(When I was serving as Pastor of Wesley Methodist Church in Kuala Lumpur in the sixties with the Malaysian Opposition Leader Tan Sri Dr Tan Chee Khoon as Honorary Treasurer in the local congregation where a few MCA Cabinet Ministers also worshipped, Keat Peng was one of the vocal critics of my ministry. He had the prerogative to change his theological orientation and now serves as one of the aides to Anwar Ibrahim especially to faith communities. He arranged a meeting of Asia Church leaders with Anwar in his residence over High Tea last April and we were updated on the prevailing political situation. The following article articulates that choices must be given and reflects the prerogative we have to make the right choices.)
The Prerogative of Choice
by Goh Keat Peng
This we have to admire about the more established democracies: that there is no monopoly about which party will form the government of any level. The two or more main parties or coalitions of parties have reasonable chance. The people are not saddled effectively with just one choice. In recent times, the world has witnessed a change of government in Britain and just days ago, the House of Representatives in the US has changed hands. Just two years after a very popular president was swept into office, Congress is now in the hands of the opposition.
This should be the case in most things in life. An exception being family. We can of course choose who to marry or whether to marry at all. But we cannot choose which family we wish to be born in. This is of course because you can’t make choices before you have come into existence in the first place!
You go to a neighbourhood grocer’s and there is not just one brand of toothpaste or, for that matter, toothbrush. With multiple choices for any product or service, an alternative is available. So a decision becomes necessary on your part. It could be that you walk into a megastore of today with ten choices of anything and still only stick to one brand of anything. That’s your prerogative.
Choice is on the whole healthy for human beings. To have the prerogative of choice is what you and I must have.
Such a prerogative is not always extended to all. In fact, choices are limited and sometimes not possible for certain sections of the human race for reasons of poverty, for example. Having spent time working alongside poor communities, I have been able to witness for myself how and why poor people have few options in life let alone worry about what brand of toothpaste to use. Children of poor family walk to school on an empty stomach, arrive in school about two hours late and make little progress through tiredness and hunger. For them, which school to go to isn’t an option nor will it be their primary concern. Under such circumstances, parents will already do well if they can find a way to feed their children, put clean clothes on them and walk them to the only school for miles around just to arrive a little earlier.
In a consumer society like ours, we who can afford to care about multiple choices must also be circumscribe about what things and issues are more important than others. I won’t suffer much, for example, if my favourite brand of toothpaste, soap, soup, toilet tissue, instant noodles, shoes or socks isn’t available at times. I won’t die for lack of choices in such things for the simple reason that the differences between brands are not always very wide. Food is food, clothes are clothes, toothpaste is toothpaste and hopefully the gaps between branded goods are closing. For such everyday things and needs in life, the enterprising among us have found that sometimes the brandless, cheaper stuff turn out to be better. So among the choices we have, we can now also choose between the really expensive and the less expensive without too much loss of quality.
The prerogative of choice is important to human beings. This is especially true in the matter of choice of government.
Choice of government is very much more important. My branded toothpaste may last two weeks if I am sparing in my use of it. If I am not happy with this particular brand, I can change brand the next time I go to the store. With government, change is much more diffuclt and complex. The opportunity to change a government is not as easy as going to the nearest convenience store. An elected sitting government can by constitutional provision keep the power to govern for five long years at state or federal level. In Malaysia, for lack of alternative given the weakness of opposition fare, essentially the same party coalition has been in power for 53 years!
Nobody is suggesting that the Malaysian situation is like Myanmar or North Korea but, over the many years, we have been saddled with the same ruling coalition since independence and independence has become dependence. The message is that “You can’t trust anybody else but us” and “Change ruling party at your peril”. Never mind how this 53-year rule has in many instances and in many ways impacted the country and culture and business in negative ways! There is no choice so “Better stick to the devil you know than the devil you don’t”.
Moreover, and even more important than the 53 years of continuous rule under the same party coalition, the tactics, antics and stunts used to ensure that power stays only with one team continues unabated and unashamedly. The same pattern remains every election: liberal use of catchy slogans, promises, liberal payouts of goodies up to the eve of polling day. It seems that an unfailing formula is working and winning regardless of what happens or not happen between elections.
Come on Malaysia, even in sports, Tiger Woods, Roger Federer, Chicago Bulls and Manchester United are no longer Number 1! Yet the game goes on in better state. It is because of higher standards of play, genius and fitness that the monopoly has come to an end and now that the stranglehold that former champions had on the prestigious titles have been loosened, we the sporting spectators can expect to see better matches and better returns for tickets we paid to enter the stadiums.
Time has come for change. Time to establish a two-party or two coalition system to provide Malaysians the preogative of choice they deserve. Time to show the powers that be that we cannot and will not depend only on them forever.
Friday, November 5, 2010
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Queer Theology
queer church - a dialogue
by Miak Siew on Saturday, October 30, 2010 at 11:17am
Rev Yap posted his thoughts titled "The Nature and Purpose of FCC" a couple of days ago, and coincidentally i had my queer theology paper returned, and i could not help but reply to Rev Yap with my own thoughts on the the role of FCC. i am posting our email exchange here as an invitation to further dialogue, and the adventure of the unfolding of God's invitation to do a new thing.
----------------------------------------
The Nature and Purpose of FCC
We have been considering the role of Free Community Church in the Christian community here in Singapore. LGBT is at the beginning interested to relate Christianity to sexuality leading to the acceptance of homosexuality as a gift from the loving God the Creator of all that exists including all sentient beings irrespective of race and religion. Our Creator is continuously engaged in the evolutionary process of human beings living in co-operation with one another and in harmony with nature to bring about shalom. Religion has to be involved in this transformation process not only in sexuality and human development but also in ecology and mutual existence on planetary earth.
FCC began at the stage when LGBT were secure enough to come together to form SAFEHAVEN as a support group with common concerns and shared leadership. When the larger community outside seem to move in the direction of acceptance of LGBT essentially more for political and economic reasons, the issue of homosexuality surfaced both within faith communities and secular society. SAFEHAVEN was able to mobilize courageous people and evolve to form the Free Community Church.
