Of Yong Vui Kong and Buddhism

One of the most fascinating side plots in the Yong Vui Kong story is his conversion to Buddhism in prison. He spoke about how it gave him peace in his heart, and at last, he was ready to accept his fate.

His beliefs led to his withdrawal of the appeal, which, however, was subsequently nullified. His lawyer argued that he was not in the right state of mind then, and had confused religious piety with legal reasoning. It was noted that Yong had wanted to accept his fate due to his beliefs, and did not want to lie in an appeal. However, he misunderstood the fact that the appeal was not against his crimes, but rather against capital punishment.

It is interesting to see how many individuals, in times of crisis, seek religion as a means of dealing with their emotional trauma. Yong's predicament represents a rather extreme example, where his own life was at stake.

I can see a little of myself in Yong. For me, religion still very much has a strong grip on me emotionally. The church is a place where I find solace. I still pray, even though my intellect and reasoning protests vehemently against the idea of God. While religion seems to have receded much in my intellect, it still occupies a seat in my mind -- in the realm of emotions.

Someone might accuse me of rampant emotionalism, but I beg to differ. Researchers (Jonathan Haidt and others) have shown that emotions play a crucial part in decision-making. Individuals lacking in an emotional capacity are found to possibly lose the ability to make good decisions that benefit themselves and others.

One crucial element that has been missing in the tussle between religionists and atheists is the role of emotion in decision-making about God, which is often conceptualised as the foundation of our morality. It is therefore not too shabby an idea to say that "God cannot be reasoned, but has to be felt." We should get rid of the idea that just because somebody believes in God through his or her emotions, his beliefs should be rubbished.

Turns out that this is essential human nature.

Nevertheless, the problem of whether God originates in our mind or outside of it is still not solved. But while religion may originate in our emotions, we must not compartmentalise it in a box. Religion must still be guided by reason, and a failure to do so could lead to misguided action. Take for instance much of the fundamentalist church, with their unwavering belief in imposing their faith in politics and the legal system. Is this an instance of flawed reasoning?

The Yong case provides another example. A failure to separate emotionality with legal reasoning led Yong to believe that giving up on his appeal was the best way forward.

But when all is said and done, there is no denying the comfort that religion brings to an individual. Karl Marx said that "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness."

Not enough emphasis has been put on the sentence before Marx's famous quip. Yong, who rotted in prison awaiting his sentencing, sought solace in Buddhism, which was in fact his only remedy. Defenseless against a cold-hearted bureaucracy, he had to find a way to man up to his impending death. Oppressed by the staid reasoning of the government, Yong had to turn to religion. Cut off from social support by the walls of his prison cell, he had no other choice.

Of course, if Marx were alive today, he would probably say that Buddhism is not the solution to Yong's problem. Rather, true change can only come in the reformation of the justice system, which is designed to favour those in power. Only with the burning down of the judiciary and the creation of a new order from the ashes can the happiness of those like Yong be secured.

Both Max Weber and Emile Durkheim, the founding fathers of Sociology, saw the purpose of religion -- to act as a safeguard against moral degradation in modern society. Weber saw modern society and its dependence on science and rationality as being thoroughly unable to tackle ethical questions. Religion, therefore, sought to impute values and morality in the individual, and his central thesis was that Protestant Christianity provided the moral impetus for the pursuit of wealth, contributing to the rise of capitalism.

Durkheim saw things a little differently. He sees religion as a safeguard against the problems brought about by change. It is a safeguard against anomie -- or the lack of regulation in society. It fosters closer social integration among individuals, providing an effective deterrent against suicide. Durkheim perhaps is more concerned about the social role of religion than the truth of their claims. As such, he advocates "civil religion" as a possible replacement to the traditional faiths as a social glue for a nation-state.

But in Singapore, it seems that we seem to be worshiping rationality rather than civil religion, as brilliantly pointed out by Khairulanwar Zaini on The Online Citizen. Critics against the death penalty campaign deride the humanising of Yong, seeing it as tomfoolery and a ploy to sway the masses. However, they seem to have forgotten the central tenets of our civil religion, enshrined beautifully in our National Pledge: To build a democratic society, based on justice and equality.

The last I heard, "security" did not factor into the Pledge.

A personal appeal to all my friends (yes you!): Time to speak out against death penalty for drug traffickers

Dear friend,

there comes a time when action can genuinely lead to change. Today is such a time.

Yong Vui Kong, a 20-year-old Malaysian, was supposed to be sentenced to death for drug trafficking. He was due to be hanged last Friday, but was granted a chance to appeal: http://theonlinecitizen.com/2009/12/high-court-grants-rare-stay-of-execution-appeal/.

Next Tuesday, at 10am, the Court of Appeal will hear his plea one last time. History tells us that it is likely that he will be hanged. But history need not always be right.

Yong has no prior criminal record. He was only 19 when he smuggled drugs into Singapore and was caught. Being involved in gangs since young, he was deceived by his drug lord into believing that he won't receive the death sentence.

