It certainly seems clear to me that he has redefined the meaning of family. From biological affiliations, he has now come to define "family" as a company of people who follow Jesus together and who desire to do God’s will.

But that creates a dilemma for us who have been raised with the proverbial notion, "blood is thicker than water". For this Jesus is categorically claiming that there is now a tie among his followers stronger than any tie between them and their biological families. Their biological ties are earthly and temporal, but our spiritual ties are eternal.

Perhaps Jesus had a purpose for redefining family in this way. He had something to share with the world, and he was gathering all those people who would be willing to listen. He wanted to show the world that God was writing a beautiful story; a story of his Kingdom.

You see, in all eternity, the Trinity God has always existed in an intimate relationship of love and friendship with one another. God has a dream to build a Kingdom that is based on love and friendship, so that the world can be inspired to share that dream. Jesus came to share that dream; to make that dream possible.

In being with the family of God, we are saying that we share in God’s dream to build that Kingdom together. It means that we have our unique places in this story that God is busy writing. Your own story and my own story are to be found only within this larger story of God. Jesus brings us together and says “You are now family; now live your lives before the world - as a family - so that they can see the Kingdom in their midst.”

To live as a newly configured family in order to model God’s Kingdom is no easy feat. These people are hard to get along with; just look at the person sitting next to you in church on Sunday!

Posted by SK at 01:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

They had had many family meetings and discussions about him and what to do with him. Many of the things that he had done throughout the course of his public ministry had brought embarrassment and shame to the family. As if the memory of his birth itself wasn’t already enough to remind them of a past shame.

They finally decided that it was now time to go where he was teaching his disciples, bring him back home, and knock some sense into him. And in addition to that, they had a responsibility to save the reputation of the family (or whatever was left of it). So they went outside the place where Jesus was seated with his disciples and sent one of his disciples in to call him out.

They had no desire to even enter the building to listen to what Jesus was preaching; they would all be nonsensical claims after all. As it was, they were already embarrassed enough to face the public. They certainly had no desire to be seen with those people who were crazy enough to follow their son/brother. Furthermore, they didn’t have to enter. After all, as his family, they commanded the primary right to his attention; they had a higher position than his ministry.

But to the horror of his listeners, he answered his messenger: “Who are my mother and my brothers? Here are my mother and my brothers". He refused to go out to meet with his family. He pointed to those who were seated around him, who had responded to his call to be with him. There were now spiritual ties between him and them that were far closer than blood ties.

Posted by SK at 09:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Even his own family was worried for him. This son and brother of theirs was doing strange things and making strange demands that seemed insane to many people. At times he seemed to be talking as if he was God himself. He delivered strange teachings to large crowds:

"Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me, and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it."

"If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."

"Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead."

Was he mentally dislocated? Or was he just trying to attain a position of fame in a strange way? Why couldn’t he just be like any other son in other families? Whatever it was, this son and brother of theirs seemed to be full of contradictions as far as his claims were concerned.

He lived his life in such a human way, at times seeming so weak and frail; and yet he often made strong claims, as if the fate of the entire humankind rested upon him. Sometimes his profound teachings were so revolutionary that people would exclaim in reaction, “"Is this not the carpenter's son? Is not his mother called Mary? And His brothers James, Joses, Simon, and Judas? And His sisters, are they not all with us?" It offended their senses that a commoner like him would teach such presumptuous things.

He seemed almost schizophrenic. Perhaps he was just an illusive dreamer. Even the respectable people of his time, the bible teachers, accused him of being demon-possessed. And his family echoed this popular opinion that he was literally out of his mind. During his time, being demon-possessed and being insane were synonymous.

Posted by SK at 04:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Having been in the pastoral ministry for a while, I've come to realise that urban Christian parents can be a most troublesome lot in the church community. It's difficult to entertain their demands on their children and on the rest of the Christian community.

Read this honest blog entry from a youth worker: Christian Parents

Posted by SK at 01:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This perfect young boy had now grown up to be a young man.

