which was used rather lavishly and exclusively by the pastoral couple.

Thinking back about the church members who had parted with their hard-earned money, Eng Han lamented: “These people are all living difficult lives, you know? Even for myself, for all the earnings I have given, I could have saved or multiplied it for my own children. I hardly have anything now, because I believed in this vision, in serving God.”

Then came the recent saber-rattling when Eng Han lodged a police report last week against eight CHC’s members for fraudulent misrepresentation. He said, "I am only one of many victims of misrepresentation. The focus is not on myself but on what Kong, Sun and (their) team have done to the members, many of whom have left the place.”

Alas, Eng Han’s dream of a church which was “so different from other churches, always at the forefront of new things” came to an unexpected, bitter end with the investigation, prosecution, trial, conviction, sentence, civil litigation (for the return of S$21 million) and the recent accusations of fraudulent misrepresentation against his ex-mentor, former spiritual leader and trusted shepherd, Kong Hee.

At this juncture, it is ironic that when Kong Hee was cross-examined in Aug 2014, he said this: “I began to transition from the role of a shepherd to that of a rancher. So basically and I’ve said this to my members many times instead of just becoming a shepherd, I became the chief feeder, the chief leader….. I’m still pretty much playing the role of a typical church pastor, although, because the church has grown, I got to take a more helicopter view of things.”

The operative word here is “rancher” as against being a shepherd. And if I may stretch the metaphor further, with some indulgences, I see a nuanced difference between the heart of a shepherd and the business of a rancher.

I think the Bible used “shepherd” for a specific purpose. In John 21, Jesus the Good Shepherd told Peter that if he truly love him, he would do three things: “Feed my lamb”, “Take care of my sheep”, and “Feed my sheep.” Unmistakably, the sacred role of the Good Shepherd is to watch over His sheep, protect them, nurture them, guide and lead them, and inspire the flock – just as Jesus had done with his disciples. And should even one sheep wander off, the Good Shepherd would spare no effort to look for it.

But Kong Hee’s rancher metaphor, although unintended by him, is uncanny (not to mention, disturbingly ironic) and the parallel to his current situation in the light of the investigation, trial, sentence and Eng Han’s recent police report leaves a bad taste in the mouth – to put it mildly. It is unfortunately a case of cutting your nose to spite your face, or in Kong Hee’s case, shooting one’s foot with a metaphor that backfires more than it stirs up the noblest of intention and desires.

Now, one can’t help but see Kong Hee’s leadership as he’d self-described it, that is, a rancher. And a rancher in the modern context is one who breeds and sells animals for food-related purposes, or a tidy profit.

A rancher essentially runs a business, and unlike a shepherd who tends to and protects his flock, sacrificing himself for their safety, the rancher’s goal is to feed his livestock, and encourage them to reproduce, all for the purpose of marketing, advertising, distributing and selling them for money. At the end of the day, it is all about the bottomline, or the profit margin to maximize self-gain.

Metaphor overkill or a Freudian slip? – you be the judge.

Here, Luke 15:3-7 is instructive. It is about Jesus rebuking the religious leaders when the latter caught Jesus welcoming and eating with “sinners”. Jesus’ riposte is captured in this parable: “Which of you men, if you had one hundred sheep, and lost one of them, wouldn’t leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one that was lost, until he found it? When he has found it, he carried it on his shoulders, rejoicing. When he comes home, he calls together his friends, his family and his neighbors, saying to them, “Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!” I tell you that even so there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents, than over ninety-nine righteous people who need no repentance.”

The metaphor, I admit, gets even more ironical. With granted indulgence to stretch it just that tad bit, it is safe to say that Kong Hee is not going to set up an a la Tommy Lee Jones’ search party anytime soon to overturn “every gas station, residence, warehouse, farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse and doghouse” to look for that one sheep (and the many others) who had once dedicated his (their) life, time and money to his ministry, but had left in disillusionment and disappointment for what they have perceived as an unrepentant leadership, which now desperately seeks expansion just to regain lost ground.

Metaphor overkill or reality check? – you be the judge.

