Taken with long-time-no-see friend, Nixem, Runway Director for Runway Concepts at the PINK DOT SG event on 16 May 2009 at the Speakers’ Corner@Hong Lim Park.
For the record, I’m very straight and he’s very gay… LOL
Author andrewong2024
Crossing Over from Being Religious to Loving
Passing along, Jesus saw a man at his work collecting taxes. His name was Matthew. Jesus said, “Come along with me.” Matthew stood up and followed him.
Later when Jesus was eating supper at Matthew’s house with his close followers, a lot of disreputable characters came and joined them.
When the Pharisees saw him keeping this kind of company, they had a fit, and lit into Jesus’ followers. “What kind of example is this from your Teacher, acting cozy with crooks and riffraff?”
Jesus, overhearing, shot back, “Who needs a doctor: the healthy or the sick? Go figure out what this Scripture means: ‘I’m after mercy, not religion.‘ I’m here to invite outsiders, not coddle insiders.”
Matthew 9:9-13 (The Message)
Gay Marriage—How Should Christians Respond?
This is an interesting article with a good thread of comments that might be helpful in providing some Christian perspective towards dealing with matters of homosexuality. Below is an extract.
“Rising generations need to articulate a stance that protects the nature of marriage in a way that is both logical and loving,” says Jonathan Merritt, a faith and culture writer who serves as national spokesperson for the Southern Baptist Environment and Climate Initiative.
“We must move away from the us-versus-them, culture war mentality that treats our gay and lesbian neighbors only as our political enemies, and begin embracing them as people of mutual goodwill who happen to see things very differently than we do.”
Eric Bryant, author of the book Peppermint-Filled Piñatas, echoes Merritt’s call to love our gay neighbors. “Christians are known for who we hate rather than how we love,” he writes in his blog.
“This moves us out of the conversation and polarizes those involved so quickly, no progress can be made,” Bryant says that it’s crucial for Christians to love people we disagree with, and to discuss the gay marriage issue with civility.
“We cannot influence others we have pushed away,” he writes. “This includes those who are struggling to figure out what to do with their sexual desires while growing up.”
Read the full article here>>>
My Doodling:
PINK DOT SG is a non-profit movement that’s calling on anyone who supports the freedom for LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) Singaporeans to love and be loved. Apparently, this is NOT a protest or parade. Watch the publicity clip here>>>.
I’m thinking out loud if local churches should encourage their members to be there as an act of love and acceptance towards LGBT? What do you think? Would like to hear your views.
AWARE Spoof
I chanced upon the following fictitious but hilarious clip in relation to the AWARE debacle.
Watch this purely for laughs and forget about it after that… =p
Be AWARE: Where is the Church?
The recent Association of Women for Action and Research (AWARE) debacle had created quite a furore on a national level.
In the end, the now defunct new guard led by then newly elected President, Ms Josie Lau was overthrown by the old guard with a resounding no vote of confidence against them by AWARE members.
Even as the dust has settled after that extraordinary general meeting (EGM), there are still plenty of opinions and views of this AWARE saga being debated in cyberspace.
However, it is not my provocative to take sides.
Out-of-touch of issues
In my personal opinion, this AWARE debacle offers many takeaways and one that has largely exposed the gap between the Church and the world.
From my observation of the new guard’s actions, the reports from the media and the general reaction of Christians, it clearly revealed how out-of-touch and out-of-depth we are with our world.
Firstly, the new guard had cited that the reason for their sudden takeover of AWARE’s leadership was due to the old guard’s agenda in promoting lesbianism and homosexuality as an alternative lifestyle through sex education in certain schools.
Apparently, that discovery caused a knee-jerk reaction to their dubious takeover with the new guard seizing nine of the 12 positions on AWARE’s executive committee. It was subsequently revealed that 80 of the 102 the election attendees turned out to be newbies who had joined AWARE in recent months.
More unhappiness and tension escalated when Dr Thio Su Mien, the self-styled “Feminist Mentor” revealed that she was the person responsible for the takeover. Later, it was also found that she and several of the new elected leaders were members of a same church.
Out-of-depth in relating
Secondly, many members were left disappointed in how Ms Lau and her team was not able to answer many of the questions asked at the EGM.
It was reported that even though members kept asking to “please give me the right of reply”, the new guard stuck mainly to statements that had been already released to the media.
For instance, when queried on their stand on homosexuality, Ms Lau sidestepped the issue and maintained that AWARE would remain a secular society that would provide support to homosexual women.
One well-known blogger, Yawning Bread who was observing at the EGM made an interesting comment describing like-minded Christians supporters of Ms Lau at the EGM displaying “an over-earnest politeness in speech and demeanour, punctuated by frequent invocations of blessings and goodwill”.
He further commented that this behavioural pattern was the result of ‘brain-washing’. He wrote that “they were likely people who were uncomfortable with conflict and ambiguity, whose personality is such that they prefer order and hierarchy”.
I think with such encounters with Christians, it is not surprising that the world perceives us as being sheltered, anti-homosexual or judgemental.
Reasons for the gap
I believe that this gap between the Church and the world is caused because for too long we as Christians have loved people with a conditional love.
It is sad that we, Christians are known more for whom we hate rather than whom we love.
Too often, we have been too quick to judge and only choose to love readily those that are similar to us or who share closely to our beliefs and lifestyle.
Another reason might be us being too pre-occupied with church-related activities or ministries that have unknowingly drawn us away from the lost or unchurch.
Ironically, these activities or ministries have lost their original intent but have become self-serving and losing its relevance and effectiveness in reaching out to the lost and unchurch.
Whether intentionally or not, this has caused the Church to be out of touch with the world; losing our ability to identify and relate compassionately towards the lost and unchurch.