What is the nature of FCC? Because LGBT was excluded from the majority in society we paraded the principle of inclusion. We proclaim that FCC is the only inclusive church. Our distinctiveness is that we are the only Church that does not exclude and truly welcomes LGBT. Those who come do not feel that they are discriminated upon and excluded. We continue to enable in the interpretation of the BIblical texts to relate faith with sexuality and assert that homosexuality is not a sin. The degree of acceptance even within FCC is correlated with the change of one's theological understanding of the sacred text on the issue of one's sexual orientation. The theological baggage that we carry may even force us to internalize homophobia. But we are gaining ground to move out of regarding homosexuality as a sin or even fallen nature to the stage where we accept that our sexual orientation is a given and a gift from our loving Creator.
When FCC declares that we are an inclusive community it does that mean that mean we are completely free and we include every body and every view including those which differ from one another. We merely tolerate the differences. We isolate ourselves from other people and other perspectives. Inclusivity without interactions and openness to change is intolerable. Inclusivity in itself is heretical. It is not the move to uniformity and the forming of one common view for all. It is the sharing of our views always tentative and seeking common approach to address the problems that we face in our personal lives and in community life. We are on the journey of evolving like all things around us.
Our religious faith must relate to our common life and address all issues and not only on sexual orientation. The changes in our theology must move beyond sexuality but to all of life.
Yes, there is an emerging problem that FCC will deal exclusively with homosexuality issues. The churches outside will continue to be concerned with heterosexual issues with the LGBT members clossetted within. We will continue to live apart from one another.
The authentic Christian Church is be inclusive with regard to gays and straights, male and female & in-between, rich and poor. The change and re-construction of theology must take place to relate to evolve and grow such a community. There are people, gay and straight, who are expecting and waiting for a different theology that permeates all churches including FCC today. As long as we reflect the prevailing theology, whether liberal or conservative, that governs the life our our Christian churches today we will continue to exist where we are, separate and unequal. The reconciling church is an example with a majority of straights but decided to be gay affirming. The kind of theology that they have evolved which leads them to accept LGBT must influence them to relate in a new way to all other areas of life. They too need to transform their theological understanding of what God expects from their commitment to the life and mission of the church in the prevailing pluralistic paradigm. The same can be said of the purpose of the existence of FCC. Let us engage and learn from one another to equip ourselves for such a time like this.
Rev Dr Yap Kim Hao
----------------------------------------
Thank you, Rev Yap, for reiterating what i think is the call of FCC.
i believe that FCC is called to be a queer church, not just an LGBT church. Oddly, but not surprising to me, Rev Yap's email came just a few hours after i had my paper on queer theology returned to me. i'm halfway through the penultimate semester here in PSR, and i am constantly thinking how i can apply what i learned, and what it is we are called to be as a community.
Queer theology differs from LGBT theology, as "queer" isn't another identity alongside lesbian and gay, or a shorthand for LGBT, but rather "a radical destabilizing of identities and resistance to the naturalizing of any identity." In other words, "queer" is the refusal to be boxed in, or categorized, or labelled. Queer theology (and queer theory) exposes the artificiality and constructed nature of gender and sexuality and challenges the binary categories that are normally taken for granted as natural and self-evident. It is unrelenting, obstinate in its deconstruction of all binary divides - This is the gift and insight queer theory offers to theology - in exposing the instability of categories, queer theory exposes and challenges the dualistic categories embedded in theology - not just of gender and sexuality that is often associated with queer theology, but the dualistic categories of mind/spirit and body, emotion and reason, church and state, sacred and secular, holy and profane, personal and the political, young and old, and many others. These categories are not distinct and discrete, but rather are constituted in and of each other. It is not a matter of either-or, but both-and.
i know this is rather jargon-filled, but as Paul put it so eloquently in Galatians - "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." the labels and categories do not matter in the body of Christ.
what does that mean in the living out in community? that is a challenge for us to discover - because we are doing a new thing that God is calling us forward into. there is no model we can look at, but rather dig deep within ourselves. This is what it means to be equal beloved children of God. it doesn't mean we are the same.
do we allow ourselves to be transformed, move beyond our comfort zones to the radically different, uncomfortable, even go to dangerous places Jesus invites us to go when He asked us to follow him? are we able to imagine a different world and bring that world into fruition? are we willing to be open, and listen to each other, and be transformed? can we abandon the labels "conservative", "liberal", "progressive" and be in community with those we do not necessary agree with, and work together to build the Kin-dom of God on earth? dare we dream beyond ourselves, and dare we imagine a different world? being Christian cannot be done alone - it has to be done in community.
miak
----------------------------------------
An epiphany for me. I don't feel so lonely as I have been for some time. Well said, Miak. You and I are on the same wavelength. Hopefully and anxiously waiting for others to join in our common adventure of doing a new thing always.
Hooray for Queer theology. It is the liberating theology for all in captivity in different closets beyond sexuality.
Rev Dr Yap Kim Hao
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Hope Attenhofer likes this.
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Darren Koh
Hey Miak! As always I'm running off late for one deadline or other. I have to prepare my viva questions on my student's papers in an hour's time, but thought I'd just jot some thoughts in here for a moment.
You speak of the willingness to ...abandon labels and "be in community with those we do not necessary agree with and work together to build the Kin-dom of God on earth". I mourn the split the Anglican Communion, which for longest time was a communion of churches with many differences, but still survived them all, but alas, the thorny issue of homosexuality seem to driving the communion to schism: a simple reflection of the point that while we may wish to abandon labels, so long as others do not, we will not be in communion or in a community with them. People have to choose to be a community.
The challenge of faith we face, lies in challenging the faith. Just as when Christ challenged the faith then prevalent, or when the church in her evolution, challenged the faith then prevailing, the challenge is seen as something that has to be put down. (The early non-Jewish christians became a challenge to the Jewish Christians, and the Jerusalem Council gave a little ground, though in the end, it took the rise of Pauline Christianity to sever the links with the old, freeing us to the new. )
Herein lies the nub of the problem: what exactly are we challenging? Should FCC become a single issue church, focussing her energies on nuturing her LGBT members while standing as a beacon, albeit a beacon of hope to one section of society? Or should FCC be a multi-issue church, spreading her resources among the many barriers to the love of God that exist?
Truth be told, I would hazard a guess (and would be glad to be proven wrong) that many of her members would rather not be part of any challenge, and would rather not be in any battle. Yet, the fact of the matter is, the very existence of FCC is a challenge to the establishment in Singapore. But like the annoying pimple or scar, there is a risk will it will just in the end be a tolerated annoyance to the establishment Or should it aim to disrupt the peace by engaging to transform the establishment? But what are we trying to transform into????