It is time we stop being apathetic, and rouse ourselves to stand against the injustice of the Singapore criminal system. How many more 20-year-old teenagers must we hang before we realise something is wrong with our justice system? Do we want a justice system built on angry vengeance or mercy? Do we want our hands stained by the blood of people like Yong just so that we can have security and peace?

Choo Zheng Xi, editor-at-large at The Online Citizen, wrote:

The justice system distinguishes between civil law and criminal law. Civil law is enforceable between individuals, whereas criminal law is enforced by the State. In the latter case, the State moves to punish acts deemed injurious to society. It acts on society’s behalf, through statutes passed by our elected representatives. When the State brings its criminal jurisdiction to bear, it acts on behalf of you and me. If Vui Kong is hanged, he will be hanged in your name and mine.

(Full article here: http://theonlinecitizen.com/2009/12/toc-editorial-media’s-silence-on-yong-vui-kong-a-national-shame/)

As a citizen of this country, you have the right to voice out against the hanging of Yong, because ultimately, the state is doing it in your name, at your approval. If you are a visitor, you have every right as a human being to speak out against injustice. Start doing something today: find out more about this case, write to the press, talk to your friends about it speak to your MP, or put something up on Facebook. Don't just stop at prayer. Let the world know that you disapprove of state-mandated manslaughter. Let the government know that you are not just apathetic, unconcerned Singaporeans.

I will leave you with one final question: If you are the hangman standing in front of Yong at the gallows, would you have the heart to hang him yourself?

Next Tuesday, I will be there at the high court at 10am -- not to wave placards or shout slogans, but to show solidarity for Yong and his family. As the Deputy Editor of The Online Citizen, I will continue to give publicity to this issue, and push for change in Singapore. It is my hope that you will join me, in one way or another.

Pass this message around, if you are moved by this.

Best Regards,

Terence

When bad things happen to bad people

RECENTLY, my pastor wrote a blog post entitled "When Bad Things Happen to Good People." In it, he tries to put a positive spin on suffering as a means of fulfilling God's will. Ultimately, good will often come out of bad, he says, and he illustrates with the story of Job in the Bible, where Job's intolerable suffering finally ended and he became even more prosperous than before.

The question of suffering is an age-old conundrum, and while many religious leaders and philosophers have a response, the question still begs to be answer. While I feel that Pastor Kong's exposition on suffering was overly simplistic and leaves much to be desired, that is not the main topic of my brief reflection.

Rather, I want to take a different spin on things, and ask this question: "Why do bad things happen to bad people?"

To many, this might sound like a no-brainer, because the law of retribution says that bad people deserve to be punished. But does this thinking go against the spirit of Jesus' teachings? Who was the one who once preached that we are to love our enemies, and to even pray for them? Who was the one who told us to turn the other cheek to the violence of the enemy?

I'm not saying that it's wrong to ask: "why do bad things happen to good people?"

But such a question, if we are not careful, would lull us into shallow thinking. It causes us to divide the world into black and white, when in fact there is no such thing. In a fallen world, decision-makers often have to decide between shades of grey. Take, for example, US President Obama's decision to bring in 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan. Die-hard pacifists will say that war is bad, and that Obama should withdraw all military forces from Afghanistan immediately.

But such a decision would ignore the severe consequences that a withdrawal might bring: Would Afghanistan once again fall under the hold of the Taliban regime, destabilising the entire region? Often, decisions will have to be made between two morally dubious choices.

Winston Churchill once said that "democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others that have been tried." The same is true for many decisions made in real life.

One man's meat is another man's poison. What is good for one person may be deemed bad by another. While it might be easy for you to say that continuing the war in Afghanistan is the right thing to do, consider yourself in the shoes of an ordinary Afghan child for a moment.

One day you are just playing in the neighbourhood, when suddenly gunfire streaks across the sky. Suddenly, rocket fire could be heard a mile a way, landing right in the vicinity, destroying the house behind you. It takes you a moment to realise that your parents are still inside, and had perished in the flames.

Consider for a moment how the child feels. Would he come to resent the US occupation in the country, despite all the highfalutin moralising by diplomats and politicians? Would he come to view American soldiers as incarnations of the devil himself? So the reality is that "good" and "bad" are very vague concepts -- the question of morality really depends on the community and its values. In fact, often people who do wrong things think they are right.

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions," goes the saying.

This notion of justice, of right and wrong, can be further complicated if we ask this question: Who is responsible for making a person bad?

Perhaps freewill is an illusion, or at least a limited concept. A child brought up on crime can hardly be expected to do good. And even if he attempts to do so, his notion of "good" might be warped when compared to a child with a proper upbringing. In fact, we may be even bad without knowing it because of societal influences.

Karl Marx talks about the concept of "false consciousness", where he describes a society of workers who are oppressed by their bosses without knowing it. Ideals of "loyalty" and "commitment" are preached to these workers as tools of oppression -- it keeps them in their jobs, and they stop complaining about their work conditions. Inadvertently, these workers become part of the capitalist system of oppression, harbingers of their own nightmare -- all done without them knowing it.

