« July 2008 | Main | November 2008 »
Just received news hardly an hour ago that my doctoral dissertation has been passed.
That means that I'm now, err.. Dr Sherman? Sounds way too odd.
I've just arrived in the Philippines today to attend a three-day consultation organised by Fondacio Asia, and also to speak at a forum on Saturday.
In conjunction with the 2nd memorial programme for the Late Ven. Dr K. Sri Dhammananda Nayaka Maha Thera, the Buddhist Maha Vihara has organised an Inter-religious forum entitled
Religion and Good Governance
Date: 22 August 2008
Time: 8.00pm
Venue: P.H. Hendry Hall, Kuala Lumpur
Panel of Speakers:
Mr Harcharand Singh representing the Sikh community
Dr Amir Farid Dato Ishak representing the Muslim community
Mr P. K. Moorthy representing the Hindu community
Dato' Dr Victor Wee representing the Buddhist community
Mr Sherman Kuek representing the Christian community
I'm observing a camp for tertiary students at the moment (yes, as in now).
As always, it begins with ice-breaker games. And they're playing this game now, consisting of several groups competing to see which one can form the longest line using the possessions they have on themselves.
When we begin unloading our possessions one by one, lining these things up in a straight line, then we will begin to see just how much we have on ourselves. It's frightful.
The Christian is called to a life of kenosis, self-emptying and self-denial. It is a life of dispossession, unloading, and the lightening of the self.
Get real... it takes guts to live a life of dispossession. Got guts?
More than a few Christians I know see Superman and a number of other comic heroes as avatars of the the Christ archetype; the proverbial losers.
Clark Kent, for the sake of identifying with the human race, has to hide his powers and allow himself to be treated like a total loser. His adopted father tells him:
You were made for much more important things than just winning football games.
The Church contains within her depositum fidei a record of thousands of people we hail as saints. They are venerated and hailed as heroes of the faith, those who have crossed over to the other side of the Church triumphant.
But if we examined their lives carefully enough, we just might find a vast many Christ archetypes, proverbial losers who pursued a faith in Christ which necessitated that they void themselves of all significance and heroic inclinations.
To learn the discipline of silence even if you might be the most articulate of all preachers and rhetorists. To exercise the discipline of passivity even if you have muscles strong enough to crush a giant. To learn to submit even if you have the authority to lord it over others. To learn to be nothing even though you know you are something.
This is the mystery of heroism. One must discover that one cannot yield joy and self-significance from being a hero. Heroism is a path of torment, a path of suffering, a path of total self-denial, a ridiculous way of being that one must embrace. Only then can one be a true hero. To be a true hero is to save the world in ways the world cannot recognise.
Heroism and stardom do not get along. Heroes aren't people who win football games. They're made for much more important things than winning football games.
The following is a portion of my Parish Priest's pastoral letter to the parishioners:
What does it mean to be Church? Well, many Catholics learn about the Church simply by growing up in or becoming members of a particular church. The Church often doesn't spend a lot of time explicitly teaching "ecclesiology", or the theology/doctrine of Church. Members learn it through the implicit ways it is experienced in the actual life of the church.
Our understanding of Church is as varied as our experiences of Church. Some view the Church as highly institutional, hierarchical and archaic in comparison to the technologically more advanced wider society. Others view the Church in a sentimental way having grown up with fond memories. Some view the Church as a family, a place of refuge, a home away from home, a sacred space to retreat from the excesses of the world, as they find disillusionment in an increasingly depersonalised and secularised world. On the other hand, some have also grown disillusioned with the Church itself, having been scarred by the hurts and wounds received from other members or even from the leadership.
In spite of our many experiences, the Church is bigger than the total sum of its members or their experiences. Our experiences do not make the Church. It is the Church which should ultimately form our experiences.
Thinkativity :Apologies for the very irregular and infrequent postings. I've been on the road. Out of the 31 days of this month, I'm travelling for a total of 21 days. Whenever I'm back, I'm busy recovering from exhaustion and hangover.
Sherman Kuek
Published in Catholic Asian News (August 2008 Issue)
Christianity – or any religion, for that matter – is structured around the roles of clergy and laity. A religious institution thrives on the vitality of these two roles, in a sense, reflecting both the sacred and the secular dimensions of religion. Even so, the dynamics between these two roles brings a certain tensive character into the realm of the institution we call “Church”. This tension is, of course, provoked and further intensified with the onset of modernity and critical thinking among the Christian populace.
Let us attempt to comprehend the different dynamics between the clerical roles and that of the laity in the three major streams of Christianity in existence today. For each of these traditions, we shall delineate the way in which the clergy and laity are ordered and examine the roles of the laity within its structural scheme.
The Catholic institutional structure is top down (unlike the Orthodox structure, as we shall later see) in that the election of bishops neither involves the lay populace nor even a significant segment of the clerical population within a diocese. In the selection of a bishop, the papal nuncio usually solicits names from the other bishops of a country, and then selects three to be forwarded to Rome where the Congregation for Bishops attends to such elections with the approval of the pope. Evidently, the ordering of the hierarchy does not involve the lay faithful in the Church.