Heady questions. Rev Yap says "The reconciling church is an example with a majority of straights but decided to be gay affirming." It's still in a sense, early days for FCC. But then, I never thought that was possible till I was in the US, and there worshipped at an Episcopal Church where the priest would joke about the choir-master's partner from the pulpit. It was not a breath of fresh air - it was like an overdose of oxygen!!! It can happen. But at what cost? The Episcopal Church as an establishment is only beginning to find out.See More
19 hours ago · LikeUnlike
o
Yap Kim Hao
The challenge is to be the church concerned with all issues and for all people who are created. Nothing foreign is alien to me. Just as there was the issue of circumcision in the early community of the followers of Jesus, we are challenged ...to take a position on other issues which emerged. It was followed by Paul who moved away from Judaism and "founded" the Christian movement along with the community influenced by Graeco-Roman culture, then the Reformation and the continuing process of re-forming the Christian community relevant to our time and place. The future is open and we are to challenge one another to discover the new thing and develop new loyalties in the evolving situation that we experience in life around us.See More
15 hours ago · LikeUnlike
o
Darren Koh
Ahh but Rev Yap - therein lies the challenge to each one of us: in being a neighbour to everyone, and in so doing, recognise that I have to love everyone as myself. And so we should strive, and recognise we will fail. But in recognising... we fail, we arise each new day, we do it all again, because god showed us what love is.
Tall order. Logic demands we fight issues, and we husband our resources. To do more requires a fire in our hearts that not many would want. Like the foxes, we want our holes; like the birds we want our nests. And how many can leave the dead to bury the dead?
How many of us would prefer to hide behind the shadow of others and cling onto Paul's idea that some are apostles, some prophets, some are pastors and some teachers - "because it's not me" - hoping that we will just be a contributing member of the church? It's someone else's job to engage in the headline stuff.
You made a choice in nailing your colours to the mast. I made my choice after a period of vocational discernment. Will enough people make the choice to lead the challenge you have pointed out?See More
10 hours ago · LikeUnlike
o
Yap Kim Hao
You are so right that this is the challenge each one of us faces. This is the human predicament. But is there really an alternative. Just to resign or even to commit suicide. The current "It Gets Better" movement is serendipity. This is a c...reative movement that none of us expect. It is the trajectory that we need to travel. It is always the lonely road and one that is less travelled. But to get better we are compelled to affirm or we stagnate and wither in the dying vine. I remember that some were fishermen and tax collectors but they chose to be apostles. I remember the carpenter who ended up on the Cross.See More
4 hours ago · Like
by Miak Siew on Saturday, October 30, 2010 at 11:17am
Rev Yap posted his thoughts titled "The Nature and Purpose of FCC" a couple of days ago, and coincidentally i had my queer theology paper returned, and i could not help but reply to Rev Yap with my own thoughts on the the role of FCC. i am posting our email exchange here as an invitation to further dialogue, and the adventure of the unfolding of God's invitation to do a new thing.
----------------------------------------
The Nature and Purpose of FCC
We have been considering the role of Free Community Church in the Christian community here in Singapore. LGBT is at the beginning interested to relate Christianity to sexuality leading to the acceptance of homosexuality as a gift from the loving God the Creator of all that exists including all sentient beings irrespective of race and religion. Our Creator is continuously engaged in the evolutionary process of human beings living in co-operation with one another and in harmony with nature to bring about shalom. Religion has to be involved in this transformation process not only in sexuality and human development but also in ecology and mutual existence on planetary earth.
FCC began at the stage when LGBT were secure enough to come together to form SAFEHAVEN as a support group with common concerns and shared leadership. When the larger community outside seem to move in the direction of acceptance of LGBT essentially more for political and economic reasons, the issue of homosexuality surfaced both within faith communities and secular society. SAFEHAVEN was able to mobilize courageous people and evolve to form the Free Community Church.
What is the nature of FCC? Because LGBT was excluded from the majority in society we paraded the principle of inclusion. We proclaim that FCC is the only inclusive church. Our distinctiveness is that we are the only Church that does not exclude and truly welcomes LGBT. Those who come do not feel that they are discriminated upon and excluded. We continue to enable in the interpretation of the BIblical texts to relate faith with sexuality and assert that homosexuality is not a sin. The degree of acceptance even within FCC is correlated with the change of one's theological understanding of the sacred text on the issue of one's sexual orientation. The theological baggage that we carry may even force us to internalize homophobia. But we are gaining ground to move out of regarding homosexuality as a sin or even fallen nature to the stage where we accept that our sexual orientation is a given and a gift from our loving Creator.
When FCC declares that we are an inclusive community it does that mean that mean we are completely free and we include every body and every view including those which differ from one another. We merely tolerate the differences. We isolate ourselves from other people and other perspectives. Inclusivity without interactions and openness to change is intolerable. Inclusivity in itself is heretical. It is not the move to uniformity and the forming of one common view for all. It is the sharing of our views always tentative and seeking common approach to address the problems that we face in our personal lives and in community life. We are on the journey of evolving like all things around us.
Our religious faith must relate to our common life and address all issues and not only on sexual orientation. The changes in our theology must move beyond sexuality but to all of life.
Yes, there is an emerging problem that FCC will deal exclusively with homosexuality issues. The churches outside will continue to be concerned with heterosexual issues with the LGBT members clossetted within. We will continue to live apart from one another.
The authentic Christian Church is be inclusive with regard to gays and straights, male and female & in-between, rich and poor. The change and re-construction of theology must take place to relate to evolve and grow such a community. There are people, gay and straight, who are expecting and waiting for a different theology that permeates all churches including FCC today. As long as we reflect the prevailing theology, whether liberal or conservative, that governs the life our our Christian churches today we will continue to exist where we are, separate and unequal. The reconciling church is an example with a majority of straights but decided to be gay affirming. The kind of theology that they have evolved which leads them to accept LGBT must influence them to relate in a new way to all other areas of life. They too need to transform their theological understanding of what God expects from their commitment to the life and mission of the church in the prevailing pluralistic paradigm. The same can be said of the purpose of the existence of FCC. Let us engage and learn from one another to equip ourselves for such a time like this.