But the fact that these workers are under such conditions cannot entirely be blamed on them. All their lives, they see their family members and relatives working under such terrible conditions, and such existence is all they know. Their consciousness is defined by their state of being, and while they do have the free will to break free from it, societal conditions act as a disincentive for them to do so.

If we understand the concept of false consciousness, we begin to realise that many of the folks we know to be "bad people" may not be so bad after all. While they are partially responsible for the wrong things they have done, the social conditions which they are raised in must surely play a part -- perhaps even a overriding role.

It would be foolish of us to assume that the world is divided into two simple categories, and assign ourselves as belonging with the "good people" group. By asking, "why do bad things happen to good people?", are we subconsciously believing that bad people, which is a dubious categorisation in the first place, are somehow more deserving of punishment?

This sort of thinking underlines our treatment towards criminals. We assume that they are totally to blame for their crime, when in fact it is common knowledge that the education level of society is correlated with its crime rate. I therefore cannot agree with individuals who claim that it is right for drug traffickers in Singapore to be put to death, as in the recent case of 20-year-old Yong Vui Kong (my thoughts on the case here). It is easy for us to say that such people deserve to die simply because we are not the ones doing the executing.

Imagine yourself standing in front of the teenager who is about to face the gallows. Your job is to kick away the stool which the person is standing on, leaving him to suffocate. Would you then change your mind?

I am not doing away with the notion of justice and retributive punishment. Criminals cannot go away scot-free, for sure. But what I am saying is that often we are too quick to point the finger and assign punishment. In meting out justice through the law, we have somehow lost our humanity. We have played the role of God -- whom we uphold as our standard and arbiter of justice. To put a twist to Winston Churchill's words: "There aren't any good people, just people who are less evil than others."

Ultimately, even if we want to question God on suffering, we should ask Him this: "Why should bad things even happen at all?"

Losing sleep over Yong Vui Kong

Correction: Yong's mother has no knowledge of his crime, arrest and impending execution because his siblings did not told her. She has been suffering from severe depression way before he committed the offence.

IT'S FOUR in the morning, and the face of 20-year-old Yong Vui Kong burns strongly on my mind. In two week's time, he will be sentenced to death for drug trafficking.

After reading this Facebook note, I've lost my appetite for sleep. I tossed and turned in bed, but I couldn't stop thinking about him.

Last year, he was caught in Singapore for drug trafficking. God knows why he did it -- perhaps it was for the $2,000 that the drug lord dangled in front of him, perhaps his family was in poverty and could use the petty cash.

At that age, surely there is room to make mistakes and grow from it?

But according to the Singapore legal system, drug trafficking equals the death penalty. Whatever your age, colour, creed, size, social status, or circumstance, the treatment is the same. There is no room for clemency or second chances, no matter how sorry you are.

Talk about meritocracy.

His mom was devastated when the sentence was passed. Yong shed tears when he was led away from the court room. Imagine you have a son or daughter who's about to be sentenced to death. Imagine if your boyfriend is guilty of a crime, and at a whim of the state, would have his life taken away from him.

For many cases, it is true that the person is indeed guilty. But what if the person is executed, but later found to be innocent? Where is the justice in that? No amount of money can ever bring back a human life -- it is not a commodity to be traded on the market.

And so what if a person is guilty? It makes no sense to punish a drug mule while the drug lord is left to hire another desperate drug trafficker.

And why the harsh treatment? Do trafficking drugs equate with a more severe crime like murder, and therefore equally deserving of the dealth penalty?

Where is the justice in that?

Far from being a compassionate society, it seems like we are a society where the ends justify the means. "Sha Yi Jing Bai" -- goes a famous chinese saying. One person must be sacrificed to warn the hundred. But what happens when you or your loved one is the person facing the chopping block? Would you say the same thing then?

While Yong prepares himself to face the noose, it seems that some Singaporeans, upon hearing about the case, would echo the government line. Said one commenter on The Online Citizen:

"The Death Penalty must be maintained at all costs in Singapore for Capital Punishment ie (sic) Drugs Trafficking, Murder and Treason, and since our independence, Death Penalty has been a very effective deterent and made all Singaporeans feel very safe and can go to bed and sleep soundly and wake up fresh the next day."

Most Singaporeans, however, would simply shrug their shoulders and go: "meh." (In case you're wondering, I'm not referring to the Singaporean version of the word. More on 'meh' here.)

This has to change. It is time Singaporeans wake up to the fact that the death penalty is something that could affect us all. Next time it could be somebody you know and cherish who might have to face it. It is also no accident that among the developed countries, only Singapore, the US, and Japan still have the death penalty.

As a Singaporean and as a Christian, I have decided that I need to voice out about this issue. While the Bible (Rom 13:4) speaks of the authority's role as "an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer," the Bible also states that our obedience to civil government is done for the sake of conscience (Rom 13:5).