He left his home and the carpentry business that his father had left him, took to the streets and started behaving like a loafer. He did wonderful things for the community, which were well and good. But together with that, he was also saying things that shocked the values of the community.

You see, in this community, family was everything. But as he invited people to follow him, their allegiance towards him also had a crucial impact on their family life. Following Christ posed a big threat to families. People who followed him seemed to shift in their self-understanding, and this inevitably caused subversion of family ties.

Sometimes, in following Christ, marital conflict would take place between couples. Occasionally it would even lead to divorce. Some others, upon following Christ, left their homes and families to become itinerant missionaries.

Some people who followed Christ were persecuted by their own family members. Following this Jesus was not exactly the most conducive thing for a happy family life.

Posted by SK at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

News has it that Jesus had brothers and sisters, who were born to Joseph and Mary. Of course, people are busily debating the historicity of this allegation. Scripture seems to shows us that among his brothers were James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas, together with a number of unnamed sisters.

Thinking on behalf of a brother or a sister of Jesus... what do you think it is like growing up with a brother who never sins? What was it like for Joseph and Mary to raise a bunch of children who were sinful and one other child who was perfect in all his ways? How would they have explained to their other children the circumstances of their eldest brother’s birth, or justify the reality of his conception before their marriage? Because even if they didn't bother to explain it, the children would've heard the rumours from other kids they played with outside, for their parents would've been talking about it in their homes.

I can imagine that there must've been rumours floating about town years ago when Mary conceived Jesus, saying that the young lady had become pregnant with an illegitimate child. It must've been more than a mere embarassing season in her life and that of her husband-to-be. You know, such stories don't just diminish over time... people talk. And talk. And talk.

By the sheer birth of Jesus alone, the family must have had gone through a lot to salvage a reputation that had been ruined. They had probably lived their lives hoping that memories of Jesus’ pre-marital birth wouldn’t be remembered by anyone. Both the parents and all his sibblings didn't have it easy; there was a dark story that followed them in that community. People talked about them.

To be the family of Jesus was also to live a life of humiliation, right from the time of his birth.

Posted by SK at 12:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It is the duty of every professing follower of the Way to make a choice to Christianise his own life and to live out an unwavering commitment to the gospel he claims to embrace. Peter T. Forsythe was right when he said, “The first duty of every soul is to find not its freedom but its Master”. To call one’s self Christian does not automatically mean that Jesus is one’s Master, unless one deliberately chooses it to be so.

To be Christian is to be thoroughly Christianised in every way. Unfortunately, many Christians entrenched in a culture of affluence tend to think that there is an alternative way to be Christian, so another form of Christianity has been popularised today. A.W. Tozer contrasts the two forms of Christianity in The Old Cross and the New :

From [the] new cross has sprung a new philosophy of the Christian life; and from that new philosophy has come a new evangelical technique - a new type of meeting and new type of preaching. This new evangelism employs the same language as of the old, but its content is not the same, and the emphasis not as before.

The new cross encourages a new and entirely different evangelistic approach. The evangelist does not demand abnegation of the old life before a new life can be received. He preaches not contrasts but similarities. He seeks to key into the public view the same thing the world does, only a higher level. Whatever the sin-mad world happens to be clamouring after at the moment is cleverly shown to be the very thing the gospel offers, only the religious product is better.

The new cross does not slay the sinner; it re-directs him. It gears him to a cleaner and jollier way of living, and saves his self-respect...The Christian message is slanted in the direction of the current vogue in order to make it acceptable to the public. The philosophy back of this kind of thing may be sincere, but its sincerity does not save it from being false. It is false because it is blind. It misses completely the whole meaning of the cross. The old cross is a symbol of DEATH.

Posted by SK at 06:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It often bewilders me how sophistication and complication are values so highly exalted in the Protestant Christianity. Of course, we may expressly deny this in the gospel we preach, but don’t we implicitly take much pride in temporal success and excellence? In some segments of the church, material success is blatantly preached, citing the pursuit of such excellence as a legitimate glorification of God.

