this IS christianity in singapore…

 

(source)

Thailand. The land of the free. The constitutional monarchy with a very well-loved and respected King. The country of smiles.

But did you know? Thailand is a place of little true joy. Buddhism is so much a part of the Thai national identity and permeates into every level of society and culture that only about one hundred Thais accept Christ each year in the country of over 68 million people.

Do you share the burden of being that one small change agent, bringing the gospel to the Thais, one at a time?

With its many temples and monks, it is hard to ignore the fact that Buddhism is Thailand’s national religion. With only 16% christians, most Thai students see christianity only as a foreign religion. The land of smiles needs to hear the gospel message. Come and share with Khonkaen University students that Jesus is the way, the true and the life!

Go Change. World.  

 

For someone who lives under the christian subculture in Singapore, it is easy for me to mock the online cacophony over the poster above as white noise. In fact, I invite any practising christian in Singapore, to challenge me on this – that the above IS REPRESENTATIVE, very accurately indeed, of grassroots christianity as subscribed (orthodoxy) and practised (orthopraxy) in this country.

 

NUS student group says sorry for insensitive remarks

 

For anyone blissfully ignorant of Campus Crusade for Christ (CCC), of which the NUS (National University of Singapore) campus branch is responsible for the above advertisement (which caused much noise in the online community), it is an evangelical parachurch organisation founded by an already deceased William (Bill) Bright. Its main purpose is to spread (really, to proselytise) the christian religion all over the world. It has many branches, with sub “ministries” in tertiary campuses, all over the world. The main polytechnics in Singapore, namely Singapore, Ngee Ann, Temasek and Nanyang, have CCC ministries (I am not sure about the newest polytechnic, Republic) along with the two main universities, NUS and NTU (Nanyang Technological University).

 

I was a member in one of those branches during my school days.

 

And so let anyone accuse, dishonestly and deceptively, that I have no credibility to assert what I am asserting now. In fact, in the deluded madness of my youth, I wanted to enter the seminary to become a pastor. This led me to years of personal study and research (and anguish) into christian theology, biblical studies and historical criticism (which eventually led me to my free-thinking secular humanism). I suppose that is one of the reasons why I am still earnestly interested in the academic study of the bible.

 

Now, contrary to what CCC Singapore as well as the rest of the christian community who want to distance themselves from CCC claim; the theological premise which undergirds the alleged poster has always been constant in christianity, at least as practised and believed in this country; which is namely, that the person of Jesus Christ, as the Son of God (jews and muslims would disagree), is the ONLY way to personal salvation (of the soul) and thus upon death, the ONLY way to an eternity in heaven. This means that in the perception of christians, buddhists, muslims, hindus and free thinkers are all DAMNED to an eternity in hell. Full stop.

 

Now, a conniving dishonesty comes when a non-christian confronts the christian in a media or national capacity.  It is common for the christian to make the non-sensical statement that it is not up to him to judge anyone – only god knows – the destiny of all men. No streetwise christian would be so daft as to state the truth point blank that the poor interviewer will be damned to hellfire. But this is a red herring which distracts the public from the real issue – what does christian theology teach?

 

Classical christian theology has always been religiously exclusive – there is only ONE TRUE religion – and ONE TRUE scripture. It is precisely this very deluded view that compels practitioners to proselytise non-christians as much as possible – they are really sincere about it – they want you to go to heaven!

 

So let me be clear. Any christian who claims that CCC is not representative of christianity is being deliberately dishonest.

 

In making this assertion, I am not claiming that no christian in Singapore disagrees with the bigoted exclusivity of classical christianity; there are perhaps many who do privately. But as an institution and a social movement in Singapore, christianity is religiously exclusive, and theoretically unaccepting towards other religious or nonreligious traditions.

 

There is no point in interviewing, let’s say, a spokesperson for the National Council of Churches in Singapore. Or some lecturer in Trinity Theological College Singapore. Folks like these do not represent the average church pastor, let alone the christian person on the street. In classic Singaporean style, bishops and theologians would offer politically correct and nuanced views on the matter, deflecting any potential conflict.

 

Politically correct spin are nothing but half-truths and testicle-licking lies.

 

Anyhow, the alleged poster is very tame by my book. Just drop by any of the tongue-speaking, hand-raising, demon-casting and chriss angel-like magic mumbo-jumbo charismatic megachurches in Singapore and you will see that Jesus Camp and Teen Mania is more closer to the truth than meets the eye.

 

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some thoughts on terry eagleton

 

Terence Francis Eagleton, more popularly known as “Terry” Eagleton, is one of Britain’s most influential literary theorists and critics, who has served professorships at the universities of Oxford, Manchester, Notre Dame and Lancaster.

 

He might be adept at criticising literary texts but when it comes to the Bible, he seems to be in his own world, literally, oblivious to the real world out there.

 

Well known for his pungent attacks of Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens for their supposed caricutures of mainstream religion, especially Christianity, Eagleton accuses the duo of building strawmen of christian theology and tearing them down instead of actually knowing their stuff about theology. He made his points very clear in both his Guifford lecture on The God Debate at the University of Edinburgh last year as well as his series of lectures at the Ivy league institution, Yale University, in 2008.