But when our conscience is violated by the very institution charged with protecting it; when our fellow brother is trapped in an "iron cage" of bureaucracy deprived of humanity, we as citizens can no longer be passive bystanders. Former journalist and activist Gloria Steinem once said: "Law and justice are not always the same. When they aren't, destroying the law may be the first step toward changing it."

In Singapore, it is perhaps a double-edged sword that churches are not allowed to participate in civil activism. Many pastors and religious leaders (including my own) are heavily monitored by the governing authorities for fear of them stirring dissent within their congregation. The church of secularism has replaced the Church of Jesus Christ (insert your mosque or temple here) as a state religion, imposing its will on the hapless populace.

As a result, we as a society have swung from the glory days of civil activism in the 60s towards becoming an acquiescing people. A drastic change indeed -- but perhaps too extreme. If Barack Obama was born and raised in Singapore, he might never have become Prime Minister. That is because the Civil Rights Movement in the United States, so crucial in the fight for black equality, had a powerful religious component. Martin Luther King Jr was a pastor, and actively gathered the churches in his work.

But all is not lost. While the church leaders in Singapore may be vasectomised, the congregation can still act; can still mobilise and press for change. Grassroots activism can still take off, with or without the help of the leaders in the pack. In the wise words of an army sergeant: Do whatever you want, just don't get caught (by the pastor that is).

I'm kidding -- but my point is that there is still much room for maneuver within the confines of the law. Instead of merely visiting our MPs and getting them to help us procure our desired HDB flat or the prestigious school for our child (as if they're Santa Claus), it's time we engage them on the death penalty as well.

Instead of going through the usual routine of praying for your job promotion, perhaps you can take some time to pray for Yong Vui Kong and the Singapore government.

And indeed, this is how I will end my little write-up, with a prayer:

Dear God,

I come to you with a heavy heart, burdened at the death sentence that was meted out to Yong, your son. Such a young man with so much potential, only to be dealt a short hand by his circumstances and the state. It pains me to hear that while he is sentenced to hang, the high-hitters and the drug lords are left to continue their evil activities.

My heart goes out to Yong and his family. I pray that they will find solace in this time of need, and Yong will find the courage to face his fate. May there be salvation in his heart, and peace in his soul. I ask that the governing authorities -- the MPs and the Cabinet Ministers -- open their eyes to the injustice happening right before them, and have the burden to act on this issue.

May there be lasting change in Singapore, and may love and compassion find its way into the hearts of its citizens.

Amen.

Considering a revised Christian theology for the 21st Century (foreward)

Raphael Wee

BEFORE embarking on any work, one should always be clear about one’s purpose. And that purpose is reflected in the title of the work. The title of this work is “A Revised Christian Theology”.

On hearing this title, some of my fellow Catholics who believe themselves well-schooled in Church History would react by accusing me of embracing two heresies: Modernism, condemned by the Syllabus of Errors issued by Pius IX in 1858 and Indifferentism, whose last criticism was in 2005.

To which I reply: Assuredly Not!

Modernism is a condemnation of moral relativism, which ascended together with liberal democracy and atheism in the 19th Century. Moral relativism implies the rejection of certain moral truths or the twisting of these truths to be more amenable to the liberal climate. I decisively reject moral relativism and embrace moral absolutism.

To be more accurate, I accept substantial relativism but reject essential relativism. I define substantial relativism as the phenomenon where different people have different ideas about what is right, and essential relativism as the idea that everybody can be correct at the same time.

Indifferentism is a condemnation of total “freedom of religion”, which implies freedom from orthodoxy, or in other words, each Christian is a Law unto himself, and need not follow the guidance of religious leaders. Indifferentism is criticised because it leads to a form of “cafeteria” Christianity, where Christians pick and choose specific doctrines to follow and others to reject. It also involves the “import” of “extras” into the Christian faith that are not in line with the practiced tradition of the Church.

I will defend – as you shall see – the requirement for Christian unity in the Church Hierarchy. And I will defend all the essential core doctrines of the Faith without reserve.

On the other hand, I accept the doctrine that Christianity is unique while rejecting the opinion that Christianity holds all the Truth exclusively (the Christian exclusivist position). This is essential, I believe, for Christian and interfaith ecumenism. This is not incongruent at least with Catholic doctrine which mentions that there are “rays of truth” in faiths other than Christianity, although no other religion contains the full truth.

The One True Church

In my writing, I shall use as a basis of comparison the Roman Catholic Church. I will state my beliefs here outright: that I fully assent – in mind and spirit – to the concept that the Roman Catholic Church is the one true Church, and that all Protestant sects are heretical to a certain degree. I admit that this might offend Protestants, which is why I shall explain my viewpoint here.

I believe that the Roman Catholic Church is the Substantial Church of Christ. My usage of the word “substantial” is to indicate that it possesses the complete and unabridged depositum, which is also manifest in Tradition. “tradition” has a capital “T” to indicate that it is more than the human tradition that is present in the normal procedures of church management, which includes church policies like the ordination of women. It also, in its parishes and religious orders, possesses the community that is the Body of Christ, as Protestants would put it.

