TR EMERITUS

By Eugene Yeo In the statement from Church of Our Savior on Aware connection released on 30 April 2009, Pastor Derek Hong blamed the media "creating the perception" that his church was behind the move to take over AWARE. He claimed that "Church of Our Saviour did not initiate or instigate any campaign to take over the leadership of AWARE." However, it was widely known and acknowledged that it was Dr Thio Su Mien, the "feminist mentor" from COOS who sent out emails attached with the AWARE application form a few weeks beforethe AGM on 28 March 2009 imploring fellow Christians to sign up for its membership and cast a vote to change its direction. It is not a surprise that 6 of the office holders of AWARE are from COOS. In fact, many of the new members who voted at the AGM for the first time might be from COOS too. Is Dr Thio getting in her own individual capacity as a "concerned" parent or is she receiving tacit support from the church? If COOS is not involved in the leadership grab in Aware, Pastor Hong should have distanced himself from the actions of Josie Lau and her team. Instead, he called on his congregation during a sermon last Saturday to lend support to them: "We are in a season where things are being shaken. As a church, we believe in what the ladies are doing and Alan of course is part of the process as well and so we want to just lift them up for what the Devil is trying to do, God will turn it in the glory of its name." (read full article here) Obviously Pastor Hong believed in and supported the take over of Aware. It's hard to believe that he has no prior knowledge of the plan hatched by members of COOS to seize control of the organization to push its own religious agenda into mainstream society. Pastor Hong denied that that "the exco is a pawn of the church or that it has intentions to turn it into a religious organization". If this is indeed the case, why is he, as a non-member of Aware, interfering in its EGM by encouraging people to join Aware to support the new team? In a weekend sermon posted on its website, Pastor Derek Hong urged the women in his flock to ‘be engaged’ and support Ms Lau and ‘her sisters’ at Aware. (read article here) Isn't asking COOS members to join Aware en masse with the sole intention of supporting Josie Lau tantamount to converting it to a pseudo-religious organization which is closely affliated to COOS? During the same sermon last Saturday, he told a crowd of 5,000, he compared homosexuals to thiefs, drunkards and liars: "No where in the bible is homosexuality condoned. Every time the practice of homosexuality is mentioned, there is strong prohibition and judgement, right through the bible. At the same time, it is very clear that homosexual practice is not seen as the worst kind of sin, in fact God doesn't grade sins, all sin is sin. So homosexuality is like other wrongdoings like idolators, thiefs, drunkards, liars are included in the same breath as homosexual offenders." In fact, he had lashed out against homosexuals and the "agenda" of gay activists several times in the past to the extent of demonizing them as being "used by Satan" to destroy the Church which contradicts his statement that his church has no agenda against homosexuals (listen to his speeches here) Pastor Hong promised that he will not allow his pulpit to be used to intentionally teach anything that would arouse social tensions, divisions and unrest. Unfortunately, his open call to stop Singapore from "crossing the line drawn by God" is discomforting and intimidating to those who do not share his belief: "It’s not a crusade against the people but there’s a line that God has drawn for us, and we don’t want our nation crossing that line." Does Pastor Hong know that Singapore is a multi-racial and multi-cultural country and the "line" God has drawn for Christians does apply to non-believers? So how can he use the name of Singapore to defend his "crusade" against the sexual minorities? There are many Singaporeans out there who do not share his views that homosexuality is a sin which must be corrected at all cost. If Pastor Hong is really sincere in keeping COOS out of Aware's internal affairs, he should issue the following statements to publicly dissociate the church from Aware and its new exco: 1. COOS does not support or endorse the actions of its members, namely Josie Lau and the other 5 exco members of Aware. 2. While COOS remain steadfast in its belief on homosexuality based on the Bible, it will not seek to impose or propagate it in mainstream society. 3. COOS members should sign up for Aware membership at their own discretion. The Church does not encourage or discourage members from serving in secular NGOs. The official statement from COOS is in reality a hollow statement bereft of any meaning or importance until COOS stop mobilizing its members to influence the outcome of Aware's EGM. It is nothing more than another ploy of Pastor Hong to deflect intense public pressure from COOS and to buy himself some precious time. The target audience of his message is not the public, but the authorities to allay their suspicions and concerns of his real motives. Perhaps Pastor Hong is aware of Chapter XV of the Penal Code: Promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion or race and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony 298A.   