The biting irony? Kong Hee (and his wife) have spared no effort and expenses to go around the world to look for new sheep, rounding up the flock in the outer regions, but, to those who had once given their undying allegiance to him, even his most trusted confidante, he conveniently walks on by, leaving them to care for themselves, their broken trust, faith and hope lie in ruins (while the charismatic rancher and his beatific partner expand their estate to welcome the new flock). And when the church attendance dropped from about 24,000 to 17,000, with many even leaving the faith due to numbing disillusionment after giving of their best years to the ministry, I wonder what is Kong Hee doing as their self-proclaimed shepherd to remain accountable to them? Is his apparent nonchalance in conformity with what Jesus once commanded Peter to do, that is, “Feed my lamb”, “Take care of my sheep”, and “Feed my sheep”?

Unfortunately, this is made even more unsettling when we clearly saw last November the passing of one's decade-old bible to another (spouse to spouse), a marital mantle transference, yet Kong Hee, not being a pastor, is currently busy being a pastor (or a rancher as he called himself) taking a helicopter-like flight around the regions to preach with sweet abandonment. I guess searching for (and making peace with) one or two lost sheep is less of a priority for him than roping in new ones.

Metaphor overkill or opportunistic spirituality? - you be the judge.

(Now, let me be absolutely clear that I rejoice too when souls are saved – regardless of the effort or intention. My focus is not on the saved, but the leadership – which is called to a higher accountability. My point is about the personal and private reflection of the whole truth by the leadership, and not the evasion, manipulation, dilution or discombobulation of it. I preface that no one here is beyond reproach. My only concern is that Kong Hee might be on an evangelistic overdrive to overcompensate for his leadership failures and shortcomings instead of coming to a point of broken admission at the feet of Jesus so as to move forward for greater enduring works. For I always believe there is no greater manifestation of God’s power than a man reformed, renewed and truly reborn).

I guess Jesus was spot on when he said that “there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents, than over ninety-nine righteous people who need no repentance.” Alas, in today’s self-therapeutic culture in some religious circles, I think repentance is grossly undervalued. It has become an inconvenient truth. We rather keep it under wraps – especially the leadership – because repentance makes us look bad. Saying sorry is not only the hardest word; it is also an image wrecker. We just can’t keep up with appearances if we admit to the need for personal deliverances. Kong Hee’s three bows say it all. It is a melodrama of finger-pointing and not a personal trauma of unreserved admission.

Some churches are even dispensing with after-altar-call repentance altogether because they have deemed themselves righteous long even before a stray thought, a crooked act or a devious desire could materialize. For them, repentance is always other people since the body of Christ is already righteous, beyond reproach by virtue of Calvary. But seriously, are we? Has Christianity of late gaining more appeal, authenticity and credibility because we are progressively becoming more righteous than before? Is that why people believe and are drawn to us...because of our declared righteousness (or is it because of our admitted brokenness and open humility)? 

Let me end this way. I read somewhere that Eng Han was once so impressed with Kong Hee's leadership that he exclaimed that CHC was the "ultimate church". This is in line with what Kong Hee once said that he didn't want CHC to be just like any of the neighborhood churches.

Well, after the fallout in 2010, I guess it is back to the drawing board for Eng Han because, for now, the ultimate church only comes when the perfect comes. In the meantime, and for all time until then, all churches are work in progress. We are churches on the way and no church, be it by virtue of popularity, charisma, wealth or numbers, can declare that they have arrived – that they are the ultimate church.

And I trust that it is not just a matter of declaring one's righteousness and that's that, but it is about bearing the fruits of His righteousness that matters most. For we all know that seeds don't spring out into a mature oak tree in a day or two. It takes time. It takes discipline. It takes a whole lot of trust and obey. And no infinite recitation of one's righteousness without genuine repentance along the way can mature the spirit, strengthen the soul, and deny the flesh.

So, I guess the animus between Kong Hee and Eng Han will go on for some time to come. And while Kong Hee can publicly claim that he has forgiven Eng Han, even with the latest stunt concerning a certain police report, I don’t think both of them will be voluntarily sharing a space together any time in the future since the fault in their view always lies with the other person. Cheerz.

Postscript:- 

Some have come to me of late to tell me to stop "bashing" Kong Hee. Why do I have an axe to grind? Leave him and the good things he is doing alone. Don't touch God's anointed. And I am not even from the church; never attended except for one occasion last year with my son because he was invited quite enthusiastically by his classmate and his parents.  Well, here is why, in the best way I know how to explain it (if what I have written above thus far is woefully inadequate)...

