mardi, mai 12, 2009  (Warning: highly inflammatory)The AWARE issue just made me so angry that I shouted at someone in the office for trying to pin conservative values on all christians. Just because an anti-abortion, anti-gay message is coming from someone, does NOT necc. make it a Christian value - I was very angry at this conflation made because these bunch of idiotic women from COOS decided to take matters into their own hands. The church ALREADY has a platform - legal, moral, and God-driven - to preach our message of hope - it is the church. The fact of the matter is that the church in Singapore has generally FAILED to preach these hard messages - that life is sacred and begins at conception, that homosexuality is NOT supported by the church - so these sincerely wrong women decided to take matters into their own hands. These women should have done something other than to circumvent and take over something which is in the world - it's just engaging Satan on his own turf. If they are truly watchers of the Women's movement in Singapore - of which I have been an active observer of - they would have known that there are other things going on in AWARE - not just gay issues. If they were more involved with civil society in Singapore, as I am, then they would realise the metatexual issue at stake here, which is a statement on Singapore's civil society - the gay community (or GLBT/LGBT community) is very hard pressed to find a space to rally in Singapore, and therefore has to squeeze itself into the dialogue through spaces such as those provided by AWARE. Technically, because AWARE is a women's organisation, it should only champion lesbians - if it champions them at all. However, because lesbians and gays are related, there is issue-affinity there - then come along the bisexuals and the transexuals. GBLT is not a single-issue button - you press one, you get four minorities in with your cause. It is AWARE's fault for NOT realising that they should have refused to engage so much with lesbians because it would have meant taking on the collective baggage of ALL minority groups. We cannot delude ourselves into thinking that Christians are "neutral". This is the kind of thinking that confuses us. The ground that we stand on is never neutral. If we think it's neutral, we get sucked into this idea that our "conservative" stance is one which is held by most of society. While this is true in conservative Singapore, "most of society" is changing/degenerating fast. John 15: 18 "If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. 19 If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. 20 Remember the words I spoke to you: 'No servant is greater than his master.'[b] If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. To think of ourselves as neutral is to take away the warning that Christ gave us: Matthew 10:16 "I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves." --> Jesus to the disciples as he sent them out into the world. I find it irritating that Christians go out into the world, profess a Christian belief, and then get surprised and act so hurt when the world jumps on them for their beliefs. Have we been lulled so much into this myth of "tolerance" that we think that the "liberal left" doesn't have an agenda to push? That the "liberals" are really, all that liberal in the first place? Anyone who doesn't accept homosexuality and "liberal" values are persecuted by the sword! And they want to point a finger at us for the crusades? It's human nature to fear the thing we do not understand, and by extension, destroy it. Look at poor Miss USA (or whatever it was; Carrie Prejean?) She said she didn't support gay marriage, and now her whole family is receiving death threats. See these women who stood up (however wrongly) for "conservative family values"? Got publicly crucified by 3000 women at Suntec. Standing on the side of Christianity is NOT neutral ground. I wish Christians would stop looking so surprised when the world doesn't understand. In the wake of the AWARE saga, how should the church and Christians respond? My goodness, is that even a question? Study the bible, study WHY you're a Christian, and then get more involved with Christ and His work on earth - increase your bible literacy, work harder at Matt 28! Engagement with the world is through our lives, and unless your lives point to Christ, it's just (as Eccl says) meaningless stuff. I really didn't mean to go into a ten-paragraph rant on this issue, but everytime I think/talk about this AWARE issue, it makes me very (1) annoyed at COOS and (2) at these women, (3) and by extension, the church, for not giving women like these a platform to use their energy for Godly work instead of creating a mess. If COOS is patting these women on their back and congratulating them for changing Singapore MOE/AWARE history, I don't know what kind of church they are. Libellés : christian, church, current affairs, singapore [Christians and AWARE] |
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