Being Salt and Light in a Pluralistic Society

The AWARE saga finally ended last Saturday with the failure of the leadership coup led by Josie Lau. The widely publicised issue has drawn many thoughts and comments from Singaporeans of different walks of life, backgrounds and religions. As this issue settles and everything returns to normal, there is no doubt that we will again experience controverises of such kind, especially from different groups with different motives, agendas and causes. As Christians, we are called to be the Salt and Light of the society, and to uphold God's will and love in this society that is shared by pre-believers with different values and beliefs. How can we ensure that we are sensitive to feelings of pre-belivers, as well as not being in a position to forsake our calling as the Salt and Light? I believe that as a Christian community, we can draw some important lessons from the AWARE saga.

Proverbs 19:2 - It is not good to have zeal without knowledge, nor to be hasty and miss the way. As Christians, we need to have the knowledge - understand the workings of our society well, to know what means are appropriate and acceptable in the society, and to know where to go, which authorities to approach in order to raise our concerns over certain matters. The society whenever we like it or not is a secular one, comprising of people with different values and beliefs.

While Josie Lau and the rest of her committee members from the same church disagreed with the contents taught in the sexuality education offered by AWARE, there are other avenues which are more appropriate to address their disagreements. Using the means, that is, attempting to take over control of AWARE whose vision and mission are totally outside of the issue of contention is certainly a poor way of justifying the ends. Moreover the takeover process isn't one that is transparent and percieved by others to be honorable.

1 Corinthians 9:22 To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some.

No matter how Josie Lau explained the legitimacy (in line legally with AWARE's constitution) the entire takeover process had been, ultimately it is the perception that counts. I do not agree that we should conclude on things based on perception but in reality that is how the world works. As Christians, we do have a choice - to accept that since the world behaves like this, we should be wise to use a means that is helpful and useful in engaging the world, or to disregard how the world works and continue to use whatever means which we are more comfortable with as Christians.

In addition, I wish to point out the fact that in a secular society, we do face disadvantages as Christians when trying to get people to be opened to our explanation over the beliefs we hold. People would have certain assumptions of us when they know that we are Christians and sometimes, such assumptions would not help us to get our messages across to other people. We need to be mindful of the existence of such communication gaps and not to let other people, or media play up the fact that we hold certain views because we are Christians. Being a Christian isn't the only identity we have. We all are Singaporeans and belong to the society of Singapore. Therefore I am concerned too over certain initiatives that would affect the social fabric of Singapore's society. We ought to rely more on universal values that is shared by the society in order to engage everyone, e.g. pro-family value (esp in Singapore), etc. Such engagement would be helpful and people will see Christians as being contributive to the society, rather than being divisive and enforcing its belief on other people.

Finally, quoting DPM Teo Chee Hean's comment on AWARE saga to Straits Times on 3 May 09:

"...I think that there will always be differences in society; it is a question of whether we can deal with them in a sensible way, learn how to accept one another's differences and still work together for the good of this society. There are people in our society with different views and if...we push them too hard, there will be a push back from the other side. You are not going to resolve some of the differences because they are strongly held and you risk polarising society if you push too hard.

I think if you believe that what you are doing is right, well, live a good life, do good work and persuade people by how you work and live rather than pushing your ideas in a much more pushy way. I think there are ways where we can engage with society and still live with our differences."

We should let our lives and consequences speak for the beliefs we hold, and progressively influence people towards our cause.