...I recalled one CHC member once said: “Our trust is in God, not in man. As the Bible tells us, all men will make mistakes.” This is clearly a sound statement and the member appears discerning. But what happens next is more disconcerting than discerning. Here's how it all spills out. Kong Hee passes the full leadership mantle (over to his wife); yet he is still leading, preaching, instructing, traveling, conferencing, liaising, networking, connecting and commandeering. No one attending CHC can be mistaken as to who is still in full charge and ownership. Is Kong Hee really this indispensable to CHC, to the kingdom of God at large? Is preaching the word to an audience of hundreds and thousands more important to him now than to withdraw from all that for a season and a season only to preach to an audience of one – himself? And doesn’t this make a mockery to (or at least trivialize) the authenticity of the leadership handover? Here’s more disconcerting turn of events. Kong Hee is convicted and sentenced in November last year; yet he shows absolutely no remorse, regrets and contrition (even if not for the criminal charges, which he is understandably appealing, at least for the moral failures or lapses, or “mistakes” as his member puts it). Or is this a case of reserving a different standard for leaders and another for laymen? And that’s not all. Kong Hee had been forewarned before of the slippery slope regarding the Crossover project by a truly discerning member Roland Poon (and even pastors from other churches offered guidance); yet he did as he deem fit using religion, charisma and status quo as a justification, prosecution (of Roland Poon) and perpetuation, and forgetting Proverbs 10:37 which reads: “Whoever heeds instructions is on the path to life, but he who rejects reproof leads others astray.” Then, comes accountability. Kong Hee’s leadership over the years has been marred by controversies, shortcomings, dubious collection drive, pressure tactics, extravagant lifestyle, lavish expenditures, disturbing music videos, lies and deception about the sales of it, and I am not even talking about the criminal charges, and yet he is still riding high as CHC’s de facto pastor as if he is sacredly chosen for the role (with his name on it) by the god who once told him to endure it all for a purpose and even apologized to him that he had to endure it all for that purpose. My god, am I the only one who sees a disconnect here? Is it any wonder that non-believers are disgusted? Can we as believers not understand their godsmacked incredulity of Kong Hee’s total obliviousness and mind-boggling audacity?  If we are honest about it, truly honest, I think the Crossover project is not so much about evangelism. It is however about telling the world (and the other churches) that Kong Hee and Sun Ho have got it right. They are simply obsessed with the rightness of their decision, with religious zeal even, and all else that comes against it is just plain rebellion. This literally cause her members to leave Godly discernment at the doorstep as they blissfully enter the blessed House of.…Kong Hee. And I agree with the church member who said that his trust is in God and not man, for all men make mistakes. But from the looks of it, from the things I have spelt out above, from the impunity-like care-freeness of Kong Hee’s recent evangelistic romp, I think the member is saying one thing and doing another. What is more ironic is that he - like Kong Hee - may not even realize it - or simply choose not to. Cheerz.

Misery is optional.

I have learnt that no matter how bad things are, you can always make things worse. If pain is inevitable, then misery is optional. Pain like suffering comes unbidden. But they often do not stay for long. Once the bad news is announced, or the bad event comes, they like messengers take their leave. They bid you farewell. They have done their part. Their work is complete. The rest is up to you. In their departure, what is often left behind is either misery or hope, helplessness or resilience, resignation or resolution.

I believe a time is given for mourning. A time for reflection. A time for grieve. After that, it's time for recovery. You can either make it better or make it worse. You can ruminate until it hurts. You can sleep all day and refuse to move a muscle. You can mope and sulk to attract sympathy and pity. You can play the victim and soak up the attention. You can make it worse by refusing to make it better. Your choice counts. Your response is invaluable. Your resolve matters.

When you have hit rock bottom, it is often said that the only way to go is up. But many are forgetting that rock bottom is an insidious place of false comfort too. Many will seek solace in staying down instead of drawing hope in standing up. To many, wallowing in the "rock bottom" is a form of negative rejuvenation where hopelessness and helplessness take turn to demoralize the victim further in a vicious cycle of restless desolation.

So, if the mother of invention is necessity, then the mother of encouragement is proactivity. We take control of the messiness in our life and set things right once again. It is a tough undertaking no doubt but every step forward is nevertheless a step that deeply empowers. What makes the crucial difference is a choice invested to change our life for the better. The changes may be small, and even seemingly insignificant, but the circumstantial forces rallied around that one act of proactivity contain the power to break down many walls that conspire to cage us in.