The “lay faithful” refers to those baptised faithful not called by God to ordained ministry within the Church. Whilst they are not responsible for the constitution of the hierarchy, the Church assigns a very special role to the laity by virtue of their presence in the secular realm of the world. The laity are distinctly called to share in the priestly, prophetic and kingly functions of Christ by bringing Him to the world in a way that the clergy cannot. This charge is thus explicitly stated by Pope Pius XII:
Lay believers are the front line of Church life; for them the Church is the animating principle of human society. Therefore, they in particular ought to have an ever-clearer consciousness not only of belonging to the Church, but of being the Church, that is to say, the community of the faithful on earth under the leadership of the Pope, the common Head, and of the bishops in communion with him. They are the Church.
The preservation of order within the Catholic Church institution is relegated to the hierarchy so that distinctions of both the roles of the clergy and laity are well-defined. This distinction does well to avoid a temptation to pander to either “clericalism” or “laitism”. The clergy function in some unique ways that the laity cannot, but their unique prerogatives are also the very charisms that empower the laity to function effectively in the realm of the secular. The Church is thereby resoundingly affirmed as a people of God, every member of its community being personally called and individually charged by Him with a specific mission in the world.
II. Orthodox – Joint Government. The Eastern Orthodox Church, the most prominent embodiment of Orthodox Christianity, is a communion comprising fourteen separate autocephalous hierarchical churches in full recognition of one another (excluding the fifteenth autocephalous, the Orthodox Church in America, whose autocephaly is still a matter of dispute). Each autocephalous church is governed by a supreme patriarch. Whilst there is an ecumenical patriarch – a role assumed by the Patriarch of Constantinople – his ecumenical patriarchate is one of ceremonial honour and unity of fellowship rather than one that effects juridical implications.
The autocephalous churches tend to organise from the bottom up. Most of these churches permit for the participation of lower level clergy and laity in the election of bishops, albeit in varying magnitudes. In such autocephalous churches, people of varying positions have some degree of empowerment to vote in church matters and policy making. The patriarchs of the fourteen autocephalous churches will appoint leaders nominated by the grassroots, who will then with the approval of the patriarchs participate in the election processes.
The polity of the Orthodox Church reflects a greater authority-sharing system between the clergy and the laity. The clergy constitute the sacred priesthood and the laity constitute the royal priesthood. Whilst the clergy cannot celebrate the divine liturgy without the participation of the laity, the laity cannot perform the liturgy without the sacramental presidency of the clergy. The Church is most often jointly governed by the clergy and the laity. Of course, these statements by no means contradict the position of the Catholic Church; however, they are more apparently reflected in the practical life of the Orthodox Church.
III. Protestants – Priesthood of All Believers. The Protestant communities are extremely varied in their ecclesial structures. These structures range from highly regulated episcopal systems like the Anglican communities to congregational systems such as the brethren communities. But fundamentally, an underlying principle of the Protestant ethos is the priesthood of all believers. Since this principle lay at the nucleus of the Protestant Reformation, the Protestant movement embodies a high level of lay participation. Admittedly, this high permissiveness for lay participation has constituted an attractive factor for many lay Christians.
In a vast many Protestant communities, the laity in fact possesses authority which exceeds that of the clergy. Many Protestant clerical ministers are considered to be employed and salaried by the financial contributions of the lay populace. Simply put, they are hired and fired by the lay people. As such, they are held accountable to the governing boards of their local churches. This also impacts their ministerial roles such that they are told exactly how many sermons to preach in a month, what their working hours should be, and how they should account for their appointed tasks.
Therefore, where they fail to perform to the expectations of the people, or have offended a large segment of the congregation, or seek to effect change in a resistant congregation’s values and behaviour patterns, they inadvertently see themselves leaving within a relatively short season in a particular parish.
If the answer is “no”, this leaves us with two possibilities – the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church.
Now, let us consider the Orthodox form of governance. One would have thought that with such practice of democracy in the Orthodox Church, the laity would have been rather contented with their significance in matters pertaining to ecclesial government and liturgical participation. But this is far from the reality. Tensions between clergy and laity yet exist in the Orthodox institution. Some contemporary examples of these tensions are the struggles between the clergy and laity in the Greek Orthodox Church and the Orthodox Church in America. In fact, such tensions are less present in Catholic polity because of the clear distinctions drawn between the roles of the clergy and the laity.
Perhaps the only avenue for the existence of a harmonious symbiotic relationship between clergy and laity, wherein the significance of both are equally affirmed, is a recognition of the oft silent but all important role of divine election in the vocations of the faithful. Whilst the Catholic Church recognises the common priesthood of the faithful by “the unfolding of baptismal grace”, God elects from among the lay faithful a ministerial priesthood to be “at the service of the common priesthood”. It is through the ministerial priesthood that Christ “unceasingly builds up and leads His Church” (CCC 1547). Whilst many lay people perceive the hierarchy as a hindrance to lay empowerment, on the contrary, without the ministerial priesthood the lay are not empowered to live lives of faith, hope, and charity.
One’s reflections on the roles of clergy and laity must be considered from the perspective of the nature of the Church rather than from the socio-political perspective of power and authority. When the proper perspective is employed, the clerical role is rightly perceived as an issue of divinely appointed roles and responsibilities, not of power and glory. A misplaced focus breeds mistrust and conflict, which results in the nature of the Church – and therefore Christ – being compromised.