Rev Dr Yap Kim Hao
----------------------------------------
Thank you, Rev Yap, for reiterating what i think is the call of FCC.
i believe that FCC is called to be a queer church, not just an LGBT church. Oddly, but not surprising to me, Rev Yap's email came just a few hours after i had my paper on queer theology returned to me. i'm halfway through the penultimate semester here in PSR, and i am constantly thinking how i can apply what i learned, and what it is we are called to be as a community.
Queer theology differs from LGBT theology, as "queer" isn't another identity alongside lesbian and gay, or a shorthand for LGBT, but rather "a radical destabilizing of identities and resistance to the naturalizing of any identity." In other words, "queer" is the refusal to be boxed in, or categorized, or labelled. Queer theology (and queer theory) exposes the artificiality and constructed nature of gender and sexuality and challenges the binary categories that are normally taken for granted as natural and self-evident. It is unrelenting, obstinate in its deconstruction of all binary divides - This is the gift and insight queer theory offers to theology - in exposing the instability of categories, queer theory exposes and challenges the dualistic categories embedded in theology - not just of gender and sexuality that is often associated with queer theology, but the dualistic categories of mind/spirit and body, emotion and reason, church and state, sacred and secular, holy and profane, personal and the political, young and old, and many others. These categories are not distinct and discrete, but rather are constituted in and of each other. It is not a matter of either-or, but both-and.
i know this is rather jargon-filled, but as Paul put it so eloquently in Galatians - "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." the labels and categories do not matter in the body of Christ.
what does that mean in the living out in community? that is a challenge for us to discover - because we are doing a new thing that God is calling us forward into. there is no model we can look at, but rather dig deep within ourselves. This is what it means to be equal beloved children of God. it doesn't mean we are the same.
do we allow ourselves to be transformed, move beyond our comfort zones to the radically different, uncomfortable, even go to dangerous places Jesus invites us to go when He asked us to follow him? are we able to imagine a different world and bring that world into fruition? are we willing to be open, and listen to each other, and be transformed? can we abandon the labels "conservative", "liberal", "progressive" and be in community with those we do not necessary agree with, and work together to build the Kin-dom of God on earth? dare we dream beyond ourselves, and dare we imagine a different world? being Christian cannot be done alone - it has to be done in community.
miak
----------------------------------------
An epiphany for me. I don't feel so lonely as I have been for some time. Well said, Miak. You and I are on the same wavelength. Hopefully and anxiously waiting for others to join in our common adventure of doing a new thing always.
Hooray for Queer theology. It is the liberating theology for all in captivity in different closets beyond sexuality.
Rev Dr Yap Kim Hao
· Comment · LikeUnlike · View Original Post · Share
*
*
Hope Attenhofer likes this.
*
o
Darren Koh
Hey Miak! As always I'm running off late for one deadline or other. I have to prepare my viva questions on my student's papers in an hour's time, but thought I'd just jot some thoughts in here for a moment.
You speak of the willingness to ...abandon labels and "be in community with those we do not necessary agree with and work together to build the Kin-dom of God on earth". I mourn the split the Anglican Communion, which for longest time was a communion of churches with many differences, but still survived them all, but alas, the thorny issue of homosexuality seem to driving the communion to schism: a simple reflection of the point that while we may wish to abandon labels, so long as others do not, we will not be in communion or in a community with them. People have to choose to be a community.
The challenge of faith we face, lies in challenging the faith. Just as when Christ challenged the faith then prevalent, or when the church in her evolution, challenged the faith then prevailing, the challenge is seen as something that has to be put down. (The early non-Jewish christians became a challenge to the Jewish Christians, and the Jerusalem Council gave a little ground, though in the end, it took the rise of Pauline Christianity to sever the links with the old, freeing us to the new. )
Herein lies the nub of the problem: what exactly are we challenging? Should FCC become a single issue church, focussing her energies on nuturing her LGBT members while standing as a beacon, albeit a beacon of hope to one section of society? Or should FCC be a multi-issue church, spreading her resources among the many barriers to the love of God that exist?
Truth be told, I would hazard a guess (and would be glad to be proven wrong) that many of her members would rather not be part of any challenge, and would rather not be in any battle. Yet, the fact of the matter is, the very existence of FCC is a challenge to the establishment in Singapore. But like the annoying pimple or scar, there is a risk will it will just in the end be a tolerated annoyance to the establishment Or should it aim to disrupt the peace by engaging to transform the establishment? But what are we trying to transform into????
Heady questions. Rev Yap says "The reconciling church is an example with a majority of straights but decided to be gay affirming." It's still in a sense, early days for FCC. But then, I never thought that was possible till I was in the US, and there worshipped at an Episcopal Church where the priest would joke about the choir-master's partner from the pulpit. It was not a breath of fresh air - it was like an overdose of oxygen!!! It can happen. But at what cost? The Episcopal Church as an establishment is only beginning to find out.See More
19 hours ago · LikeUnlike
o
Yap Kim Hao
The challenge is to be the church concerned with all issues and for all people who are created. Nothing foreign is alien to me. Just as there was the issue of circumcision in the early community of the followers of Jesus, we are challenged ...to take a position on other issues which emerged. It was followed by Paul who moved away from Judaism and "founded" the Christian movement along with the community influenced by Graeco-Roman culture, then the Reformation and the continuing process of re-forming the Christian community relevant to our time and place. The future is open and we are to challenge one another to discover the new thing and develop new loyalties in the evolving situation that we experience in life around us.See More
15 hours ago · LikeUnlike
o
Darren Koh
Ahh but Rev Yap - therein lies the challenge to each one of us: in being a neighbour to everyone, and in so doing, recognise that I have to love everyone as myself. And so we should strive, and recognise we will fail. But in recognising... we fail, we arise each new day, we do it all again, because god showed us what love is.
Tall order. Logic demands we fight issues, and we husband our resources. To do more requires a fire in our hearts that not many would want. Like the foxes, we want our holes; like the birds we want our nests. And how many can leave the dead to bury the dead?
How many of us would prefer to hide behind the shadow of others and cling onto Paul's idea that some are apostles, some prophets, some are pastors and some teachers - "because it's not me" - hoping that we will just be a contributing member of the church? It's someone else's job to engage in the headline stuff.