Let me end with the observation of Viktor Frankl, a survivor of the Nazi occupation, in his bestseller Man's Search for Meaning, "We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in numbers, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances - to choose one's own way."

So, times may indeed be bad, no sweat. You are there to make it better. Cheerz.

What's wrong with the megachurches' prosperity pastors?

What’s wrong with an overflowing Church? A mega-church? A Church packed with people dying to get in, queuing up for hours before the service starts just to get the best seat in the house? What’s wrong with prosperity pastors who are famous, wealthy and in demand? What’s wrong with prosperity pastors who author bestsellers in seasons and out and who own/earn royalties from their books, sells audio-tapes of their books, auctions movie rights to their books, and are paid ten of thousands of dollars for speaking about their books?

What’s wrong with pastors who have an entourage following them wherever they go and their members need to make an appointment days in advance with their secretary just to see them for a short while? What’s wrong with pastors whose fans hail from different parts of the world, all waiting eagerly to seek their advice, their counsel, their wisdom and their endorsement? What’s wrong with pastors who preach to tens of thousands and can’t stop their listeners from giving to them their money, time and attention because they all believe that they are the one true emissary of Christ and trust them completely with how they would spend the money given to them – no questions asked? For don’t they give out of love in what is affectionately called love gifts?

What’s wrong with pastors who look the part, play the part and act the part on stage with all the trappings of a modern day Joshua who proclaims that the day of the Lord is here and roar with confidence, faith and hope? What’s wrong with pastors who own mansions not only in heaven, but on earth, and go for weekly spa and personal grooming just so that they could look presentable in front of their beloved congregation and on broadcasting networks syndicated all over the world?

What’s wrong with pastors whose congregation believe they are the key to all their theological quagmire, doubts, puzzles, doldrums, problems and agitations because they preach a God who loves unconditionally, forgives unreservedly, gives unceasingly and blesses over and above what they can ever imagine? What’s wrong with such leaders who live in unimaginable material comfort after experiencing a blessed breakthrough and now believe that prosperity is their birth right from God? And what’s wrong with pastors who travel either in a private jet own by their Church for their exclusive usage or flies business or first class because for them God’s elect don’t do economy?

What's wrong with pastors who are feared by their staff, who have the final word in everything from Church maintenance to budget allocation, and whose vision once articulated in pastoral meeting is fully endorsed by the Church without a single objection or a moment’s delay - dare they? What’s wrong with a Church led by such a visionary of God so claimed and believed by thousands as the leader who will show them the path to true and enduring transformation and sustaining prosperity regardless of background, context and station in life? What’s wrong with pastors who reveal divine revelations once in a while and their congregation treats them like edicts from God himself to be believed in whole - unquestioned?

Alas, what’s wrong with me asking what’s wrong with them? Am I nursing envy, stoking the fire of jealousy, and licking my own wounds of discontentment, inadequacies and disillusionment? Is it just me here? Or is there something more than me?

For how wrong can such a pastor be with his glib tongue, renown credentials, unmistakable stage presence, past records of worldwide evangelism and testimonies of signs and wonders following him wherever he goes? Shouldn’t God be proud of all his successes secured and the souls he had saved in His name and the membership he had gained in his Church? Shouldn’t God look down from Heaven and say that he is well pleased with such an accomplished son/daughter whose faith and works have not only astonished the world at large, but have even surprised those residing blissfully in the realm of the supernatural?

Surely, a leader of such earth-shattering influence has to be veritably anointed for such works and is wholly deserving of such fame, wealth, comfort, adulation, emulation, devotion, attention and unquestioned trust right? Surely, he is blessed by the divine hand and is thus living a smooth-sailing life of faith, hope and love that the majority can only hope to achieve in their lifetime, right? In other words, he or she has indeed created a utopian paradise on earth for himself or herself by spreading the word of God to all the four corners of the world.

Wouldn’t a life like this be what Jesus was talking about in that greater works than this shall he/she perform because the son has gone to be with the Father? What is therefore not to like, admire, emulate and desire when it comes to craving for such successes or unqualified anointing for oneself? And if actions speak louder than words, shouldn’t the deeds of such a man or woman be the Jericho chant that brings down the house? What can go wrong with such a leader whose every move is hotly anticipated and whose every word on stage or in print is clung on to with bated breath, mindless devotion and unquestioned authority?