However, the Material Church is only the Skeleton and the Heart of the Full Church, which is universal and contains all men, since Christ died for all on the Cross. The rest of the body is not present. The analogy proceeds as follows:-

1) The missing neck is the Anglican Church that is separated by virtue of Royal Schism. I symbolize it as the neck because King Henry VIII made himself the Head of the Church, and a neck connects to a head.

2) The missing shoulders and torso is the Eastern Orthodox Church – both Greek and Russian variants – that is separated by virtue of Administrative Schism. (This is the reason why it is easiest for the Orthodox Church to reconcile with the Catholic Church.) This particular representation is chosen because the Orthodox Church is the closest to the Catholic Church in doctrine and practice.

3) The missing major veins and arteries of the circulatory system represent the Lutheran Church – separated by virtue of Doctrinal Schism.

4) The missing capillaries represent the other Protestant Denominations that branched off from Lutheranism, including today’s Evangelical Christians like Jack Chick. I have chosen to represent Protestantism in this way to highlight the disunity brought about by the Reformation.

5) The missing nerves represent the Muslims and the Jews, separated by virtue of historical circumstance. They are represented as nerves because they still believe in the same God as us.

6) The missing arms represent the congregations of the Eastern Religions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Jainism, Shintoism, and Chinese folk religion. Their separation from Christianity is by virtue of culture. However, they possess the rays of truth. They are the arms because they connect at some distant point in history to the core doctrines of Christianity revealed by God to Adam and Eve.

7) The missing hands represent the “un-churched” adherents to Chinese philosophies of Confucianism and Taoism, and any equivalents in India. Although the New Atheists label them as atheistic philosophies, they are in fact derived from folk religion. The wrists symbolize these largely-forgotten links.

8) The missing legs represent the Pagan traditions, such as the Aborigines, the Maoris, the Neo-Olympians and the African Tribes. These practice moral traditions laced with magic and superstition. Obviously, magic and superstition are anaethema to a Christian, but there is still some degree of truth in the other moral traditions practiced by these tribes, and in fact, as one sociologist found out in the 1960s, if queried far enough, they will admit knowledge of One Supreme God Who Must Not Be Named.

9) The missing feet are the humanistic philosophies endorsed by Agnostics and Atheists. These philosophies are derived from – as they would put it – cultural “memes” transmitted from societies that practiced any of the above eight traditions. However, Atheists and Agnostics always fail to acknowledge the source. Although they wax lyrical about the evolutionary paradigm, they nonetheless put themselves outside it.

The only people who are outside the Body of Christ are those who have rejected the fullness of Word and Truth both substantially and essentially. There are only two groups of people who fit the bill, at least doctrinally and ritually: the Ancient Heretics – the Gnostics, Pelagians, Manicheans, Cathars and so on – and the Christian Cults: Mormons, Church of Unification, Watchtower. It also includes cults in other religions, and the terrorist groups. I make the qualification of “doctrinally and ritually” because we cannot be certain of exactly what each member of these communities practices in private.

Seen in this light, Evangelization means restoring the severed body of Christ to one United Whole, which is the inclusion of the severed parts into the whole. This is the point that makes Christianity stand out from Judaism, which was and still is a ethnic-based religion. Because of the political atmosphere today which stresses the Holocaust over any other element in the Jewish experience, it is difficult to make the admission of a historical truth: that the Jews in Jesus’ time and a while before were racist.

They believed themselves to be the Superior Race chosen by God, and discriminated against half-bloods and non-relations. Jesus broke these two taboos and angered the Jewish clergy as a result. The association of Jesus with the Samaritan woman could be faulted on two counts: firstly, that it was a defiling instance since the woman was an adulteress; and secondly, that the woman was a half-blood, since Samaritans were the descendants of mixed marriages between the Jews and other semites during the Babylonian Exile. The association of Jesus with tax collectors violated the second rule: tax collectors worked for the Pagan Romans, and so were impure by default, and therefore Jews should avoid being in contact with tax-collectors in order to preserve their ritual purity for temple service. Ancient Judaism required ritual baths to enter the Temple. But Jesus shrugged down both taboos.

Later, the same issue was repeated with the Judaizers in Ephesus over circumcision. What is usually missed out in homilies and sermons by today’s priests and pastors is that St Paul saw through the doctrinal veil that the Judaizers were using (they invoked Genesis to justify their demand) to mask their attempt at social exclusion.

Apart from my beliefs, I also use the Church as a point of reference because it coheres with the history of Christianity. The history of Christianity does not begin with the Apostles and then jump to the Schism or the Reformation. It carries through for the full 2000 years. I also hope that, in using this model, the Protestants – especially people like Jack Chick – come to realize that the Roman Catholic Church is the stem of Christianity. One cannot discuss Christianity without discussing the Catholic Church. The Church and the Papacy existed before Photius’ Great Schism and Martin Luther and his ninety-five theses. That is why authors like Dan Brown attack the Catholic Church: if they destroy the Catholic Church, they effectively destroy all of Christendom.

