Further division and hostility within the Church is what I
believe the Singapore church will face in the next decade. The issue of a
certain church and its whole legal saga have caused many Christians to
inevitably want to distance themselves from mega churches as these. We do not
want to be associated with such incidents that have put the church in public
scrutiny and criticism and hence we turn to condemning such churches (churches
that are of similar likeness). This is made worse by what non-Christians often
pose to us – you say you worship God, but the money you keep for yourself –
which causes us to further distance ourselves from people whose fall away from
God we cannot explain. It’s just like a bunch of children that used to be very
bonded and love their teacher very much. One day, one of the child falls away
and becomes greedy of the respect and obedience to that teacher. In supposed
love for their teacher, the other children claim that out of fear of their
teacher’s reputation being spoiled (for a fallen away child may seem to reflect
the failed teachings of the teacher), they push that fallen away child further
than he or she has originally fallen, not wanting to associate or recognize him
as part of the community originally, and not even bothering to bring him back
into the community. However, what we really fear is being classified as the
same, since we were taught by the same teacher. In such an action, we fail to
recognize how those children have unfortunately strayed away to become teachers
of themselves, that they are now more desperately than ever needing us to bring
them back. The same thing is happening in the Singapore church today.
We proclaim we love God, and because we do, we push away or
even disown those who fail to love God in the way that we deem as right.
However, in doing so, we inevitably fail to love those who have fallen away.
Self-righteousness fills our hearts and minds, till we do not see that the fact
that we are pushing away others is already making ourselves as more godly, and
better than those in such mega churches. Matthew 7:2-3 For in the same way you judge others,
you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no
attention to the plank in your own eye. Jesus calls us hypocrites in Matthew
7:5, for condemning others via a standard we ourselves would fail. Truly, as
Romans 14:4 says, “Who
are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master
that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make
him stand.”
What
made me choose to centre my essay on such a topic was our visit to a mega
church. The first thing that greeted us was the security check (though we did
not get checked), we were critical about it. We commented that it was not very
welcoming to have a security check right at the start, what made it seem like a
commercial event. Once we entered the
service and they started singing praise and worship, I started feeling perplexed
whether I should worship wholeheartedly due to all the preconceived notions
that we had before we went for the service. I was afraid that certain phrases
in the song were theologically incorrect. When the speaker started speaking,
all notebooks were whipped out and it made it plain obvious that we were not
part of the church as nobody else was taking notes whatsoever. This caused us
to be critical about the other worshippers around us, that they are possibly
less genuine than us in wanting to learn God’s Word. We started picking on
everything we saw, from the camera moving around, to the comfortable seats, the
perhaps over-zealous choir members on stage, how the holy communion was
packaged and the speaker’s frequent use of ‘Amen’. Yes, some of the gospels
that they teach may not be grounded in the Word. However, because of that idea
that we had, we started piling up almost irrelevant accusations on top of the
original accusation. The question that came into my mind is that – just because
it is different, what makes everything else other than the gospel that they
preach wrong? Why do we emphasize such differences so much to the point of
alienating such a church and ‘disowning’ them, while there exists so many
differences between the different denominations in the Christian church today
(e.g. Presbyterian, Methodist, Anglican etc.) Why are we more proactive and
non-judgemental to non-Christians than people who are in these mega churches?
I
am not saying that we should compromise on the Word of God out of love. What I
am saying is that out of that very idea of love, we should bring them back to
the real Word of God rather than just commenting on the side lines or behind
their backs about things other than the gospel they preach, such as their worship
method, their way of preaching and many more.
We
should not take this division between mega-churches and non-mega-churches
lightly. We have to admit that mega-churches have great appeal to people of the
modern world. “Mega churches have been
able to articulate Christianity in a very contemporary manner,” said Terence Chong, a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian
Studies who has researched such groups. “Being able to adopt the language of
pop culture, mass consumption -- we think this appeals to the new middle class,
people who are aspiring middle class.” The gospel that they preach is undeniably
attractive to non-believers as well, as it provides a guarantee of material
returns if you believe, that you will receive wealth in the Jesus’ name and
that God will make his people prosper. This is as compared to the gift of
salvation via God’s grace that non-Christians would understandably find hard to
believe and too up in the clouds for them to see and hence have faith in. The
fact that other mega churches are still growing exponentially, despite one of
the biggest corruption cases in Singapore regarding another mega church, just
points to the strength of the mega church movement. If we do not do anything to
point them to the real Word of God, and just sit at the side lines and focus on
studying the Word for ourselves so we would not get tempted and swayed by such
false gospels, more and more people are going to be attracted to such ministries
and hear the Word of God being interpreted completely wrongly. Is that love?
I
am not sure how to go about showing love to others by telling them the truth
and pointing them to the truth of God’s Word. There are many issues involved
such as sensitivity to those you talk to, enlightening not embarrassing, and
not being self-righteous (it is very easy to be) when doing so. We can start of
with this - as we continue to discover and learn how best to solve this
problem, that we can no longer ignore and avoid, we must be humble to
acknowledge there are good things we can learn from these mega churches and
their effective methods of outreach, and also be courageous in pointing them
back to the Word of God. 1 Peter 3:17 –For it is better, if it is God’s will,
to suffer for doing good than for doing evil.
Resources
Chen, S. (2012, September 4). Singapore Mega-Church
Christian Faithful Invest in Malls. Retrieved May 30, 2016, from http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-09-03/singapore-mega-church-faithful-invest-in-malls-southeast-asia
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