Reminders

People need reminders because 1) we can get too crowded in our lives that we forget the important details, and 2) we can get too carried away doing something, from why we did it in the first place.

The CHC case had been sensational news. Not just because the modern society is now tired of religion especially one that can be considered so self-centered claiming that only through Jesus Christ, one can even be considered for afterlife in heaven. The amount of money involved in the crime is astronomical even by today’s standards. People are furious at how some of these religious based organisations and societies abused their authority and used this “public" resource for personal gains.

It is always a thin line cutting across a huge grey surface. But I am not writing on whether I agree with the prosecution or the defense or even the general public views on them. This is a personal take on the whole circus, and the people involved.

Quick context; I attended CHC for a few years in the late 90s and at some point, I have been in close contact with a couple of the plaintiffs, and got to know some of them at a somewhat personal level. I was able to see them in action on a personal level.

This does not qualify me as a good judgement of their characters but my perspective of them certainly influenced my decisions in relations to my religious beliefs then and even now on this post.

I have never fully agreed in spirit on what CHC stood and pushed for. I struggled with this for quite a while and even wondered if I would ever make a good Christian. I did mostly what was taught and even committed myself to some of the activities and ministries as organised by the church. While I would not say I have been greatly blessed spiritually, I had learnt much.

I soaked up all the sermons and bible studies, and I enjoyed the social and communion with the people whom are all banded together in name of Christ, and nothing else. The person who made all that happened? Kong Hee.

 

If you were like me who attended CHC during the late 90s, you would see that Kong Hee had the zeal and tenacity that was so contagious. I was infected. I enjoyed the sermons he preached on Sundays so much that it did not matter that the services ran for 2 - 3 hours. I remember one Sunday, the service ran so much into overtime that staff of the venue we were in were very angry because they had a wedding reception to prepare for. I would imagine them (and the wedding couple) would have been one of the first haters of the church.

Then it got weird. By the end of 1999 and even in the early 2000s, things start to drift, and my spirit was bleeding. I wanted out. So my free spirit led me into the wilderness and that was the last I have heard Kong Hee, at least in person. You can always listen to his sermons online.

Fast forward 10+ years, he is in the news, for the wrong reasons. Just these past few weeks, he was convicted and sentenced to 8 years in prison.

I am not here to rejoice and gloat in the fact that I got out of the church way before things got out of hand. I am not here to tell the 10,000 members of the church that they have been brainwashed. I am here to say that a man I had certain amount of respect for had been convicted in our court of law, and I am praying for him.

This conviction does not diminish the fact that he founded a church from which so many lives were touched in a positive way. So many people have come to know Christ through the church even if the foundation of it all may be a bit debatable. I can confidently say that I have been blessed in a lot of ways through this man. I believe that whatever was done in the past 10 years, had perhaps been because man got distracted, by the shineys of the material world. And man now needs reminders.

A lot of people are rejoicing in the news of their conviction and sentences. I am not. But I know that a jail term is but only a mark in the brief life on earth. It does not matter if people sees him as a man wearing prison garbs with a black mark across his face. What matters is God sees him as someone worthy enough to be called, again.

If that is what it takes to turn your attention back to God again, God will do it, as a reminder.