What is “Revised” then?

Given that I seem to have merely been affirming doctrine so far, what exactly am I revising in this work?

Firstly, I am revising the form of the doctrine, that is the way doctrine is presented and explained, and the framework in which such explanations are constructed. A major problem with Church doctrine is that they are ultimately based on documents translated from Greek or Latin and/or Hebrew. The fact that they are translated is not in itself the problem. The problem is that while enunciating the translated versions we forget that they originated in cultures different from ours, which used different terms for different concepts.

This has special relevance to the Trinitarian Doctrine, to the origin of the Ancient Heresies, and to the Great Schism. As Hans Kung points out, the Great Schism was largely due to the Latin and Greek Churches being out of translation with each other. I pad on the additional argument that the Gnostic and Arian heresies arose because of Hellenic terms being confused when being imposed onto Latin culture. This is important for our discourse with the Muslims.

Secondly, I am revising the Christians’ approach to evangelism and ecumenism, using the Body of Christ concept I outlined above. This involves refining the scope of idolatry, and expanding the description of areas whereby the “rays of truth” are to be found. This includes a re-evaluation of all Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment philosophies, especially Cartesian dualism. As difficult as it might be, we ought to find the “rays of truth” in these, so that we can shave off from the forms of our doctrine all the neo-platonic models that are alien to the modern mind.

Thirdly, I am revising the popular mental model of God. This is the most important factor in order to build a reasoned, robust case against the New Atheists. The popular conceptions – God as King, God as Judge, God as Lawgiver, God as Potter – set up convenient strawmen for the New Atheists to demolish, and must be eradicated from all of Christendom.

Fourthly, I am revising our approach – and in particular, the Catholic approach – to the history of Christianity. It is immoral and un-Christian to continue trying to justify witch-burnings, inquisitions, and murder of non-Christians by saying “Gods says we must”. Or, as Catholic apologists do, try to appropriate the circumstantial argument to excuse mis-deeds. If we do this, we can successfully eliminate yet another easy target for the New Atheists.

Lastly, I hope that I can enunciate a proper, holistic, and faithful approach to reading the Bible, that will repudiate on one hand the Biblical Literalists, who take every word as a Divine Command, and on the other hand the Modernists, who seek to tune Scripture and Tradition to the whims of today’s social liberals.

I understand that this is an ambitious program, so I pray that any reader of this will have the patience to follow through all the way.

An Orthodox Christian's response to Rev. Yap

Raphael Wee

AS A Christian – and as a Roman Catholic – I read with some amusement the comments of Dr Yap and the responses to Kelvin’s report posted on The Online Citizen. In the UK, where I am now, the resident gay lobby Stonewall is in the midst of preparing a massive demonstration against the State Visit of Pope Benedict XVI to London next year. Instead of rejoicing at the improvement in diplomatic ties with a foreign state – which is after all, what the Vatican is – in the characteristic narrow-mindedness of their lobby they are accusing the Labour Government of endorsing a homophobic.

Never mind that the Pope is against the Iraq War, or that his most recent encyclical touched on environmental issues, in particular berating the US government for not acceding to the Kyoto Protocol; the only thing he ever is to the LGBT lobby is “homophobic”, a convenient slur nowadays for anybody who opposes the agenda of the LGBT Lobby, which the LGBTs themselves claim does not exist.

Gay Churches like Dr Yap’s Free Community Church undoubtedly identify with this view. And Atheists – who have been on the political rise recently – see this as “diversity” within religion which proves that religion is “irrational” and believers are involved in “cherry-picking” Scriptures to prove their point. It is true that some individual Christians and religious leaders do this, but insinuating that the entire Church does this is going too far.

In biblical studies, scholars distinguish between exegesis and eisogesis. Exegesis is proper interpretation of Scripture in the framework of the doctrinal intent of the author, separate from any cultural or political intent. Eisogesis is the insertion of meaning into the Bible by scholars who wish to fit the Bible into their particular context. So, the Gay Churches accuse the traditional “fundamentalists” of eisogesis, while they themselves engage in it.

Along with the recent trend in the secular world of Gays trying to construct a mythical history, which involves famous historical figures being labelled as “gay” or “lesbian” on the most spurious of reasons, for instance the perfection of David as a proof of the repressed homosexuality of Michelangelo, the Gay Churches like FCC construct a salvation history that includes several Holy Homosexual Couples. Disregarding literary form and ancient conversational conventions, King David and Jonathan are identified as being gay, and Ruth and Naomi are identified as being lesbian.

Of course, if David were truly gay, then he would not be able to “lust” after Bathsheba in the current conceptualization of homosexuality used by the LGBTs. Likewise, the main love story in the Book of Ruth is between Ruth and Obed, who become the ancestors of King David.