Where is the virtue of simplicity once embraced by the faith community? Where is the spirit of continuous, non-programmatised, non-advertised, non-glorified giving for the sake of our neighbour who finds himself in dire need of subsistence? We may claim to have given much, but the proportion in which we have given is unreflective of the measure in which we have received. It doesn’t take more than a mere peek into our church sanctuaries to know we are hoarding luxuries.

But then again, some say it's about being "relevant" to the world, because nobody wants to come into a church full of people who dress like geeks and whose service is conducted with sub-standard equipment and skill. So now we want people to come to church because we dress well and provide superb experience to our "clients"? Some segments of the faith community truly do need to relearn the gospel story all over again.

Has the Protestant Reformation now turned upon itself? Are we now exalting the very corruptions we battled against? Have we fallen under the very judgements we once pronounced? We passed the verdict that they were no longer a true church, but today, uncritically persist in the very corruptions we have condemned.

“What you see before you is a man. A simple monk. I think I am a reflection, like the moon on water. When you see me, and I try to be a good man, you see yourself.”

- “The 14th Dalai Lama” in Kundun, 1997 -

Posted by SK at 12:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

That's all for this series on the Voice of Asia. It emerged as a response to a series of questions presented by a friend of mine, and I felt that these responses might be deemed beneficial by other hearers. This is what prompted my decision to post them up as a colated series.

Some of the instances I have quoted in this series may seem rather extreme examples; if you find them so, please consider them to be literary hyperboles employed in order to advance some points of serious concern. I think we're sometimes overly caught up with being politically correct in our articulations; in the process, the vitality of our concerns loses its impact.

Asia - together with my people in Malaysia - has much to think about. It will be no easy feat, for inasmuch as we have received from our fathers in the faith, it is now time for us to give in accordance with the proportion of education and upbringing we have received.

We, the new generation of Christians, are blessed with all that the previous generations were deprived of. These blessings can dull us into an illusion of affluence; but they can also provoke us to contemplate upon the predicament our generation and the subsequent generations might find themselves in.

We have much to think about.

Posted by SK at 11:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

6. How does tentmaking sit as a viable option for Malaysians entering fulltime missions?

I suppose, again, we need to have a properly developed theology of vocation for the Malaysian Christian before we can even consider if tentmaking is a viable option. Tentmaking is perhaps an economically more viable option as compared to going into the missionfield as fulltime churchplanters or pastors. But even so, if Malaysians enter the missionfield as tentmakers simply because it enables them to fulfill the Great Commission without having to pay too high a cost, I think it defeats the entire purpose of our God-given mission to begin with.

We need to see, as a Malaysian Church, that we are "called" into different vocations based on our personalities, our giftings, our competencies, and our dispositions. These vocations are the very platforms for us, as Malaysian Christians, to be salt and light in the world. Our vocations are the vehicles for our being the sacramental presence of Christ in the world. Only when this theological value is ingrained in the Malaysian mind that it will "make sense" for one to desire to establish the presence of Christ through his/her vocation in a less developed nation.

Just another point of interest. A survey has been made in Malaysia, and it was discovered that most of the young Christians who eventually decide to embrace a vocation in the fulltime ministry actually originate from the smaller towns, not the urbanised cities. The urban youths are usually more fixated on finding their "paths to success". Yet, most of the church's finance is devoted to "discipling" the young people in the city. I'm wondering if we have been "laying our bets on the wrong horse"!

Posted by SK at 12:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

5. What prevents Malaysian Christians from going into the missionfield as fulltime missionaries?

Within the Malaysian (particularly the Chinese Malaysian) worldview is an innate need for economic security. This again is a value imparted inter-generationally because we have emerged from past generations of immigrants that lived in acute poverty. Hence, we are taught since a very young age that our task and goal in life is to secure a future for ourselves that will be free of economic struggle. Going into the mission field as fulltime missionaries is of course a vocation that defies the very values we were brought up with. It is at this point that the Malaysian Church needs to learn what it means to understand the heart of the gospel beyond that which we have learned from an affluent West. It is the task of the Malaysian Church to discern and to speak into these cultural values of local Christians, rather than to remain preoccupied with Western teachings that are rather disconnected from our cultural realities.

