dry grass singing

On being a Christian in multi-religious Singapore

This post has been a long time coming. I've kept my silence so far on the Pastor Rony Tan issue, mostly because it seems to me to be a fairly straightfoward, obvious case of a zealous fellow Christian crossing the line between zeal and civility in his comments on other religions. Pastor Tan has apologised publicly for his comments, and his apologies have been accepted by Taoist and Buddhist leaders in Singapore. Can we leave Pastor Tan alone to sort out his thoughts on the matter, and move on to the larger issues that the whole debacle has unearthed?

But this note is not about these larger issues at all. It's about me. Necessarily so, because, as it has been said, all writing is autobiography. And this is the part of my autobiography that has to do with my spiritual journey as a minority Christian in a multi-religious, secular society like Singapore.

I came to the Christian faith through a long, slow process that took at least 11 years, if not more, and so I can honestly say that I've looked at life from both sides now - through the eyes of a skeptic, as well as those of a believer. I can equally honestly say that I have not forgotten what the world looked like through the skeptic's eyes, and I pray that I never will. It was with a mixture of horror and grudging fascination that I looked at my Christian friends back in my non-Christian days. How could they allow a religion, a system of beliefs, to pre-determine and dictate their behaviour in every possible life situation they found themselves in, regardless of the specific circumstances governing the matter? How frightening, and how wonderful, to be so certain of everything, to have the answers to all of life's questions down pat to just those few simple formulaic responses!

In the close to three years that I've been a professing, baptised Christian, I've come to know the certainty that I used so much to fear, and I've also come to know the limits of that certainty, the way there is room for mystery even within the fortress of faith. But (and perhaps I flatter myself here - only my friends can tell) I also like to think that the arrogance that so often comes with certainty is kept in check by memories of those years spent questioning everything there was to question. So when I listen to discussions about issues like last year's AWARE episode, and the latest Rony Tan controversy, my instinctive response is to look at them from the perspective of the non-Christian, to look at myself, and my fellow Christians, from the point of view of the outsider. And I readily admit that to the outsider, some of the things that we Christians do, do not look very Christian at all.

So what I'd like to do here, is to set down, as fairly and objectively as I can, the way things stand as I see it, and to talk about how I've been trying to negotiate the complexities of life in multi-religious, secular Singapore while maintaining my sense of religious integrity.

Firstly, let me just state for the record what I do believe, because nothing else will make sense otherwise. I believe that there is one God, and that He has made Himself known to humanity, first in His interactions with the Jewish people and through the revelations of the Jewish scriptures, and finally in the historical person of Jesus Christ. I believe that humanity is hopelessly flawed, and that all the problems we face on the individual and communal levels are the result of a fundamental selfishness and corruption in our nature. And that this personal corruption is the result of our turning away and estrangement, on an individual, personal level, from the only source of good - the God who created us. I believe that this good God is also a just God, and that left on our own, we would all have to be punished by this just God for the wrong we have done. I also believe that left on our own, our failure to meet this God's standards of goodness keeps us from communion with Him. This has consequences both eternal and temporal. Eternal separation from God is, literally, what we call hell. And in the here and now, this separation mires us in a hopeless cycle of attempts to save ourselves from ourselves - through self-discipline, through good works, through religious rites. But anyone who has tried all these things knows that they never work for very long. The malicious thought, the selfish, grasping impulse, the impurity of even our best intentions - these never go away for long. It is impossible for a drowning man to save himself.

And finally, I believe in the preposterous proposition that is the Gospel: that out of love for us, God Himself, in the person of His son, Jesus Christ, has already atoned for the wrong we have done by living the perfect life and taking the punishment that is ours upon Himself, in the historical event of the crucifixion. And that He proved His power over the death and corruption that is our human heritage by rising from the dead on the first Easter. And, most preposterous of all, I believe that the same victory over death and corruption can be ours too by association, if we ally ourselves with Christ by admitting that on our own, we are hopelessly corrupt, placing our trust in Him and submitting to His authority over our lives. I believe that this alliance -- and ultimately, union -- with Christ has the effect of changing us for the better from the inside out - and that this is the only way that we, as individuals and as a society, can find salvation.

Now that's a whole lot of pretty unbelievable stuff to believe. But it's crucial to get it all down, as accurately and fully as possible, because it goes some way towards explaining, though not necessarily exonerating, the way Christians sometimes behave.