You made a choice in nailing your colours to the mast. I made my choice after a period of vocational discernment. Will enough people make the choice to lead the challenge you have pointed out?See More
10 hours ago · LikeUnlike
o
Yap Kim Hao
You are so right that this is the challenge each one of us faces. This is the human predicament. But is there really an alternative. Just to resign or even to commit suicide. The current "It Gets Better" movement is serendipity. This is a c...reative movement that none of us expect. It is the trajectory that we need to travel. It is always the lonely road and one that is less travelled. But to get better we are compelled to affirm or we stagnate and wither in the dying vine. I remember that some were fishermen and tax collectors but they chose to be apostles. I remember the carpenter who ended up on the Cross.See More
4 hours ago · Like
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Nature and Purpose of FCC
The Nature and Purpose of FCC
We have been considering the role of Free Community Church in the Christian community here in Singapore. LGBT is at the beginning interested to relate Christianity to sexuality leading to the acceptance of homosexuality as a gift from the loving God the Creator of all that exists including all sentient beings irrespective of race and religion. Our Creator is continuously engaged in the evolutionary process of human beings living in co-operation with one another and in harmony with nature to bring about shalom. Religion has to be involved in this transformation process not only in sexuality and human development but also in ecology and mutual existence on planetary earth.
FCC began at the stage when LGBT were secure enough to come together to form SAFEHAVEN as a support group with common concerns and shared leadership. When the larger community outside seem to move in the direction of acceptance of LGBT essentially more for political and economic reasons, the issue of homosexuality surfaced both within faith communities and secular society. SAFEHAVEN was able to mobilize courageous people and evolve to form the Free Community Church.
What is the nature of FCC? Because LGBT was excluded from the majority in society we paraded the principle of inclusion. We proclaim that FCC is the only inclusive church. Our distinctiveness is that we are the only Church that does not exclude and truly welcomes LGBT. Those who come do not feel that they are discriminated upon and excluded. We continue to enable in the interpretation of the BIblical texts to relate faith with sexuality and assert that homosexuality is not a sin. The degree of acceptance even within FCC is correlated with the change of one's theological understanding of the sacred text on the issue of one's sexual orientation. The theological baggage that we carry may even force us to internalize homophobia. But we are gaining ground to move out of regarding homosexuality as a sin or even fallen nature to the stage where we accept that our sexual orientation is a given and a gift from our loving Creator.
When FCC declares that we are an inclusive community it does that mean that mean we are completely free and we include every body and every view including those which differ from one another. We merely tolerate the differences. We isolate ourselves from other people and other perspectives. Inclusivity without interactions and openness to change is intolerable. Inclusivity in itself is heretical. It is not the move to uniformity and the forming of one common view for all. It is the sharing of our views always tentative and seeking common approach to address the problems that we face in our personal lives and in community life. We are on the journey of evolving like all things around us.
Our religious faith must relate to our common life and address all issues and not only on sexual orientation. The changes in our theology must move beyond sexuality but to all of life.
Yes, there is an emerging problem that FCC will deal exclusively with homosexuality issues. The churches outside will continue to be concerned with heterosexual issues with the LGBT members clossetted within. We will continue to live apart from one another.
The authentic Christian Church is be inclusive with regard to gays and straights, male and female & in-between, rich and poor. The change and re-construction of theology must take place to relate to evolve and grow such a community. There are people, gay and straight, who are expecting and waiting for a different theology that permeates all churches including FCC today. As long as we reflect the prevailing theology, whether liberal or conservative, that governs the life our our Christian churches today we will continue to exist where we are, separate and unequal. The reconciling church is an example with a majority of straights but decided to be gay affirming. The kind of theology that they have evolved which leads them to accept LGBT must influence them to relate in a new way to all other areas of life. They too need to transform their theological understanding of what God expects from their commitment to the life and mission of the church in the prevailing pluralistic paradigm. The same can be said of the purpose of the existence of FCC. Let us engage and learn from one another to equip ourselves for such a time like this.
--
Rev Dr Yap Kim Hao
10E, Braddell Hill, Apt. #16-17
Singapore 579724
Tel: +65-6250-4561
Email: kimhao.yap@gmail.com
"When we lose the right to be different,
we lose the privilege to be free"
We have been considering the role of Free Community Church in the Christian community here in Singapore. LGBT is at the beginning interested to relate Christianity to sexuality leading to the acceptance of homosexuality as a gift from the loving God the Creator of all that exists including all sentient beings irrespective of race and religion. Our Creator is continuously engaged in the evolutionary process of human beings living in co-operation with one another and in harmony with nature to bring about shalom. Religion has to be involved in this transformation process not only in sexuality and human development but also in ecology and mutual existence on planetary earth.
FCC began at the stage when LGBT were secure enough to come together to form SAFEHAVEN as a support group with common concerns and shared leadership. When the larger community outside seem to move in the direction of acceptance of LGBT essentially more for political and economic reasons, the issue of homosexuality surfaced both within faith communities and secular society. SAFEHAVEN was able to mobilize courageous people and evolve to form the Free Community Church.
What is the nature of FCC? Because LGBT was excluded from the majority in society we paraded the principle of inclusion. We proclaim that FCC is the only inclusive church. Our distinctiveness is that we are the only Church that does not exclude and truly welcomes LGBT. Those who come do not feel that they are discriminated upon and excluded. We continue to enable in the interpretation of the BIblical texts to relate faith with sexuality and assert that homosexuality is not a sin. The degree of acceptance even within FCC is correlated with the change of one's theological understanding of the sacred text on the issue of one's sexual orientation. The theological baggage that we carry may even force us to internalize homophobia. But we are gaining ground to move out of regarding homosexuality as a sin or even fallen nature to the stage where we accept that our sexual orientation is a given and a gift from our loving Creator.
When FCC declares that we are an inclusive community it does that mean that mean we are completely free and we include every body and every view including those which differ from one another. We merely tolerate the differences. We isolate ourselves from other people and other perspectives. Inclusivity without interactions and openness to change is intolerable. Inclusivity in itself is heretical. It is not the move to uniformity and the forming of one common view for all. It is the sharing of our views always tentative and seeking common approach to address the problems that we face in our personal lives and in community life. We are on the journey of evolving like all things around us.
Our religious faith must relate to our common life and address all issues and not only on sexual orientation. The changes in our theology must move beyond sexuality but to all of life.
Yes, there is an emerging problem that FCC will deal exclusively with homosexuality issues. The churches outside will continue to be concerned with heterosexual issues with the LGBT members clossetted within. We will continue to live apart from one another.