I see this powerfully arising from China's Back to Jerusalem Movement, which has its slogan as follows: sacrifice, abandonment, poverty, suffering, death. China has for many decades been insulated from Western Christianity. As a result, an indigenous Christianity has blossomed from within China which discovered the realities of the gospel through the life of the Chinese Christian community. They discovered the virtues of sacrifice, abandonment, poverty, suffering, death in the life of the Chinese Christians, and have brought the reality of this message very powerfully in their gospel.

For as long as Malaysia does not have an intention to develop a theology that is grounded upon our own contextual realities and be willing to pay the cost for that belief, I don't think we will be anywhere near being ready to send missionaries on a large scale into the missionfield. We will merely continue living on a borrowed faith and subsist on teachings from the West which aren't very connected to our context of ecclesial life and theology.

Posted by SK at 10:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

4. What impact does Western Christianity have on the discipleship of Asians?

Too much.

To us in Asia now, discipleship means the Purpose-Driven Life, the Cell Church, the Natural Church Development, Alpha, the Bible Study Fellowship... which of these has Asian roots? The songs that we sing in church (of course our corporate worship is a part of discipleship!) come from Hillsong Music, Integrity Hosanna Music, and many other such groups... which of these ministries is Asian in its origin and musical expression? None. Many of our church services are sub-standard replications of high-class Western church services held in auditorium settings. Many pastors I know even try to preach with a North American accent even if they've never set foot in a Western nation for more than 3 months at a go, not to mention that some of them dress in heavily clad Western-fashioned coats in our hot tropical climate. It's no wonder that many indigenous people in Asia think that Christianity is a Western faith.

I greatly fear for some of the Western teachings that have pervaded Christianity here in Asia. For example, some churches - particularly those from the Pentecostal and Charismatic segment - have now begun bringing in many Western teachings that find their roots in the Word-Faith Movement. The foundational philosophy of this movement is that of Gnosticism, which propagates the possession of “secret knowledge” that elevates the capabilities and status of the mortal person. Correspondingly, man is believed to possess the power to “create his own reality through the power of positive affirmation [or confession]”. Adherents are taught to affirm intangible images of health and wealth so as to transform them into tangible realities. Man is exalted as the central focus of the universe such that he has the power to do what God does. As is noted by Johnson Lim in his A Different Gospel, “God has become more like a ‘Cosmic Concierge’”. Such a manner of faith is preoccupied with the perceived needs of the human person for autonomy as opposed to the demands of God by virtue of his concern for holiness and justice.

Another example is the rise of the Megachurch Movement in Asia. Despite the Megachurch Movement being hailed as a “leading trend of the coming millennium”, its fixation upon effective evangelism through the exploitation of insights and tools derived from the behavioural sciences is cause for concern. Whilst there is much regarding the preoccupation of this movement with mission and evangelisation, it also heavily employs tools from the fields of management, marketing, psychology and communications for the express purpose. Once a megachurch reaches a critical mass of one thousand its financial and organisational potential and growth becomes great, but so also does its entanglement with the modern culture. This, as Robert Coles suggests of the secular mind, constitutes “evidence of the faith we have in ourselves, in our ability to know ourselves, gain control of things…through such knowledge”. The dominance of a human-centred understanding in the megachurch presents the grave danger of undermining the significance of faith such that Christianity becomes a mere religious rhetoric without a concrete spiritual reality. The paradox of modernity as presented in the Megachurch Movement is that in the man-serving climate of managerial and therapeutic preoccupation, Christianity can dangerously exist apart from God.

The influences of these two examples of the Christian life and models of discipleship are more pervasive in Asia than we care to admit, especially the more urban parts of Asia. I think we often ignore the dangers of these realities because it's an easier route to take. Discipleship in Asia - particular in Malaysia (and Singapore, if I may add) has never been in greater peril. Such teachings are so well-accepted as a part of evangelical Christianity and taken as representative of Christian orthodoxy, and that's frightening!