Whoever ––  (a) by words, either spoken or written, or by signs or by visible representations or otherwise, knowingly promotes or attempts to promote, on grounds of religion or race, disharmony or feelings of enmity, hatred or ill-will between different religious or racial groups; or  (b) commits any act which he knows is prejudicial to the maintenance of harmony between different religious or racial groups and which disturbs or is likely to disturb the public tranquility,   shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to 3 years, or with fine, or with both. [source: Statues] Pastor Hong is running on borrowed time and this latest PR stunt may prove too late to convince the public that he is no threat to Singapore's multi-racial and multi-religious society. [Also read Alex Au's humorous take on the matter here]  Read More →

By Venerable Dhammika from dhamma musings Singapore is a pretty boring place. By 'boring' I mean no school massacres, no 'no-go areas', no corruption scandals, no gang warfare and not much crime. Even elections are low-key, unexciting and predictable affairs. But of late Singaporeans have been treated to a bit of real excitement. People are talking about it, it is getting wide coverage in the media and the internet is positively humming with opinions about it. And because all the excitement has a religious element to it I'm dealing with it on my blog today. I will return to the promised subject of the five and ten Precepts in two days. For 26 years an organization called AWARE has promoted women's rights, birth control, lesbian self-respect, everything you would expect from a modern progressive women's advocacy group. Last month AWARE had their annual general meeting and to everyone's astonishment a large group of members who had only joined during the previous month, voted out all the old members and took over. Interesting in itself, but even more interesting is that six of the 11 new office-bearers all just happen to be members of the same religious organization. In its reporting of this matter the media has mentioned the new offices holders' have a particular 'religious affiliation', that they have a 'faith-based' outlook and that 'certain beliefs' are involved, seemingly unable to bring themselves to actually use the word – Christian; or more precisely, fundamentalist Christian; or to be exact the Church of Our Savior. On the side-bar of the church's web site, the fourth item after 'Home', 'Welcome' and 'About Our Church' is 'Position Statement on Homosexuality' so presumably what homosexuals do in the privacy of their own bedrooms is of particular interest to the COS. The church even run an operation called Choice Ministries which 'cures' homosexuals. Apparently COS also has close links with the controversial Hillsong Church in Perth, Australia, characterized by its many critics, including Christian critics, as having an abusive, cohesive, mind-control approach to religion (see http://dogemperor.livejournal.com/147779.html). I always refer to these types of setups as Taklakamakan churches - 'go in, can't get out'. The new AWARE committee have publicly stated that they did not know each other previous to their election, that they haven’t yet decided whether there will be new policies on gender issues, and that they intend to keep their religious views in the background. Many people in Singapore of late have reported seeing pigs flying. After all this got in the papers, the new committee appointed the mother of a former MP as its 'feminist mentor'. Within days, alleged 'private and confidential' emails between this woman and some of the new committee appeared on the internet and these suggest very strongly that there had been a carefully planned, religiously motivated, conspiracy to take over AWARE because of its stance on matters relating to sexuality. Religious fundamentalists of all persuasions are pretty much the same, aren't they? While claiming to promote the highest moral standards, they are quite willing to use underhand, dubious or even immoral means to promote those standards. Typically, they also want to impose those standards on everyone else. Because of their excellent organizational abilities and fierce determination, fundamentalist Christians in Singapore have a profile and an influence far beyond their numbers. If your neighbor, fellow student, boss, work colleague, local shopkeeper or the driver of the taxi you just hired, is a Christian, you'll know it because he or she will very soon tell you. They may even tell you so often that you start to feel as if you are being verbally harassed. And they are very determined to use each and every opportunity to promote their particular view of things. Some observers maintain that they are also prepared to do almost anything to stifle or suppress opposing or different views. Whether the AWARE saga turns out to be an example of this, we should know within a few days. The ousted committee has called an extraordinary general meeting for the 2nd of May and both sides are urging sympathizers to quickly join AWARE, attend the extraordinary general meeting and give their support. For more on this, have a look at http://www.we-are-aware.sg/ [EDITORS' NOTE: Venerable Dhammika has been a Buddhist monk for 32 years and am the spiritual advisor to the Buddha Dhamma Mandala Society in Singapore. He has kindly allowed us to reproduce his article posted on his blog here]  Read More →