The problem with Protestants is that they are out of touch of Tradition, having been separated from the Church for 500 years. Therefore, protestants – insisting on Sola Scriptura – are more likely to commit modernist heresies (condemned by His Holiness Pius XII in Lamentablii Sane of 1907), as do the scholars that influenced Reverend Yap.

On Sodom and Gomorrah: this is a passage in the Bible that unfortunately causes much head-scratching. Actually, both the “anti-Gay” and the Gay Churches are wrong in their interpretation of the passage. The Gay Churches are correct to note that the use of “sodomy” to refer to homosexuality is a development that is quite recent; on the other hand, the interpretation that the punishment of Sodom and Gomorrah was merely for their inhospitality is glossing over key areas of the plot.

It is somewhat irresponsible to ignore the clear fact that the group that gathers outside the door is looking for sex. So sexual sin is very clearly part of the reason why Sodom and Gomorrah are punished. Thus, the Gay Churches’ exegesis is incomplete. However, so is the “Anti-gay” Churches’. While the Gay Churches conveniently forget that Lot interpreted the Sodomites’ request as a request for sex, the “Anti-Gay” Churches conveniently forget that the people of Sodom came as a group that probably included both men and women.

In other words, Sodom and Gomorrah had deteriorated to the stage where they were engaging in bisexual orgies, and not one-to-one homosexual sex. Thus, the passage on Sodom and Gomorrah should be dropped from the Gay debate.

The first use of the word “homosexuality”, according to Wikipedia, was in 1869, in an appeal to repeal Prussian anti-sodomy law, something that Alex Au would identify with. However, the first use of the word “homosexuality” in English was in 1895 for a translation of a document that condemned homosexuality is a psychopathic disorder.

As for the APA’s decision in 1973, there is some controversy, as certain people on the board then have recently come out alleging that the 1973 decision was made after some very un-scientific political arm-bending, rather than true peer-assessment of peer-reviewed work.

Looking further down at what Rev Yap says, one can immediately realize why FCC is not admitted by the National Council of Churches. While the tension between Divine Authorship and Divine Inspiration is a theological issue that has yet to be resolved, Rev Yap has stepped one step too far. The “devil in the details” so to speak is the ambiguous notion of “believed to be revelation”.

If Rev Yap was a member of the Catholic Church, his statement as expressed here would not be considered anaethema, but under the lesser censure of Ambigua, the idea that there is the possibility of doctrinal error within. His charge effectively ignores the concilliar and sub-concilliar processes that evaluated the suitability of texts to be placed into the Bible. It is not the writers of the texts themselves who put the texts into the Bible, but later Christians who did when they accepted those texts as Articles of Faith after arduous examination.

Following which, Rev Yap takes stride of the Gay Movement’s rhetoric about “liberation”, and adds in the common justification of Liberal dissenters that God loves everyone. But God living everyone is very different from God condoning or approving of sin.

And so the sob-story of the “poor homosexual Christian” is once again presented, with the now-famous justification that homosexuals “did not choose to be the way they were”. Well, perhaps they did not choose to be the way they were, but they certainly chose to stay the way they were, and that is the real crux of the problem.

Of course, as a Progressive Christian, I will readily admit that the conservatives are not fully innocent either, and certainly not the “fundamentalists”. Sin has been approached in a very legalistic manner, which fails to reconcile Jesus the Magistrate with Jesus out Brother, therefore alienating the LGBTs and making them the recipients of several unjust criminal laws, including Section 377A.

However, that having been said, the whole issue over Section 377A that the LGBTs miss – or perhaps are only pretending to miss – is that in our current political arrangements Constitutions and Penal Codes carry both the Legal Structures and Moral Values of the people they govern. What the conservatives – those who are pejoratively labelled as “homophobics” and “fundamentalists” – are wary about is the attempt by LGBTs to impose their moral values on the rest of society, when the issue pertaining to sexual orientation is still out to debate.

The APA itself accepts that a variety of factors cause homosexuality, but the jury is still out on which are the predominant factors. It is scientifically irresponsible for the LGBT Lobby to hence jump to conclusions over the primacy of the genetic factor.

Rev Yap’s comments on the AWARE Saga are equally puzzling, because the fact remains that orthodox Christianity – Catholicism, Methodism, Lutheranism, Presbyterianism, Eastern Orthodoxy and the Evangelicals – do not deviate much in viewpoints fro m members of the other religious communities.

Buddhism and Taoism are said to be tolerant of homosexuality, but yet the majority of Buddhists and Taoists are not, and all the traditions of our major ethnic groups are intolerant of homosexuality. So, homosexuality is possibly an issue where a “silent majority” is most likely to be found. (Plus, in the case of Buddhism, the LGBT argument that it is “tolerant” will go up in smoke if any Buddhist sect can convincingly argue that homosexuality hinders the attainment of Nirvana.)

The attitude that the Churches take towards LGBTs is a far more complex issue than Rev Yap assumes it is. Shunning homosexuals and forcing them to avoid “coming out” is rightly identified as a form of oppression. The legalistic aspect of “change or be damned” is also a problem, even when expressed in a more benevolent fashion.