The authentic Christian Church is be inclusive with regard to gays and straights, male and female & in-between, rich and poor. The change and re-construction of theology must take place to relate to evolve and grow such a community. There are people, gay and straight, who are expecting and waiting for a different theology that permeates all churches including FCC today. As long as we reflect the prevailing theology, whether liberal or conservative, that governs the life our our Christian churches today we will continue to exist where we are, separate and unequal. The reconciling church is an example with a majority of straights but decided to be gay affirming. The kind of theology that they have evolved which leads them to accept LGBT must influence them to relate in a new way to all other areas of life. They too need to transform their theological understanding of what God expects from their commitment to the life and mission of the church in the prevailing pluralistic paradigm. The same can be said of the purpose of the existence of FCC. Let us engage and learn from one another to equip ourselves for such a time like this.
--
Rev Dr Yap Kim Hao
10E, Braddell Hill, Apt. #16-17
Singapore 579724
Tel: +65-6250-4561
Email: kimhao.yap@gmail.com
"When we lose the right to be different,
we lose the privilege to be free"
Saturday, October 23, 2010
It Gets Better
From International Herald Tribune
Campaign Offers Help to Gay Youths
By BRIAN STELTER
Published: October 18, 2010
“Middle school was the worst,” Calvin Stowell says in a YouTube video he uploaded on Oct. 1.
"It Gets Better" Project (youtube.com)
Dan Savage, a syndicated columnist, started the project.
Homophobia was rampant. Bullies were “pretty relentless,” he says, recalling that on his first day there, a girl walked up to him and asked, “Are you a faggot? No offense.” Eventually his parents pulled him out of the school.
Looking directly at the camera, Mr. Stowell, now 22, then says three words that he wants isolated gay, lesbian and transgender teenagers to hear: “It got better.”
Thousands of people like Mr. Stowell have posted personal testimonies to YouTube in an online campaign titled “It Gets Better” that has, in Internet parlance, “gone viral” in the four weeks since it started. The campaign is intended to help gay teenagers who feel isolated and who may be contemplating suicide, and it coincides with a rash of recent news stories about bullying and the suicides of gay teenagers and young adults.
The highly personal videos have caused some teenagers to ask for help. Mr. Stowell now spends hours each day replying to messages from viewers.
“Growing up, I never had someone to confide in,” he said. Now these teenagers do. “I can’t even articulate how much this has ended up meaning to me,” he said.
Mr. Stowell says he has received 23 e-mails from teenagers who said they had felt suicidal. He has referred them to the Trevor Project, a toll-free telephone line and online chat site for gay youths at risk. The YouTube channel for “It Gets Better” is the third largest source of traffic to the Trevor Project, and there has been a “great increase” in calls in the last month, a spokeswoman for the project said.
The videos are “a new way of using the technology at hand to save lives,” said Stephen Sprinkle, a professor at Brite Divinity School in Fort Worth, who posted a video to YouTube about the loneliness he felt before identifying as gay.
Some say the videos also represent an important moment for the gay rights movement. The sharing of coming-out stories has long been a tool of solidarity among gays as “a way to say that we understand each other because we had to come out under fire or because we struggled with it,” Mr. Sprinkle said.
The “It Gets Better” videos are different, he said, because they are both more public and more positive. “We’re able to look back on our stories and say, it really has gotten better,” he said.
Dan Savage, the sex columnist who started the project, concurred, saying in an interview that the videos were “helping gay adults realize that it’s gotten better for us,” but that “for teens, it’s been getting worse out in the boonies, in the exurbs.”
The “It Gets Better” idea came to Mr. Savage, 46, while he was riding the AirTrain shuttle to Kennedy International Airport last month and thinking about Billy Lucas, a 15-year-old from Indiana who committed suicide Sept. 9. The local news media reported that Mr. Lucas was bullied regularly.
Days earlier, Mr. Savage had blogged about the suicide, and a reader had written: “My heart breaks for the pain and torment you went through, Billy Lucas. I wish I could have told you that things get better.”
Mr. Savage said he felt the same way. But how to tell them? He gives talks at colleges regularly, but not at middle schools or high schools. “I would never get permission,” he said, blaming a system of “parents, preachers and teachers” who “believe they can terrorize gay children out of being gay as they grow up.”
His realization was this: “I was waiting for permission that — in the era of YouTube, Twitter, Facebook — I didn’t need anymore.”
Mr. Savage and his husband put the YouTube page online on Sept. 21, and he promoted it in his syndicated column. The column quoted the politician Harvey Milk: “You gotta give ’em hope.”
For Mr. Savage, the responses have been “really overwhelming” — far too many for one person to watch. He is now preparing a permanent home for the videos.
Most are by ordinary people. Some are by celebrities, like Tim Gunn, a mentor on the hit show “Project Runway,” who revealed in his video that he tried to kill himself at 17.
The most popular video features Joel Burns, a Fort Worth city councilman, who read his testimony at a Council meeting. Choking back tears, he recalled being roughed up one day in high school by older children who told him that “I should die and go to hell where I belonged.”
Mr. Burns’s message to gay teenagers was succinct: “The attitudes of society will change. Please live long enough to be here to see it.”
Campaign Offers Help to Gay Youths
By BRIAN STELTER
Published: October 18, 2010
“Middle school was the worst,” Calvin Stowell says in a YouTube video he uploaded on Oct. 1.
"It Gets Better" Project (youtube.com)
Dan Savage, a syndicated columnist, started the project.
Homophobia was rampant. Bullies were “pretty relentless,” he says, recalling that on his first day there, a girl walked up to him and asked, “Are you a faggot? No offense.” Eventually his parents pulled him out of the school.
Looking directly at the camera, Mr. Stowell, now 22, then says three words that he wants isolated gay, lesbian and transgender teenagers to hear: “It got better.”
Thousands of people like Mr. Stowell have posted personal testimonies to YouTube in an online campaign titled “It Gets Better” that has, in Internet parlance, “gone viral” in the four weeks since it started. The campaign is intended to help gay teenagers who feel isolated and who may be contemplating suicide, and it coincides with a rash of recent news stories about bullying and the suicides of gay teenagers and young adults.
The highly personal videos have caused some teenagers to ask for help. Mr. Stowell now spends hours each day replying to messages from viewers.