Alas, the issue is not whether such a man (or woman) actually exists in our world. I am sure he exists and is presently thriving with his congregation feeding off from his hand of divine revelation and knowledge.

But the issue is this:-

“Should such a person exist, will he one day turn his attention to the one thing that is standing in his way towards believing in and achieving his own infallibility, and that one thing is the One whose name he has been invoking on stage, behind the pulpit, in the media and in print in order to arrive at where he is today?”

In other words, will a man (or woman) of such immense fame, riches and stardom kick away the proverbial ladder he once used to climb to the top since he has already arrived at the top and has no need for the ladder anymore?

God forbid that such a man (or woman) who once lived in complete dependence on God should now strive to compete with God in the secret chambers of his heart, and yet demonstrates projected humility as an outward expression in order to keep up with appearances or to milk the crowd at a time when he is inwardly nurturing a pride not unfamiliar to a particular angel who once fell because he had claimed equality with God. And the only problem with such a leader is that he may one day believe that he is no less than the God he once worshipped – if not greater. Cheerz.

PS:…mm…old habits die hard and old tale recycled ad infinitum. Haven’t we seen it all? What is ever new under the sun? The fall of men follows ever so closely at the heels of their meteoric rise. Just as Abe Lincoln has said it: “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.”

Silenced Humanity.

Here is what I can't understand. It's in the news today.

After their 2-year-old son, Daniel, was pronounced dead in hospital, his mother and her boyfriend went home to watch tv. And in another news recently, a father raped and pimped out his young 11-year-old daughter. When arrested, all he could say was this: "It was fun while it lasted."

In the first case, the mother (and her boyfriend) slapped her son almost everyday and was charged for child abuse. Yesterday, she was sentenced to 11 years jail and her boyfriend to 10 years and 12 strokes.

Here's a brief background. She has six children. Her eldest is 20. Her ex-husband, the boy's father, was in prison for drug offences. She lived with her boyfriend.

They abused little Daniel for five-week straight (starting in Oct last year). Slapping him repeatedly, making him stand with his hands on his head wearing only a nappy, forcing him to eat a spoonful of dried chili, and stamping on his chest.

This was what happened the day before he died. Daniel refused his breakfast and his mother slapped him three times. When Daniel fell, her boyfriend stamped on his chest. Later that evening, while Daniel was made to stand, he felt tired and rested his hand on the bed frame. For that, he was slapped again.

As Daniel was lying on the floor out of exhaustion, the couple fed him chili and made him stand again. As he wavered due to fainting spell, they launched another string of abuse at Daniel. This time the abuse went full throttle.

They slapped and kicked his chest and stomach and Daniel hit his head against the floor. As he was lying on the floor, they force-fed him chili for the second time until mucus came out of his nose. The next morning, at 8 am, the paramedic were called in on a motionless Daniel and they can't find a heartbeat.

The second abuse happened in Australia. Her father repeatedly raped his daughter when she was between 11 and 13 years old. He even invited strangers to abuse her while he watched and participated. One of the men who answered the call was a former church pastor.

It reports that "on one occasion when the father and another man were filming, the girl was shown shackled to a bed, wearing a dog collar, and in the footage, she could be seen struggling against the restraints and pleading with (her father) to stop."

Lesson? I can hardly marshal up one...

When Jesus admonished his disciples to let the children come to him, do not forbid them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these, three minds come to my mind.

First, I wonder, what was running in the minds of little Daniel and that young Australian girl when the one who was supposed to protect them becomes their tormentor? I can only imagine their fear, confusion, anger, agony and pain.

The judge who sentenced the couple said, "The idea of a mother causing such grievous hurt and ill-treatment of the baby she had carried for nine months is simply incomprehensible... (Daniel) had been subjected to abuse and pains at the hands of the very persons who should have been his source of support, comfort and happiness."

Second, what was running in the minds of their supposed protector turned abusers? I guess the evil of men is no stranger to the history of humanity. We are capable of anything, the highest good or the unthinkable evil. And the most incomprehensible of them all is the evil that arises out of supposed love, support and protection.

It was reported that when sentenced, both of them showed no emotion. This was in stark contrast to Daniel's biological father and Daniel's former caregivers, "who could not contain their tears afterward."