From The Informant Network Team: The below email was written by Josie Lau's husband, Dr Alan Chin and was forward to quite a number of people in which Dr Chin made a few serious allegations about MOE, namely that MOE has been teaching and promoting homosexuality to JC students. Without providing any concrete proof to substantiate his claims except for some anecdotal examples, Dr Chin used it as a basis to rally his friends to support the new exco. As Dr Chin's email has been circulated around for the past few days and it is not known how many Singaporeans have read it, it is imperative that MOE step forward to clarify matters. Are there any truth in the allegations contained in Dr Chin's email? MOE should conduct a thorough investigation into the matter and give a proper account to the public to stop such allegations from damaging its reputation once and for all.   ----------Forwarded message----------   From: Alan Chin <alanchinXXX>   Date: Sun, Apr 26, 2009 at 10:10 PM   Subject: GP in JC1 and pink marraige Forwarded message Dear praying parents, For your immediate attention. Fwding some more info that (prayerfully) can help us see the aggresive and thwarted works of the Evil one thru the well meaning but totally brain-washed old guard of AWARE. I'm extremely saddened and concerned and I felt compelled to share... just last Monday, my son in ACJC had for his GP lesson the topic on alternative family structure frm MOE. They were given notes for discussion on topic of same- sex marriage and same sex parents with adoption of children to form a family unit, with this new terminology PINK PARENTS. Students were given a worksheet with questions about what is their idea of a nuclear family unit, what are their views about same -sex parents forming family unit and whether the government in S'pore will legalize gay marriages and whether they are for or against it. During the lesson, they also watched a documentary of "A look into lifestyles of some same- sex marriage or Pink Parent family." Notes given were of 2 particular case study of : 1) Molly ( toddler ) with 2 moms. 2) A gay who wanted to have children decided to cohabit with a lesbian couple and between them they bored 2 girls and of course depicted the persons in these situations as happy and adjusted as any normal family. It scares me to think of how children will be like growing up in such unconventional and dysfunctional family set up. Can you believe this is being taught in public schools, let alone Methodist ones like ACJC? My son's immediate response was that of disgust and I was relieved that my son's lesson was taught by a Christian teacher and thus would be filtered to a certain extent. In my honest opinion, I simply cannot imagine how a My questions are: 1) Does our mission school have a choice to reject such materials from MOE? and 2) Though discussions on it can be discussed in a healthy and matured way, is it necessary to put our children in such position that they have to choose for or against something that is so obviously wrong - as long as Penal code 377A is still in place? 3) Will the viewing of such images leave our impressionable children in a state of confusion? In another JC, my friend's daughter was given a hundred over pages of notes for GP in which there were pictures of lesbians kissing (this is not even allowed by censor boards in worldly magazines. Thankfully ACJC was more careful with this) The students have to study the notes and sit for a quiz. Included in the notes were links to helpline and counselling from Aware. As you all may know, AWARE has a new exco, in which nine of the twelve are committed, prayerful Christians. However, the old exco (who have a pro-gay agenda) are planning to overthrow the new exco with a call to a vote of no confidence at the next AGM. As concerned parents, are we going to sit back and not do anything about this? We have been praying for years for our children's well being, maybe it's a call now to go beyond just praying. We have to make our stand clearly and firmly for God and our children are watching us. Mothers/women over the age of 18, please: 1) Consider joining Aware (sign up http://www.aware.org.sg/?page_id=130) and vote in favour of the exco. 2) Pray for the continual victory and the grace of God over this whole situation Think and pray seriously about it, trust in God's sovereignity (casting out all fear) in this situation and obey His direction. It really is a spiritual warfare in this day and age. We do not act as representatives of any prayer group,church or school. We go as God's children in Jesus's Name choosing God's law over others. My vote to support Aware in its new cause may be most insignificant in this world but God is counting it as His! In the same way that we could accept a drug addict but we cannot accept the act of taking drugs, we also could accept a homosexual but we should not allow our children to be taught that choosing homosexuality is acceptable. It's not a civil right but a personal choice that should not be imposed on our society. Let's protect all the children in S'pore. Concerned n Prayerful,  2 Thess 4:7, 5: 23,24  Read More →