But one may say that these two movements represent only a negligible margin of Christianity here. Well, there's more than just this. Even those of us from the traditional segment of the Church are influenced by Western Christianity more than we know. Every tradition of faith inevitably comes with its underlying epistemological assumptions. As a tradition that was received from the Western context, Asian Christianity too possesses its own contextual bias. For example, there is the assumption that we hold the sole prerogative of truth in its exclusive nature. This innate and often unexamined presupposition is reflected in our interactions (or lack thereof) with other religious proponents and cultural forces. Even where such interactions exist, it seems to often be indicated in Christian gatherings that other Asian religions are to be seen as rivals and competitors. Whilst our gospel may legitimately be held as unique and the only way of salvation (for this claim to exclusiveness is innate within the weltanschuung of many faiths), it does not warrant an insular approach in relating with other faiths. It also does not permit for us to exist as if we have nothing to learn from other faiths and cultures. Hence, there is a crucial need for interfaith dialogues that are undertaken with utmost humility and Christ-like embodiment of his Spirit in the world and through the life of the Christian community. It would be naïve to assume that gospelising Asia is a simple matter of contextualising our gospel by altering its cosmetics so it becomes more attractive. To represent the gospel in a way that is true to itself, we need to move beyond our established way of propositional proclamation for the simplistic purpose of "saving souls."

We also need to re-examine our foundations. Within our tradition, this preceeding statement itself would provoke a fear of slipping into the clutches of liberal theology. But to not re-examine our foundations is to embrace the equal folly of misrepresenting the heart of the gospel, which may constitute an equal wrong. There are those among us who have emphatically affirmed that as Asian Christians, we have to move beyond the colonial Christianity that we have received. In the same breath, it is emphasised that this enterprise has to start with the word of God. But isn't our understanding and handling of the word itself (our hermeneutical exercise) also colonially conditioned? Do such realities not need to be acknowledged? If so, does it not also present the imperative of examining, deconstructing, and reconstructing our foundations? Are we culturally as unperceptive as many well-meaning colonial missionairies were? If the Christian faith has in all these past decades and centuries been presented as a faith based on a linear-logical foundation, perhaps it is time for us to recover the circular-logical and parallel-logical dimensions of the faith as Asian Christians. If it has all this while been based on a propositional foundation, perhaps it is time for us to recover the relational and intuitive dimension of the faith as an authentic Asian faith.

My answer to this question may have been rather lengthy and indirect, but consider how immediate the implications are on the discipleship of the Asian Church.

Posted by SK at 02:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (0)

A reflection on conversations with my spiritual guides on 11 September 2006

1. On Educating Those Who Harm Us
Whilst we seek to forgive those who have done us griveous harm and to not hold it against them thereafter, we should also seek to educate and teach them to never repeat their acts. This is a virtue of justice and responsibility we should impose upon ourselves for the wellbeing of the wider society.

It is a human inclination to execute parting shots at those who have harmed us and to exist apart from them in order to safeguard one's own wellbeing. But the imperatives of justice and love prescribe that we must do what is within our capabilities to assist those who have harmed us in the alteration of their behaviour pattern.

2. On the Fragmentation of Protestant Spirituality
The Protestant Church at this point of time exists in a very divided state. A particular point of division exists between those of the liturgical traditions and those of the Pentecostal-Charismatic traditions. The solution for this seeming fragmentary impasse in the Church is the recovery of sacramental theology.

Liturgical traditions seek to invoke the response of the worshipper through the use of visible realities which engage the senses. Pentecostal-charismatic traditions seek to preserve the existential experience of the worshipper in a Spirit-led life. Sacramental theology helps these two streams to find a point of common agreement: that spiritual realities can be represented by visible realities. In Christ and through the Holy Spirit, God's presence abides with his people; and this enlivening presence can be uncovered in visible rituals and symbols in Christian worship.