 

But is his criticism justified?

 

He claimed that most theology students would be appalled at Dawkins’ or Hitchen’s descriptions of christian theology – my university training was in divinity – but I am more appalled by Eagleton’s own caricature of classical christian theology than Dawkins’ very realistic description of grassroots evangelical christianity, both in the US as well as in the UK and other parts of the world.

 

Eagleton claimed that the orthodox christian doctrine of God is NOT that of a supernatural Being that exists outside of space and time. This is an outright LIE – either he is really that ignorant and stupid or he is deliberately lying under his teeth. Classical theism has always been teaching that God is a supernatural, personal Being who created the world out of nothing – whether in six literal days (christian fundamentalism) or via evolution (Roman Catholicism, some evangelicals and all liberal christians).

 

The modern pantheist, panentheist or the more ethereal notions of God are never part of mainstream orthodox Christianity. Otherwise, much fewer innocent lives would have been lost at the stake.

 

Theology aside, as someone who was and still am living in the evangelical subculture of Singapore, Dawkins’ presentation of evangelical christianity is actually SPOT ON – of Singaporean christianity, anyway.

 

Seminary level-wise, the ONLY seminary of which I know that some of the professors are at least semi-liberal in their theological beliefs is Trinity Theological College, our nation’s premier educational institution for christian leaders. All of the other academia in the likes of Singapore Bible College, Assemblies of God Bible College, Theological Centre for Asia, East Asia School of Theology, Far Eastern Bible College, Rhema Bible Training Centre and City Harvest Bible Training Centre, etc more or less ascribe to fundamental christian doctrines. Most are creationists, with some of the even more extreme KJV-only, Calvinist loony types. Academia in Rhema, City Harvest, Assemblies of God and Theological Centre for Asia are all pentecostal or charismatic – terribly loony.

 

At the grassroots level, 99.9 per cent of practising christians in Singapore are creationists who eschew evolutionary theory, subscribe to classical supernatural theism and trust in faith healing. Almost ALL of practising christians in Singapore interpret the bible LITERALLY, believing in the traditional but archaic notions that Moses actually wrote the penteteuch, the Red Sea really parted, the Jericho walls really crumbled at Joshua’s hands, the Birth Narratives of Jesus, etc. The idea that the Bible is MYTH and METAPHOR is blasphemy.

 

Many may pay lip service to the scientific method and rational inquiry, but when a push becomes a shove would reject science in favour of the bible.

 

 Terry Eagleton, my dear sir, this is only Singapore. I have excluded the rest of Southeast Asia, China, South Korea, Japan as well as the vast continent of Africa – the overwhelming majority of Christians in the world come from these places and not Europe – and the christianity that is practised there are FUNDAMENTAL, primitive and definitely NOT in the way you described it.

 

So was Dawkins exaggerating about christianity and christians in his book The God Delusion? I don’t think so. Was Hitchens overly zealous in his mockery of christian theology in his book God is not Great? I don’t think so.

 

Much of modern theology and its gymnastics are attempts to revise and re-create classical orthodox christian theology to make it palatable to the modern mind. Theological gibberish have been spent on trying to “explain” the Incarnation, the Trinity,  so that they become reasonably coherent and logical. What does this mean? Theologians themselves know that classical christianity is illogical and incoherent and thus cannot be defended in a postreligious climate and thus much has to be cooked up about metaphor, myth and figures of speech.

 

And this is from someone who is still among the evangelical subculture and who has studied theology and divinity.

 

Read your Shakespeare and your Wodehouse, Eagleton. But please avoid commenting on theology in defence of your own religiosity. Dawkins and Hitchens might not have engaged with modern theology, but they have no need to. Modern theology is really nothing but a modernist smokescreen for what is really an outdated and archaic worldview that has no place in the world today.

 

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it is about time…

 

It is good news indeed to know that a few of the pastors as well as lay leaders in City Harvest Church Singapore have recently graduated from Trinity Theological College Singapore (TTC) with divinity degrees.

 

City Harvest pastors, members obtain degrees from TTC

 

It is time charismatic christendom learn that their pastors and preachers have to be trained theologically, let alone be biblically literate.

 

It is detrimental to the church when the preachers and teachers are poorly informed about church history, philosophy, other church traditions other than their own, and most importantly, how to handle the christian bible accurately and properly.

 

Although there are some institutions which are popular haunts of independent charismatics, like the Tung Ling Bible School, Rhema Bible Training Centre Singapore and even City Harvest Bible Training Centre; such institutions are very poor academic choices for biblical scholarship.

 

They are but bastions of anti-intellectualism and parochial indoctrination. Many graduate from these places with no knowledge of the original languages, no knowledge of biblical criticism, no knowledge of inter-faith engagement, etc. Alas they even pride themselves as being more “on fire” for God, as though zeal can make up for any lack of intellectual rigour.

 

New Creation Church should learn from City Harvest’s example and send their superstar pastor Joseph Prince back to school.

 

At least then he will stop pretending to know greek and hebrew.

 

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