“Growing up, I never had someone to confide in,” he said. Now these teenagers do. “I can’t even articulate how much this has ended up meaning to me,” he said.
Mr. Stowell says he has received 23 e-mails from teenagers who said they had felt suicidal. He has referred them to the Trevor Project, a toll-free telephone line and online chat site for gay youths at risk. The YouTube channel for “It Gets Better” is the third largest source of traffic to the Trevor Project, and there has been a “great increase” in calls in the last month, a spokeswoman for the project said.
The videos are “a new way of using the technology at hand to save lives,” said Stephen Sprinkle, a professor at Brite Divinity School in Fort Worth, who posted a video to YouTube about the loneliness he felt before identifying as gay.
Some say the videos also represent an important moment for the gay rights movement. The sharing of coming-out stories has long been a tool of solidarity among gays as “a way to say that we understand each other because we had to come out under fire or because we struggled with it,” Mr. Sprinkle said.
The “It Gets Better” videos are different, he said, because they are both more public and more positive. “We’re able to look back on our stories and say, it really has gotten better,” he said.
Dan Savage, the sex columnist who started the project, concurred, saying in an interview that the videos were “helping gay adults realize that it’s gotten better for us,” but that “for teens, it’s been getting worse out in the boonies, in the exurbs.”
The “It Gets Better” idea came to Mr. Savage, 46, while he was riding the AirTrain shuttle to Kennedy International Airport last month and thinking about Billy Lucas, a 15-year-old from Indiana who committed suicide Sept. 9. The local news media reported that Mr. Lucas was bullied regularly.
Days earlier, Mr. Savage had blogged about the suicide, and a reader had written: “My heart breaks for the pain and torment you went through, Billy Lucas. I wish I could have told you that things get better.”
Mr. Savage said he felt the same way. But how to tell them? He gives talks at colleges regularly, but not at middle schools or high schools. “I would never get permission,” he said, blaming a system of “parents, preachers and teachers” who “believe they can terrorize gay children out of being gay as they grow up.”
His realization was this: “I was waiting for permission that — in the era of YouTube, Twitter, Facebook — I didn’t need anymore.”
Mr. Savage and his husband put the YouTube page online on Sept. 21, and he promoted it in his syndicated column. The column quoted the politician Harvey Milk: “You gotta give ’em hope.”
For Mr. Savage, the responses have been “really overwhelming” — far too many for one person to watch. He is now preparing a permanent home for the videos.
Most are by ordinary people. Some are by celebrities, like Tim Gunn, a mentor on the hit show “Project Runway,” who revealed in his video that he tried to kill himself at 17.
The most popular video features Joel Burns, a Fort Worth city councilman, who read his testimony at a Council meeting. Choking back tears, he recalled being roughed up one day in high school by older children who told him that “I should die and go to hell where I belonged.”
Mr. Burns’s message to gay teenagers was succinct: “The attitudes of society will change. Please live long enough to be here to see it.”
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Friday, June 25, 2010
Chen Su Lan Education Centre Official Opening June 24, 2010
On the eve of Poson Poya Day which celebrates the 2318th Anniversary of the entry of Buddhism to Sri Lanka, the Chen Su Lan Education Centre in Vavuniya was officially opened.
Special guests for the even were Mrs P M Charles (Government Agent and District Secretary), Mr S N G Nathan of the Tamil National Alliance party and the elected Mayor of Vavuniya (Chairman of the Urban Council), Brigadier Napagoda (Representing Major General Kamal Gunaratna), Police Chief Senaratne, Religious leaders from the Buddhist, Christian, Muslim and Hindu communities.
Close to one hundred Singapore Buddhist pilgrims from the Maha Karuna Society included this in the itinerary of their pilgrimage led by Venerable K Gunaratana. They offered gifts to the monks, students and people in the community. More than one thousand were present and it far exceeded the expectations of the organizers.
When Venerable Gunaratana and I visited Manik Farm to offer relief supplies to the camp of the teenage soldiers of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, we saw immediately the need to prepare for the re-entry of the youths to continue their education which was interrupted by the civil war. In discussing with Major General Gunaratna the proposal to set up an education centre was agreed upon.
Application was made to the Government Agent/District Secretary to offer a piece of land in the city of Vavuniya for this project. This was approved and more than half an acre of empty land was given for the construction of the Education Centre.
Chen Su Lan Trust underwrote the entire cost of the building. The building works started and within a short period of two and half months the Chen Su Lan Education Centre was officially declared open on June 24, 2010.
This project is an important one which will further the process of reconciliation after thirty years of tragic civil war between the Sinhalese and the Tamil people. Peace must prevail and reconciliation must take place.
At the Opening Ceremony we have portrayed this dimension of reconciliation. Madam Charles is the Government Service and she is a Tamil Catholic, Mayor Charles is a member of Tamil National Alliance Party that supported Tamil Eelam, Brigadier Napagoda and Police Chief Senaratne are Sinhalese Buddhists, Singapore pilgrims are Chinese who embrace the Sinhalese Theravada Buddhism. Venerable Gunaratana is a Sinhalese Buddhist monk working in Singapore for over 15 years and committed to help the Tamils who are from Hindu, Christian, Muslim faith communities. I am a Malaysian Chinese Christian who has been working in Singapore for the past 45 years. The Chen Su Lan Trust is a Christian family philanthropic trust fund helping people of all races, religions and nationalities.
The inter-national and inter-religious factors were well symbolized. Flags of both Singapore and Sri Lanka were fluttering side by side. The two national anthems were sung at the beginning, The symbolic lamp was lit by representatives of different communities. We light the lamps to dispel the darkness of ignorance and conflict. We raise the vision of hope and peace with justice for all.
The Chen Su Lan Education Centre will ultimately belong to the people of Vavuniya. Together they will use the Centre to engage in religious dialogue for mutual understanding and respect for differences among the faith communities. Together they will educate the people and empower them in community service for peace and harmony.
It is our hope that this interfaith Centre will encourage other communities far and near to involve in the process of reconciliation and seek the welfare of society.
On the eve of Poson Poya Day which celebrates the 2318th Anniversary of the entry of Buddhism to Sri Lanka, the Chen Su Lan Education Centre in Vavuniya was officially opened.