As Christians, we share our faith because we believe it actually makes a positive difference, and that in fact it is the only difference that lasts, the only difference that counts. In his letter to Christians living as minority members of non-Christian societies in the 1st century A.D, the apostle Peter tells believers to 'always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have'. That, we do most readily - perhaps sometimes too readily, or without sufficient consideration. But we are also told to 'do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience' (1 Peter 3:15-16). I think that categorically excludes all forms of disrespect (mockery, name-calling, unfair discrimination) and aggression (anything along the spectrum from verbal insults to war). It also excludes all behaviour that goes against God's express commandments - because any such behaviour should of course weigh heavily on our consciences as violations of God's will. So, laughing at other religions is out; as is being economical with the truth in the attempt to do what we think is God's will; as is singling out a particular group of people for special condemnation as if we were not all equally guilty of failing to meet God's standards and equally in need of mercy. All of which Singaporean Christians have been guilty of in the last few years since I became a Christian.

But I think it's fair enough to say that the proselytisation that can be so annoying, pushy, insensitive or downright nasty in its expression is often the result of a (sometimes misapplied) concern for the non-believer's well-being, both now and in eternity. I think the problem is that Christians often fail to consider one of the most fundamental elements of good communication: connecting with the other person. In focussing on the relatively abstract truths of eternal salvation or damnation, Christians forget the living, breathing truth of the person standing before us - with all of his life history, his hopes and fears, his doubts, and his faith. (Yes, faith: because we all have faith in something - God, or gods, science, economics, politics, art, love, other people, ourselves.) What results, then, is a failure to speak to that person as an individual. Instead, he becomes an archetype, a stereotype, a straw man at which we hurl our pre-packaged expositions of the Gospel, leaving him at best bemused and bewildered, or at worst, permanently hostile to the very faith we are trying to share.

I remember one especially bizarre incident from my pre-Christian days, when I found myself on a bus next to a colleague I hardly knew, on our way to another colleague's wedding. I can't remember what small talk we were exchanging at the start of the conversation, but I do remember her very suddenly launching into a 5-minute speech on sin, damnation and salvation - a speech that left no room for me to say even a single word. It came out of nowhere, and ended just as abruptly - and I was left literally speechless, utterly flabbergasted, and thinking that if I hadn't already been relatively receptive to Christianity, what she did could very possibly have turned me off the faith forever.

Conversely, I remember equally clearly yet another incident on a busride with a Christian classmate who remains one of my closest friends to this day. A street evangelist approached us, and started on her spiel without so much as a few polite preliminaries. My friend, a devout Christian then and now, saw the look of discomfort on my face, and stopped the street evangelist, saying "She's from a mission school - she already knows the Gospel. Thanks very much but we can't listen to this right now." I was so grateful to my friend for her sensitivity, and for what I now recognise to be her wisdom. Now, lest anyone should misunderstand, she is no lukewarm Christian. In fact, she is the same friend who first tried to explain the Gospel to me two years after that incident - but only because I asked. She is also the person who, at various points in my life, invited me to Bible study discussions and other suchlike Christian activities when she sensed that I was ready to attend them. And she knew when to stop asking.

These incidents, together with other encounters with Christians and non-Christians over the years, have shaped my atttitudes towards evangelisation, especially in the context of a multi-faith society like ours. Yes, of course I believe that the God I worship is the only true God. I wouldn't worship Him otherwise. And of course I believe that Christ is the answer to all of humanity's fundamental problems. I've given up so much for the faith - all that giving up had better be for something really good. And of course I would love for my friends and loved ones to share the hope that this faith has given me. They are my friends and loved ones, after all, and I care about them.

But I also know that I live in a society where freedom of worship is guaranteed and safeguarded (within certain limits - more on those some other time). That is the basis for the sense of security I feel as a member of a minority religion in a dominantly Taoist/Buddhist society. And just as I want others to respect my freedom to worship the God I choose to worship, I also extend the same courtesy to them - they are free to worship whatever or whoever they choose to worship. I may be concerned about them, but that concern will express itself outwardly in dialogue that first seeks to know them as people before talking about God, that seeks to understand their concerns and share their lives regardless of whether they share my faith; and inwardly - in prayer, which is purely a matter between my God and me, and none of anybody else's business.

I understand very clearly that I cannot impose my faith-based ethics and practices on people who don't share my faith - if, for some reason, I feel that those ethics would be useful ones for society to adopt, I'll have to persuade others of this via the use of reason and logic, rather than by appealing to faith-based values. And I know that the Gospel is as much about living as it is about proclamation, and that the ability to live it is not my own. Very often, I fall short of even the standards I set for myself, let alone the standards that God sets for us. So I try to remind myself as often as I can of the words attributed to St Francis of Assisi because, hopefully, they'll help to keep me humble: "Preach the Gospel at all times. When necessary, use words."

posted by eothen @ 11:42 PM