2021.02 Christian extremism? Responses to Chua Mui Hoong’s ST article “S'pore teen detained under ISA: Wake-up call for Christian community” (5 Feb 2021)
It seems that many fellow Christians reacted to Chua Mui Hoong’s recent opinion article in the Straits Times defensively.
The article, “S'pore teen detained under ISA: Wake-up call for Christian community” (5 Feb 2021), concludes that the Singapore Christian community is beginning, or has to begin, to face up to “its extremist fringe and countering it”. The article also alludes to Singaporeans questioning if exclusivist teachings--in particular, that Christianity is the only religion which ensures salvation--is conducive to religious harmony.
To fellow Christians, it is natural to feel defensive. After all, if the so-called ‘extremism’ is neither orthodox Christian belief nor even based on a misunderstanding of Christian doctrine, it cannot be a “Christian extremist fringe”.
It is natural to feel defensive when it seems like Christians and churches as a bloc are being scrutinised and possibly even baited or entrapped into a misstep. When motives are imputed to misunderstood language taken far out of their densely religious context or interpretive milieu.
It is natural to feel misunderstood and bewildered. After all, it is precisely the exclusivist belief that Jesus loves and died for every single person, who is made in God’s image and in need of healing and reconciliation to God, that results in radical inclusivism, compassion, justice, and peacemaking. The kind that drives Christians to abolish slavery and run hospitals and nursing homes at their own expense.
The exclusivism about Christianity, if true, has public and personal existential consequences, like climate change and not whether one’s favourite football club is the best. Yet, it has no necessary connection to how people behave in any particular way that promotes or undermines religious harmony, whatever notion of it.
However, there is also truth in Chua’s article which should give Christians pause for self-reflection.
The natural defensiveness itself should alert us to how the impulse underlying it may contradict the supernatural call upon us away from tribalism and fear towards peacemaking and sacrifice.
The allegation of extremism within “our” community’s fringe, understood in the light of ongoing events around us, is not entirely misconceived if one were to look deep within ourselves and our local church communities.
The fact is that there are probably beliefs and attitudes within us and within our communities that are antithetical to what the Scriptures exhort.
Some of these beliefs and attitudes are connected to, or have paved the way for, far right ideologies, even of violent strands. QAnon prevalence and Trumpism are the result of certain such attitudes. There were and are well meaning Singaporean Christian folk I know who believed that Trump was a God-ordained instrument of righteousness to be celebrated, or that he was battling a deep state of evil people. How much of this withstands the scrutiny of the Scriptures?
Some of these beliefs and attitudes, I see it within Christian leaders in Singapore. For instance, the fear of persecution and curtailment of liberties; fear of losing “our voice”; fear of being culturally ‘cancelled’ e.g. at Christmas; fear of shifting cultural mores having a sway over our young (when have they not?); fear of being attacked by some ‘other’; fear of the other’s ‘agenda’.
These beliefs and fears are what the Scriptures exhort us to overcome by faith in Jesus, who despite his fears, voluntarily took on suffering, persecution and injustice to, among other things, dispel tribalism but instead, reconcile all tribes to Himself and with one another.
The mission of God, and the mission given to us, first and foremost is reconciliation, not cultural domination or entrenching social, political, economic or cultural safety.
The Scriptures tell us that we often do not drink from only one well. Instead, we are constantly torn between two sets of loves—love for God and neighbour versus love for the self & the world. Torn between two sources of soul food: the word of God and the word of the world.
Naturally, as the world becomes more connected and complicated, and as we imbibe more of the world, we are more likely to fall prey to beliefs and attitudes which are antithetical to Jesus, the centre of our faith.
I am reminded of how James in his epistle rebuked his hearers who were under trial for being double-souled in that they purported to turn to God but in fact sought the wisdom of the world. We end up conflating worldly culture and ideology with Scripture and theology.
Yet, this is nothing new. Within a few years and decades of Jesus’ ascension, there were already false beliefs and attitudes. Even the apostles themselves had to contend with false attitudes within themselves. Peter was rebuked by Paul for reverting to some form of ethnic-centrism or insularism.
That is why the Scriptures constantly repeat this motif—true religion is exhibited in care for the least and keeping ourselves rooted in God’s way and unadulterated by the way of the world, though not insulated or removed from the world.
Hence, Chua’s article is a good reminder for us to be intentionally watchful of what we feed ourselves and what those around us are perpetuating or believing.
It is easy to assume that just because we preach orthodoxy, it will be wholly implanted in our fellow Christians. Anyone who’s been in church long enough knows people don’t really or fully listen to or live by what is preached in church. Even the best systems of small groups or accountability will not prevent that.
We cannot control what people lap up in private. We have no influence over transient visitors to our churches, or those who hop around churches. We wish people would live by what they hear or preach but they do not.
All the more then, we have no control over what people would say about us, or what we say or do, or what we truly believe.
What then can we determine?
What we can determine is what is within us, and what we feed ourselves with; what those who would engage with us do hear; what we espouse, with not just our words but our deeds—whether we act out of faith or fear. And if we have nothing to fear, for perfect self-sacrificial love casts out all fear, what more needs to be said in defence?
Peace and grace to you in our Lord Jesus Christ,
Ronald Wong
6 February 2021