One of the caregivers who took care of Daniel from birth until his mother took him back last October said, "He was a happy boy. We love him so much. He was not a difficult child. Even though I didn't give birth to him, I treated him as my own son."

Daniel's father cried, "I kept having images of my son being bullied...how they kicked...punched, forced him to eat chili. I keep thinking about my son. I hoped that I could celebrate Hari Raya with him. But I can't."

And...

Third, what was running in Jesus' mind? He must have seen it all. Experienced it himself even. Felt the helplessness. Endured the agony and pain. What then went through his mind at such time when Daniel died from the abuse, when the young daughter was raped by her father and strangers, and when million of children go through deprivation, torture, starvation and sexual abuse everyday, and eventually succumbed?

Alas, I will never know or understand, even a fraction of, the mind of God.

At such time, it is cold comfort to say that we live in a fallen world with fallen world consequences, and a better world awaits on the other side. In sheer helplessness, I have to accept the unacceptable and move forward to change the changeable. At times, you need more than the serenity prayer to bridge the gap. You need serenity.

Let me close with what I call the "silenced humanity".

Not every lesson can be taught.


Not every lesson is learned.


Not every life will be blessed.


And not every blessed life will live.


Not every pain has an answer.


Not every answer comes without pain. 


Not every hope comes true. 


And not every truth spells hope.

Not every prayer is heard. 


Not every prayer heard is delivered.


Not every rescue endures.


And not every endurance is rescued.

Not every trust is good.


And not every good can be trusted.


Not every death is tragic.


For some are timely; less barbaric.

This is how humanity silences humanity. 

This is how hope silences hope.

For nothing hurts more than a silent divinity.

And this is how we must all cope.

Cheerz.

Once saved always saved - Is Trump a Christian?

This week, there was a rumor going around that Donald Trump had accepted Christ. One source said that he was led to the faith by James Dobson. Another said that it was Paula White who brought him to Christ. Still another source said that his heart was open and tender to the message of the Cross. The Christian right in America are swooning over the potential President-to-be. They have gravitated to this man whose proposed values are completely opposed to the teachings of Jesus. And it appears that he is not going to change them whether for good sense or for religion.

Of course, Jesus discriminated no one as salvation is an unearned gift. And if Trump were the one who was hanged on the Cross with the son of man, and pleaded earnestly for remembrance of him with Jesus, I am sure Jesus would have uttered the same assurance to him as he’d given to the thief – “Today you will be with me in paradise.” That is a big “if” I know, and underscore “earnestly”.

But the question is this if the news is to be believed, Is Donald Trump really saved? Even if the news were all a farce, can anyone imagine Donald Trump to be genuinely saved? Or is it all a theatrical act for the predominant purpose of winning the Christian evangelical votes, which numbers in the millions?

I guess we can speculate here till the cow comes home about intention and motive and would still be none the wiser. But more pertinently, this rumination led me to a deeper question: What does being saved means to a believer in the first place?

I was conducting my cell group last Friday and the question of “Once saved always saved” cropped up in our discussion. Most of us are uncomfortable with that promise of eternal salvation. It just seemed too good to be true. It just seemed to be liable for abuse more than it seeks to reassure or empowered. Telling a believer that once he is saved, he is always saved somehow gives him the license to sin since what is inevitable after the altar call is his fallibility. And this vulnerability only tempts the struggling believer to ride on that promise of eternal security as an free pass in the same way a welfare bum would depend on the government for welfare cheques and food stamps and thus shun work.

If I had to bet my bottom dollar on humanity, I would place it all on the box that is marked as “sin-prone” rather than the box that is marked as “sinless”. Even the sincerest of believers, who utters the sinner’s prayer at the altar with the surest of convictions, is given a lifetime to fall, and without fail, he will. The Christian journey is therefore a perilously fraught one, and the struggles are seemingly monumental.

So, what does it mean to be saved then?

One author wrote this: “The message of Christianity is about leaving an illusion and joining a reality. It is not about leaving things that are secular to embrace things that the church has deemed sacred and safe to use. The message of Christianity is about leaving a lie to embrace the truth. To leave darkness to embrace light. This is the journey that Jesus – the light of the world – takes us on. To cross from death to life. Christianity is about leaving things that aren’t true to understand things that are.” (Jared Herd “More lost than found”)

What is true about us then?