Liturgical Theology:
The Church as Worshipping Community

For further and deeper understanding of this topic, this book was given my spiritual guide throughout our conversation. It is newly published and hasn't yet hit the bookstores in Singapore and Malaysia! The following is a synopsis of the book:

"Bad worship produces bad theology, and bad theology produces an unhealthy church."

Chan's proposal advances the conversation among evangelicals regarding the relationship between theology and worship. In contrast to some theologians who have tended to emphasize a sociological analysis, Chan argues that we need to consider what is essential to the church's theological identity. Drawing on the larger Christian tradition, Chan argues that we discover that identity primarily in the structure and significance of Christian worship.

Here is an "interview" between Zach Kincaid and Simon Chan regarding some points discussed in the book: READ.

Posted by SK at 03:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

3. What speaks most meaningfully to Asians (particularly Chinese) about Christ? For example, stories, preaching, etc. Why?

I can only answer on behalf of Chinese Malaysians, not Chinese in China or Singapore or Hong Kong. I would say that within our cultural paradigm, there is something that we call oral tradition. This tradition seeks to impart values that are transmitted from one generation to another. For example, when I was young, my caretaker used to tell me in Chinese, "When you eat your rice, ensure that your plate is clean, otherwise the wife you marry when you grow up will have lots of pimples on her face!" The whole idea beneath this oral tradition is that one should avoid the wastage of food. Because my ancestors were poor, every grain of rice was precious. And this principle has been passed on from generation to generation in my line of ancestors, without a single piece of documentation! And yet it is faithfully transmitted - until one generation above me, which was educated by the colonial educators. Even so, some values have remained.

What I'm trying to say is, deeply etched within the Asian cultural paradigm is a narratival way of communicating our values. Why should it be different for the communication of the gospel? Look at the way Jesus communicated with the Asian crowd (just so we're reminded that Christianity IS an Asian faith!) - what method of communication did he commonly use? Stories! He narrated his theological principles in the form of stories. Stories have a powerful way of impacting people, ranging from the most intellectually sophisticated to the most simple-minded people. Stories have a way of penetrating through psychological and emotional defences that people erect to guard their reluctance to change.

I think if we desire to communicate powerfully to the Chinese Malaysian today, we need to recover the art of telling parables (stories). The way that we were taught to preach by western Christianity was that of spewing a list of propositions - like a technical manual - for people to embrace and store within the recesses of their comprehension closets. At a later stage, we were taught that we should use little stories as illustrations for these propositions. Maybe it's time for us to allow the stories themselves to be the message. The stories themselves can become a means of communicating the theological principles, rather than merely being little illustrations to illuminate lengthy propositions that nobody cares to remember. This, I believe, will speak powerfully to our Asian culture.

Posted by SK at 04:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

2. What is the greatest source of Christian discipleship in the Asian context? For example, cellgroups, relationships, preaching, books, etc. Why?

Many local churches in Malaysia would be very happy to admit that it's their cellgroups that are responsible for the discipleship of their people. But I think that most of them are simply replicating a system that they think will most effectively grow their churches in numerical terms. I'm inclined to think that for most of them, cellgroups are a mechanism to invoke growth in numbers rather than a platform for effective discipleship and relationship-building.

As far as the preaching goes in the local church scene, my personal opinion is that the quality of sermons preached here leaves much to be desired. Sermons that are informationally packed seldom move people to action, whilst sermons that are moving are at best sensational and motivational with little thought-through theological substance. Hence, I don't think the preaching ministry here has been the greatest source of Christian discipleship. Similarly, Christian books that seem to be selling very well in the bookstores are either experientially subjective books written by certain factions of western Christianity or prescriptive "how-to" books that border on instantaneous pragmatism.

I will not say that there is, at the moment, a great source of Christian discipleship here. Many people think that just because we have international speakers coming our way and we have the best of church discipleship models being sold in the Christian marketplace, our discipleship must be strong. Some churches, especially the megasized ones, are involved in seminar and conference frenzies, thinking that this is how discipleship should be done. The grander and the larger the scale, the better.