Time to love radically and be the Church
We should not merely confine our love within the Christian community. Like Jesus, we must engage the culture we live in and start radically loving and serving people beyond the “four walls of the church”.
When we are IN the world serving others and not in isolation away from others, we’ll be in a better position to respond and address any moral or social issue in their early stage. This avoids any unnecessary knee-jerk reaction from us.
More importantly, we will be able to earn the credibility to lead in addressing such issues and avoid the same awkward situation that the new guard found themselves in when questioned during the EGM.
“Where were you when women were abused and battered in the home, and the girls raped?
“Where were you when children and husbands of Singapore women were denied citizenship?”
“Where were you? You were not there.”
WHERE IS THE CHURCH?
The World’s Perception of Christians
Below is an interesting excerpt about people’s perceptions towards Christians in general. Comments are welcome to verify the accuracy on some of these perceptions.
In 2007, David Kinnaman published his groundbreaking book, UnChristian: What A New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity. This book is the result of three years of extensive interviews with young adults today.
Through his research, Kinnaman discovered the negative perceptions the unchurched (he called them “outsiders”) had toward Christianity, which altered their willingness to commit their lives to Jesus.
Kinnaman’s research explores the six perceptions these outsiders have of Christians:
(1) Hypocritical: Outsiders consider us hypocritical—saying one thing and doing another—and they are skeptical of our morally superior attitudes. Christians present the church as a place only for the virtuous and morally pure people.
(2) Too focused on getting converts: Outsiders wonder if we genuinely care about them. They feel like targets rather than people. They question our motives when we try to help them “get saved,” despite the fact that many of them have already “tried” Jesus and experienced church before.
(3) Anti-homosexual: Outsiders say that Christians are bigoted and show disdain for gays and lesbians. They say that Christians are fixed on curing homosexuals and on leveraging political solutions against them.
(4) Sheltered: Christians are thought of as old-fashioned, boring, and out of touch with reality. Outsiders say we do not respond to reality in appropriately complex ways, preferring simplistic solutions and answers. We are not willing to deal with the grit and grime of people’s lives.
(5) Too political: Another common perception of Christians is that we are overly motivated by a political agenda, and that we promote and represent politically conservative interests and issues. Conservative Christians are often thought of as right-wingers.
(6) Judgmental: Outsiders think of Christians as quick to judge others. They say we are not honest about our attitudes and perspectives about other people. They doubt that we really love people as we say we do.
Read the full entry here>>>
Uphold Accountability for Christ’s sake
Accountability is never an easy topic to discuss and is never without its controversies.
With people adopting a more preferred liberal worldview in our present age, accountability has also become a sensitive matter to deal with.
Generally, people in authority including parents, find it more and more challenging in engaging and managing their followers.
It also doesn’t serve to help the situation with the amount of daily bad press of abusive and manipulative behaviour from leaders in organisations. All these add to the repulsive stance people may have towards submission and being accountable to authority.
Definition of accountability
However, I think the underlining issue that has caused accountability to be such a bad word is because of what it means to different people.
When accountability is not understood correctly among stakeholders, it will likely be carried out inappropriately which may in turn result in ugly confrontations.
I believe that accountability is synonymous with responsibility, blameworthiness and liability. Living in a community, everything we do will have some detrimental affect on the people around us irregardless of our position.
Therefore, contrary to conventional belief that accountability is carried out from down-up or a one-way model, I believe strongly that it is a two-way model with more emphasis on top-down accountability.
Leaders or people in authority do carry more weight of the affects from their every decision made; every word spoken; and every action taken.
Moreover, with leaders displaying accountability, it only begets accountability from followers. Leaders not only lead , but they also lead by example.
I can’t imagine how leadership can expect their followers to truly follow without establishing trust and confidence by being open and transparent.
Doing it for Christ and His Church
Accountability is people-centric and strives to build an environment that nurtures relationships.
Call me idealistic, but I hold on to the biblical belief that the Church is potentially the only place where true accountability can be best exhibited. That is because accountability is about loving God wholeheartedly and loving people fervently.
But the sad reality is that the Church seems to fail miserably in this department. There are far too many scandals from churches that have eclipsed the good deeds of exemplenary churches that have chose love and integrity against greed and lust.
Therefore, with Christ’s reputation and many lives at stake, I believe that leadership in churches should be more motivated to enforce more check and balances to safe guard the interest of the Church and people.
We desperately need the true Church to shine in these darkest hours and give people fewer excuses to shun and reject the truth of Christ.
The True Test of Character
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.
Abraham Lincoln
My Read of the Month:
Title: Brida: A Novel (P.S.)
Author: Paulo Coelho
Published: 2008
Genre: Philosophical Fiction
Ratings: 
Paulo always writes about issues that are universally common to all of us as human beings such as self-discovery, our search for love, pursuing our dreams and our spirituality.
I make it a point to read his books on a regular basis. His books are really thought-provoking and spell-binding. He is gifted writer.
In this story of Brida, it centres around a young Irish girl and her quest for knowledge. And like most of his other books, it
is a tale of love, passion, mystery and spirituality masterly crafted to awaken your mind and spirit with nuggets of wisdom.
As this story portrays mainly on traditional magical teachings that is woven with Catholic Christianity. Hence, much has to be read with an open but discerning mind especially for the ‘conservtists’ or ‘fundalemantalists’.
Though I found this book an enjoyable read that whetted my appetite for more with each chapter, but I was quite disappointed in how the story was concluded as an ending.
Who should read it: Fans of Paulho Coelho and for those who might not have read any of his books. Makes an exceptional good read for those who are mel and contemplative.
Andrew: Inside & Insights 