Now, in my view, what is true about us is that we are “a troubled guest on the dark earth.” Goethe said, “And so long as you haven’t experienced this: to die and so to grow, you are only a troubled guest on the dark earth.” Most times, we think that the Christian walk is about struggling with life, making the most of our choices to be faithful to our calling. But that is not the full story of faith. In fact, it is not the living that is difficult. It is the dying to self that challenges us the most, and it is the challenge of a lifetime.

For this reason, I am never convinced by what some of the preachers out there are saying about simply declaring yourself righteous in Christ and presto! it is done. There is just some elements of misappropriation in that universal appropriation of personal righteousness. I do not think that these preachers are presenting the full gospel of the Cross.

When Apostle Paul said that “for me to live is Christ and to die is gain,” that is the stellar words of a dead man walking. He had - as Goethe puts it - experienced what is death (to self) and growth (in God) to have come to that point of unshakeable confession. And Paul’s life demonstrated that prevailing truth as he gave himself to the object of his faith.

Henri Nouwen once said, “There is such a thing as a good death. We are responsible for the way we die. We have to choose between clinging to life in such a way that death becomes nothing but a failure, or letting go of life in freedom so that we can be given to others as a source of hope.”

In fact, if that honorable moniker of “once saved always saved” is ever applicable to anyone I know, Apostle Paul (and the many disciples who lived and died for God) fits the bill hands down. They were saved by the Cross, and they put themselves to death at the foot of the Cross, and in between, they lived out their humanity, their brokenness, and their failures, by following the selfless trail of the victory of the Cross. They made it not so much because they were living their life to the fullest. But they made it because they had given their life away so that they may live in the fullness of their Savior’s life. To them, this exchange is the most soul-breaking, but it is also the most rewarding.

In the cell group, I shared that God doesn’t expect us to take leaps of faith at every turn in our life. Christianity is not a stunt-man movie where we are expected to meet danger, trial and furnace fire head on, and then emerge as the last man standing to rousing applause.

Christianity is not about standing before a crowd and boasting about how God has changed us for His glory. In other words, it is not about being amazed at the altar call. It is not about being loud about our faith, striving to be prominent, outstanding and conspicuous. It is on the contrary about standing in awe, in brokenness, in gratitude, silent and humbled, and allowing oneself to be deeply ministered. It is a lifetime transformation through personal sacrifice, unconditional love and unwavering commitment, and not one engaged in for the novelty of the sentiment. Neither is it an openly pious act which expects something secretly self-profiting in return. Christianity is most un-rewarding if you are looking for attention.

I think George Carlin puts it best about his perennial distrust for those Christians who claim to be “born again”. He said, “They talk too much, pure and simple. When I was born, I was so stunned that I couldn’t speak for two years! If someone has a religious experience and shuts up for a couple of years, I will take him seriously.” Curiously, I am reminded of the words of TS Eliot here and I will leave you to connect the dots: “The last temptation is the greatest treason, to do the right deed for the wrong reason.”

I also shared at the cell group that our Christian walk is often in the faithfulness of the little things. Like marriage, we love even when we do not see any reason to love or at a time when we feel the least in love. And like being a parent, we wake up to bring our kids to school even when waking up everyday is an immense struggle for us. It is our unwavering commitment to the little things, the things no one sees or hears, that truly sustain and build us up over the years to remain faithful to our calling, even unto death. That is how we close the gap between being saved at the altar and remaining saved at our deathbed.

So, seen in this perspective, it is often for the lack of imagination and humility that the promise of eternal security can be abused for our own selfish gains (or taken for granted). For if we can imagine a love so compelling and live our life in humble submission to this unfailing compulsion without drawing attention to ourselves in ways that feeds our ego, our cravings for personal greatness, or as one theologian puts it, to pander to “the insubstantiality of me”, wouldn’t we experience the empowering reality in Goethe’s words of death to self and alive in Christ?

So, I guess the early disciples had never debated about or doubted the assurance of their salvation. They were never unsure about it anyway. They don’t need any assurance by repeatedly telling others that they will never lose their salvation. “Once saved always saved” was to them a silent anchorage in their heart. Their life and deeds driven by gratitude and conviction was all the assurance they needed, and that was more than enough for them. For it is said that to be holy is to be grateful, always.