I think our understanding of the Christian faith needs to be restored into a communal paradigm of life and faith before Christian discipleship can take place effectively. After all, the community of faith is the interpretive community for the revelation of God. Much of Christianity here needs to rise beyond an individualistic paradigm. Local Christians need to learn to live within community, for community, and be accountable to community for the way they choose to express their faith in their lives. Only within such kingdomic relationships will Christian discipleship take place in an authentic and effective way.

Posted by SK at 04:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

1. What is the primary influence in Asians coming to Christ? For example, power encounters, relationships, arguments, etc. Why?

Let me begin with what is not (and if I may emphasise, what should not be) a primary influence of Asians coming to Christ - arguments, no matter how logically coherent they may be. I think many well-meaning western-influenced apologetic-inclined Christians are culturally very insensitive and disconnected from the local paradigm of life and religious faith. They think that if they come with a nicely charted out linear-logically constructed argument about why Jesus should be embraced as Saviour and Lord, then people are obligated to accept the faith. Eventually, they find themselves becoming little more than pedlers of a historical faith that has been reduced into a series of simplistic propositions about the Christian faith. In their process of gospelising the Asian society, the heart of the gospel itself is somewhat lost.

I think a gospel that would authentically invite people into the reign of God, and which has shown itself to be true to the heart of the Kingdom, is a gospel that is accompanied by God's personal introduction of himself to the hearers. This is where power encounters have, in the history of Christianity in Asia, come in very significantly. When power encounters accompany the preaching of the gospel, the relational dimension of the faith (as opposed to a mere propositional dimension) comes in. Through power encounters, God - through the Holy Spirit - makes himself known in an authentically personal way. Hence, when an invitation is made for people to participate in the reign of God, it's no longer a mere invitation to embrace a series of abstract propositions; it's an invitation to enter into a reconciled relationship with a relationally personal God who is present.

To sum up, I would say that a solely propositional proclamation of the faith (represented by logical arguments, also called "apologetics") is deficient in representing the heart of the Christian faith. The faith must be presented as a relational one, where God is demonstrated as the personal God. For the fulfilment of this requisite, I believe power encounters have been very instrumental in the propagation of the gospel in Asia. This case becomes self-explanatory when one contemplates on the way in which the Pentecostal-Charismatic movement has grown in Asia in the past several decades.

Asians are by and large relational people. New believers frequently bring news of their new faith to their relatives and friends, not to people unknown to them whom they meet on the streets. Evangelism can never be something dispassionate in our culture. Of course, it may seem like I'm universalising things in a very simplistic way. But I would suggest we go beyond the urbanised/westernised settings of our cities and seek to understand the sociological dynamics of the less "progressive" sectors of our cultures; I think it would be rather apparent that my description isn't far off.

Note: "Personal" here does not connote an "individualistic" faith; it refers to God revealing himself in person (i.e. showing up).

Posted by SK at 06:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

A friend of mine - a journalist by training, presently working as a writer for a mission organisation and also a student of the seminary I teach in - has been engaged in a series of conversations with me concerning Christianity in Asia, and more specifically, in Malaysia. This conversation arose from his interest in understanding the present ethos of Asian Christianity and how the Church in Asia may seek to mature in her faith and proclamation of the gospel.

In the past couple of weeks, our interaction has led us to a more "formalised conversation" both through speech and electronic mail. The contents of this conversation will constitute a part of the material he is planning to use for the writing of an article. The latest conversation has taken place through electronic mail, in which he has advanced several questions which I have answered in writing. He has graciously permitted for me to publish this conversation in this blog, and it is hoped that you will find it beneficial food for further thought, whatever your local context may be.

This marks the beginning of a new series which I call Voice of Asia. The entire conversation will be posted up in installments.

Posted by SK at 12:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Link: I Wonder (A Poem on the Church)

An extremely brilliant poem by Janelle on how different people may differently perceive the function of the Church. Is it a convenience store? A theatre? A bus stop? A coffee shop? Or neither of these?

Posted by SK at 09:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

What do you think of an interactive website that provides latest information pertaining to Christianity in Malaysia?