Special guests for the even were Mrs P M Charles (Government Agent and District Secretary), Mr S N G Nathan of the Tamil National Alliance party and the elected Mayor of Vavuniya (Chairman of the Urban Council), Brigadier Napagoda (Representing Major General Kamal Gunaratna), Police Chief Senaratne, Religious leaders from the Buddhist, Christian, Muslim and Hindu communities.
Close to one hundred Singapore Buddhist pilgrims from the Maha Karuna Society included this in the itinerary of their pilgrimage led by Venerable K Gunaratana. They offered gifts to the monks, students and people in the community. More than one thousand were present and it far exceeded the expectations of the organizers.
When Venerable Gunaratana and I visited Manik Farm to offer relief supplies to the camp of the teenage soldiers of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, we saw immediately the need to prepare for the re-entry of the youths to continue their education which was interrupted by the civil war. In discussing with Major General Gunaratna the proposal to set up an education centre was agreed upon.
Application was made to the Government Agent/District Secretary to offer a piece of land in the city of Vavuniya for this project. This was approved and more than half an acre of empty land was given for the construction of the Education Centre.
Chen Su Lan Trust underwrote the entire cost of the building. The building works started and within a short period of two and half months the Chen Su Lan Education Centre was officially declared open on June 24, 2010.
This project is an important one which will further the process of reconciliation after thirty years of tragic civil war between the Sinhalese and the Tamil people. Peace must prevail and reconciliation must take place.
At the Opening Ceremony we have portrayed this dimension of reconciliation. Madam Charles is the Government Service and she is a Tamil Catholic, Mayor Charles is a member of Tamil National Alliance Party that supported Tamil Eelam, Brigadier Napagoda and Police Chief Senaratne are Sinhalese Buddhists, Singapore pilgrims are Chinese who embrace the Sinhalese Theravada Buddhism. Venerable Gunaratana is a Sinhalese Buddhist monk working in Singapore for over 15 years and committed to help the Tamils who are from Hindu, Christian, Muslim faith communities. I am a Malaysian Chinese Christian who has been working in Singapore for the past 45 years. The Chen Su Lan Trust is a Christian family philanthropic trust fund helping people of all races, religions and nationalities.
The inter-national and inter-religious factors were well symbolized. Flags of both Singapore and Sri Lanka were fluttering side by side. The two national anthems were sung at the beginning, The symbolic lamp was lit by representatives of different communities. We light the lamps to dispel the darkness of ignorance and conflict. We raise the vision of hope and peace with justice for all.
The Chen Su Lan Education Centre will ultimately belong to the people of Vavuniya. Together they will use the Centre to engage in religious dialogue for mutual understanding and respect for differences among the faith communities. Together they will educate the people and empower them in community service for peace and harmony.
It is our hope that this interfaith Centre will encourage other communities far and near to involve in the process of reconciliation and seek the welfare of society.
Friday, June 11, 2010
MINISTRY OF DEFENCE, Public Security, Law & Order Sri Lanka News Release
Last modified on: 6/10/2010 3:57:28 PM
SINGAPORE MEDICAL TEAM TREATS RESETTLED MANNAR CIVILIAN
[June 10 2010]
Members of the Maha Karuna Buddhist Society with a team of 28 Singaporean Medical Officers and assistants offered their generosity to hundreds of resettled Tamil people in Mannar and its suburbs by conducting a special medical clinic during June 7 - 8 at Adampan Rural Hospital, Mannar. Chen Su Lan Trust and Dr Bishop Yap, Singapore have also extended the support for the project in Sri Lanka.
Ven Karadetiyana Gunarathana Thero, Religious Advisor, Singapore-based Maha Karuna Buddhist Society and the Chief Coordinator for the medical clinic project in Sri Lanka is scheduled to conduct such services elsewhere in Wanni also within next few days and also on account of forthcoming Poson festival.
The medical clinic attracted a large number of civilians, both young and old as well as school students in the area, following prior information given to schools by the Army. Members of the Maha Karuna Buddhist Society also served lunch and refreshments to all those who approached the clinic on both days. In addition, a large stock of medicine and other medical requirements were also given away to the sick free of charge. Singaporeans volunteered to prepare meals for the participants in the project and enjoyed serving foods while interacting with them.
Brigadier M.A.M Dias, Area Commander, Area Headquarters Mannar visited the inaugural occasion of the programme as the chief invitee, in the company of 215 Brigade Commander Colonel H.L.V.M Liyanage and several other senior officers. Brigadier Dias registered the first patient and commenced the day's programme. Dental surgeons in the medical team paid special attention to students who visited the medical camp.
Senior citizens and civilians who were associated with the project were full of praise to the Singaporean hospitality and expressed their gratitude to the foreign medical team and the Army for organizing it.
Last modified on: 6/10/2010 3:57:28 PM
SINGAPORE MEDICAL TEAM TREATS RESETTLED MANNAR CIVILIAN
[June 10 2010]
Members of the Maha Karuna Buddhist Society with a team of 28 Singaporean Medical Officers and assistants offered their generosity to hundreds of resettled Tamil people in Mannar and its suburbs by conducting a special medical clinic during June 7 - 8 at Adampan Rural Hospital, Mannar. Chen Su Lan Trust and Dr Bishop Yap, Singapore have also extended the support for the project in Sri Lanka.
Ven Karadetiyana Gunarathana Thero, Religious Advisor, Singapore-based Maha Karuna Buddhist Society and the Chief Coordinator for the medical clinic project in Sri Lanka is scheduled to conduct such services elsewhere in Wanni also within next few days and also on account of forthcoming Poson festival.
The medical clinic attracted a large number of civilians, both young and old as well as school students in the area, following prior information given to schools by the Army. Members of the Maha Karuna Buddhist Society also served lunch and refreshments to all those who approached the clinic on both days. In addition, a large stock of medicine and other medical requirements were also given away to the sick free of charge. Singaporeans volunteered to prepare meals for the participants in the project and enjoyed serving foods while interacting with them.
Brigadier M.A.M Dias, Area Commander, Area Headquarters Mannar visited the inaugural occasion of the programme as the chief invitee, in the company of 215 Brigade Commander Colonel H.L.V.M Liyanage and several other senior officers. Brigadier Dias registered the first patient and commenced the day's programme. Dental surgeons in the medical team paid special attention to students who visited the medical camp.
Senior citizens and civilians who were associated with the project were full of praise to the Singaporean hospitality and expressed their gratitude to the foreign medical team and the Army for organizing it.
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