And going back to the Republican Presidential nominee, is Donald Trump a Christian? Is he saved? I guess if we apply George Carlin’s test, I can’t be too sure. It would be almost impossible for the Donald Trump I read about to keep mum about his conversion at first light, especially when it would swing millions of votes in his direction this November. And let's not forget TS Eliot’s greatest treason, that is, to do right for the wrong reason.

But then, alas, I may be wrong – because what is impossible for Trump is not impossible for God. Cheerz.

Pornified culture.

The truth is out. We live in a pornified culture. What is once a surreptitious act is now an audacious fact. A survey conducted recently shows that 9 out of 10 boys were exposed to porn. And they are between the age of 13 to 15.

It reports that "experts say the findings are worrying as such content can affect children's studies, self-esteem, interpersonal relationships and their attitudes and behavior towards love and sex. If addiction sets in, it may lead to various forms of dysfunction and sexual crimes."

In today's technology-inspired world, 54 percent of boys said "they searched for it intentionally on the Net while 43 percent of the girls stumbled upon it while surfing online."

In one reported case, a boy 10 peeped into his dad's room and saw naked people on screen. He then searched for it out of curiosity and became hooked. As the addiction grew, he "engaged in cyber sex on online forum and chat rooms to experience "another level" of sexual fantasy and experience." When his parents found out, he ran away from home.

In another case, a chief executive of Agape Group Holdings chanced upon a group of students (sec 2 and 3) from an elite school watching Japanese porn movie and spoke to them. Their reply? "The leader of the group said he knew about the site after he chanced upon it on his father's iPad." When probed further, the teen argued "that pornography was art and a form of sex education that would prepare him for manhood."

The boy's father was called in and he challenged the teacher: "What's wrong with it? He is growing up."

Lesson? I wonder, is the father right? Is this part and parcel of growing up?

Let's face it. If Jesus' standard of (mental) adultery is strictly adhered to, at some point in our life, we husbands/fathers are all guilty of it. It's just a matter of degree. There is just no point being self-righteous about momentary mental lapses that is a culmination of boredom, curiosity, moral oversight and temptation succumbed. We are only human.

But where does a father draw the line? Is it a case of do-what-I-say-and-not-what-I-do, or worse, do we fathers justify it by saying that these adult materials are meant to accelerate your growth and maturity son?

Picture this (pun seriously unintended): Is watching a couple, or a group of strangers, engaging in sex of varying unimaginable postures all for the sole purpose of extracting as much self-pleasure as possible while treating the women in the act as a means to one's hedonistic end in any way educational, maturity encouraging or growth spurring?

Growing up is a splendor of many things, but watching naked people engaging in sex in a way that is degrading, humiliating and demeaning is definitely not a recipe for responsibility and maturity. We fathers should know better.

While marital sex edifies, porn desensitizes. While marital sex promotes intimacy, porn provokes promiscuity. And while marital sex honors the body and the partner, porn dehumanizes the body and the partner. Porn addiction in essence reduces all relationships into a mindless intercourse of perverted desires. It is devoid of commitment, responsibility and love.

The last thing we want our son to be is to be breast-centric or vagina-centric, and instead of respecting and enjoying a relationship for life, they only view the whole intimacy act as a one-sided self-pleasuring extraction that lasts only for as long as he is satisfied.

The danger is that our porn-addict son - via our implicit encouragement - may go into a marriage expecting reality in the bedroom to conform to the fantasy in his mind. When the reality-fantasy line is blurred, his wife will become just another sex object (ordered to perform) rather than a human being to be loved and given oneself for. When that times come, love would mutate to lust, and boredom in the bedroom usually morphs into excitement and thrills seeking in a series of one-night stands.

Let me end with this quote by Theodore Dalrymple: "It is a mistake to suppose that all men...want to be free. On the contrary, if freedom entails responsibility, many of them want none of it...The aim of untold millions is to be free to do exactly as they choose and for someone else to pay when things go wrong."

So, enduring freedom (the freedom that transforms you for the better) is about responsibility. It is about keeping healthy and robust boundaries that grow you inside out. Freedom without responsibility in this case is an entrapment where insatiable lust meets insatiable demands.

For this reason, we fathers hold a sacred responsibility to our sons. We want them to grow up strengthened and matured by the responsibility that comes with enduring freedom and not the freedom that imprisons them with oppressing desires that they can't control. Most of all, we want them to grow up respecting, honoring and elevating the opposite sex, and not degrading, demeaning and objectivizing them. Cheerz.