This will include a blog with updated information by a panel of bloggers, a forum for all to participate to discuss issues (especially issues related to our local context), and several other features.

The idea of this project would basically be to gather a community of people who are interested to explore what it means to be both Malaysian and Christian.

This is an idea that has just been mooted by a friend yesterday, and we've decided to think about it seriously. What do you think? Also, if we do decide to start a website like that, what would an appropriate name be for the website?

Posted by SK at 12:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

I remember how it was so hard to love him. Standing even several metres away from him was in itself a daunting task. You see, he used to gloat at me with the aura of self-righteousness, self-respect and self-exaltation accompanying his presence. And he used to look at me with an air of disdain, a piercing stare that constantly reminded me of how much lesser I was as a person compared to him.

But that was more than a dozen years ago. Several days ago, I met him again. He greeted me, not with a handshake but a bear hug. I extended my hand to shake his warmly, but he simply ignored the extension of my hand and gave me a hug. Within less than a minute, he began sharing with me all that he had been through in the recent years and how he's now struggling with life emotionally, mentally, and physically. The torment in his life was real, I could feel it.

I never thought that I would now think of him with so much tenderness in my heart. There's something in me that shares in his pain and his brokenness... the man who despised me, and who has now become someone whose sorrow I share. I now whisper very intense prayers for him in my quiet moments.

All time belongs to the Almighty. He moulds and breaks lives, all at his appointed time, just so they'll turn to him in true surrender. He does it, just so that one life will be given to him; and so that he may in return give his abundance of life to that one life.

Posted by SK at 10:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I don't usually do such a thing since to me it borders on vain narcissism, but for today, what the heck...

You Are Jean Grey

Although your fate is often unknown, you always seem to survive (even after death). Your mind is your greatest weapon, literally! Powers: telepathy and telekinesis, the ability to project thoughts into the mind of others, communication with animals

Posted by SK at 06:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

I spent half the day screwing and unscrewing the nuts and bolts of two car batteries today. One car battery was dead, and I was busy transferring the battery from this bigger car into the smaller car so that I could acquire a bigger battery for the former. So being the lame mechanic wannabe that I am, it took me half a day to get it all done and to get both the cars running.

But in the midst of all the twisting and turning, I realised one thing.

A screw musn't be screwed too tightly, otherwise it will damage the orbits of the thread, and in time to come, it'll no longer be usable. And of course, a screw musn't be screwed too loosely either, otherwise it will not sufficiently grip that which it's supposed to hold. The tension must be just right so it can hold that which it should hold, and it won't attempt to grip so tightly that it loses its own ability to hold.

And it dawned on me: isn't that just the way theology is supposed to be? Guess I make a better theologian wannabe than a mechanic wannabe.

Posted by SK at 11:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

In the past two days, my sustained reflection has rested upon the issue of education. In part, this reflection was provoked by my previous post on "Surviving Independence". One area in which I and many others like me have often been excluded from in my socio-political context is that of tertiary education. We are excluded from privileges and opportunities.

Left: This is where I first received my tertiary education. Bradford, North England, 1998.

But I have also been reflecting more on the pursuit of education itself. Many people pursue undergraduate and postgraduate degrees for various reasons. In a pragmatic culture, degrees are a means to social and economic success. They are a means of enablement for one's pathway to a respectable career and abundant material and financial possessions. If this is what it means to have a degree, it's no wonder people strive hard to earn university degrees.

Amidst all this education frenzy, I wonder how many people who study for degrees are truly interested in becoming educated people in the true sense of the word. How many truly long to become cultured, morally aware, and virtuous people; to be people who do justice to the original purpose of what we call "education" today. I remember having met some very elderly people who had no formal education to speak of, but who lived their lives with a keen awareness of issues that matter. They were, in my estimation, educated.

Just because one is able to present logically coherent arguments doesn't mean that one has become a better person. How sobering it is to know that one can be embarking on a frantic pursuit for university degrees and yet remain thoroughly uneducated and culturally illiterate.

Posted by SK at 02:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)