However, Rev Yap’s pooh-poohing of two thousand years of Church Tradition is misleading, not least to the homosexuals he ministers to. By pretending that God condones homosexual behaviour, he is being irresponsible as a clergyman. For it is certain that both Scripture and the Intellectual Tradition of the Church – pre-reformation, post-schism and post-reformation, and early – all disapprove of homosexuality.

And since Jesus did not say anything either for or against homosexuality, it cannot be inferred that He issues “consent by silence”. If Rev Yap wants to know the Church’s official teaching, he needs only to refer to the Didache of the 1st Century or to its modern equivalent, the Catechism of the Catholic Church (latest edition 1994); he need not open the Bible at all. Unlike the Protestant sects, the Catholic Church protects both form and spirit of its texts to maximum accuracy possible. I am sure that Archbishop Chia would be willing to loan Reverend Yap a copy of the Catechism if the latter asked for it.

Reverend Yap is correct in asserting that the LGBT Christians have not been ministered properly, and the conservative churches need to take heed of that. But be forewarned: neither is Rev Yap ministering to LGBT Christians properly.

A note on reparative therapy: it is often argued that reparative therapy doesn’t work. I would like to say that although current methods of reparative therapy do not apparently work, there is no logic in asserting that there is no possible method of reparative therapy that works which has not been discovered yet.

However, the vitriolic character of the LGBT movement and the political pressure they put on medical associations such as the APA are not aiding in enabling Christians and members of other religions to properly engage the lack of academic research in this area; instead, they are only inspiring defensive reactions from the Christian congregations. Attacks on documents such as On the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons, which reflect a genuine attempt at showing love to LGBTs in the Christian context, do not reflect empathy on the part of LGBT activists, reflecting their hypocrisy since they demand empathy for themselves from their critics.

The humanity of prayer

LATELY, prayer has attained some sort of bad rep among the non-religious. Invoke the word, and automatically images of crazed Christian prophets claiming that their prayer has averted a tsunami will come to mind.

And speaking of prayer, have you heard of the Psalm 109:8 prayer for Obama? Sounds like a nice gesture, sure, but wait until you read what Psalm 109:8-13 says:

May his days be few; may another take his place of leadership.
May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow.
May his children be wandering beggars; may they be driven from their ruined homes.
May a creditor seize all he has; may strangers plunder the fruits of his labor.
May no one extend kindness to him or take pity on his fatherless children.
May his descendants be cut off, their names blotted out from the next generation.

Regardless of whether you find it funny or sinister, it is downright yucky to me. Joking around about the death of Obama and his wife and how his daughters will become poor and homeless is just crossing the line.

And it serves to illustrate how prayer, which is considered the Christian's staple activity, can be twisted to such nefarious, self-serving ends. Personally, I haven't quite figured prayer out -- yet. Sometimes I do wonder: What's the point of it?

It seems to me that too often, Christians are preoccupied with praying for their own needs, as if it is the most important thing in the world. Often when the pastor in my church preaches the offering message, most of the time causality is made between giving and financial prosperity. Of course, we should not denigrate preaching prosperity, but what about striking the right balance?

For quite sometime, I was rather puzzled by this. It seems like many Christians are only concerned about their own personal needs, and those of their immediate community. Some do better by going beyond their own immediate self and praying for the needs of their church. Others step beyond the church and pray for the government.

But is that enough?

I personally find it a travesty when I am there kneeling by my bed and praying for good grades when an old auntie is collecting cardboard boxes for sale downstairs. I am disturbed that here I am praying for prosperity when child prostitution and poverty is rampant in Cambodia. Once again, I am not dissing the idea of praying for our own needs, but perhaps it's time we rediscover the true purpose of prayer again.

Therefore, it came as a pleasant surprise for me that as I reread the Lord's Prayer, I was struck by something that was at first not apparent to me. The Lord's Prayer (which was taught by Jesus as a model prayer to be emulated) was never meant to be an individualistic, self-serving prayer in the first place.

Notice how the Prayer begins with "our father in heaven," instead of "my father in heaven". If you don't think this is significant, let's do another contrast. In Matthew 6:11 it says: "Give us this day our daily bread," instead of "give me this day my daily bread." Once again, notice the use of plural nouns rather than singular.

Prayer, it seems, involves not just the individual, but the entire community that is the family, the church and the nation. And considering how the world has globalised and become even more interconnected since Judeo-Christian times, perhaps it's time we incorporate global concerns like climate change and poverty in other countries into our own prayer diet.

After all, as recent events have shown, a financial crisis that started in the other side of the globe can have a cascading effect on the Singapore economy. A terrorist act that led to the collapse of the twin towers in New York eight years ago can embolden terrorists to strike in Singapore as well.

If guided by the right values and principles, prayer can be a powerful force that binds people together towards achieving positive change. For potential beauty queens out there, wishing for world peace might not sound so cheesy after all.