Das Konfessions - not for the weak minded.

Wow it's a long while since I posted anything here. It's 4am in the morning, my brain is not working, and I've got an early day tomorrow at work- thank God for coffee.

I'm sure if you're reading this you belong to one of the categories below:
1. Sophia, who loves everything about me
2. Apathetic individuals who happen to chance upon this blog
3. Close friends and comrades whom have accepted me as who I am and love me enough to read this nonsense
4. Nice pharisees to find something from this blog to talk (gossip) about after church to reinforce their status as 'superior spiritual beings' and to give credit to their 'infallible culture' so that they can sleep better.

As you can see from my 'hijacked' blogpost dated 23rd September 2008, everything's going well between me and Sophia. In fact, we've never been better.

Thanks dear, you're simply amazing and I will never trade you for anyone else. Just love watching the sunrise with you and dancing under the stars. =)

Here's to silence all the critics and all talks of 'premature' (who ironically are single and who add ridiculous standards and dogma in order to compensate for their inabilities or fear) Oh by the way, a few clowns did mention behind my back that things won't work out (with utterly unbelievable and yes, dogmatic reasons behind them), very Christian indeed! Anyway I got a good book to introduce to you guys - "I Gave Dating a Chance" by Jeramy Clark. The intro itself is worth the penny spent! Haha.

I attended a lecture on 'Power abuses in the church" seminar by some Dutch-Australian guy (which I will upload once I can find the time to type it out). Expecting an extremely boring seminar, I was surprised to find it enriching and informative. He talked about the claims of 'The Lord's Anointed" and how some leaders used that to their own advantage by claiming divine appointment/right. He also talked about how cults use fear to manipulate their own members, and they struck a chord in me. I remember one incident at Manhattan Fish Market, we were welcoming Jason Lee back from East Timor over a simple gathering. The radio was playing and I made a comment, saying that these secular songs sound like our own Christian music, and I went on to add words from 'King of Majesty' and other assortments of 'holy lyrics' to the secular tunes. Well, it was kinda amusing, however I was reported back and I had to meet my youth pastor. It wasn't a very pleasant meeting I must say, but what irks me the most was the charge brought to me - I was singing secular songs at that dinner.

Wow.

Talk about being dogmatic.

Anyway after that pretty nasty incident, I concluded that our ministry was governed by fear, unwritten, unspoken, but nevertheless present. I was reported by someone whom I called 'friend' without any clarification for something so trivial - a bad case of convictions gone wrong. It seems we are encouraged to 'report' the misbehaviors of one another to the leadership, which is disgustingly fascist.

Some call it love and accountability. I call it plain rhetorical bullshit.

I was taught to leave my brain outside of church. To question is to doubt, to argue is to oppose. I must confess, I am guilty of it too.

After my fiascos with the 'leaders-must-always-respond-first-at-the-altar' and the 'if-you-have no burden-for-revival-you're-not-right-with-God', I decided that's not how I wanted to lead my cellgroup. Confession number one: A dear brother of mine who was under my care shared with me that he was interested in a girl.

"Is she a Christian? If she is, and you're sure about it, go chase her lah"

"Are you going to tell B** about it?"

"No lah of course not, I don't believe in that tyrannical concept of "reporting everything to leadership", I believe in trust and confidentiality"

In this case I broke the cardinal rule, but I didn't really cared. Ha. I know what it feels like to share something personal to your leaders only to have it being reported up in the name of accountability. I have concluded that it is unchristian, and a sign of cultish behavior of control and manipulation (though I'm not saying that my ex-youth group's a cult!).

Second confession, we always had this talk of revival and everything. Revival's a beautiful thing, like what happened in the Welsh Revival. But something is wrong when it becomes the centre of our focus. I admit, I find it difficult to hear weeks after weeks of sermons on revival and the advocacy by the few when my spiritual needs weren't met. And it seems we have created a culture where crying at revival meetings guaranteed status in the ministry - the louder you cry, the more spiritual you are. I do admit there are a few who are genuine, I don't discredit that. But I can tell you I was one of those who know that if I don't do it, I'll be left out. So I guess you could call me the biggest hypocrite in the world, but I just wanted to be accepted.

Its very simple. I know of people who respond to every revival altar call and who cry buckets of tears and yet can't seem to love their neighbours. And looking back, it seems that the revival we talk about is more of cultural imperialism with everyone conforming to our lifestyle and convictions than true spiritual experience with God. If thats the case, then its not revival.

And then there was BOMG after the failed 'Joint' event and all the talk of 700. Third confession, I still have the BOMG fishes rotting somewhere in my cupboard because it wasn't important enough for me to give it out to my cellgroup. Evangelism is important, I just found the whole BOMG idea too gimmick. I had the chance of attending another cell in youth, and the talk of BOMG by the cell leader just turned me off. I guess to him it was just another part of party rhetorics, but I'm sure he didn't really believed in it, at least by the way he talked about it. Well, borrowing a quote from the 'Godfather', now BOMG sleeps with the fishes. Heh.

I know this post may sound harsh and provocative. But it is a much needed post to bear my heart out into the open. Now I want to live life and enjoy what I've been missing out. Don't worry, nothing too carnal or hedonistic, I'm still a Christian (though what that term exactly means I'm now a little hazy). I heard that when Doug told a particular someone that he wanted to attend the Lifehouse concert at St. James, the person wasn't particularly happy to hear that. I shrug it off as immature. But well, if you live by the law, you die by the law. I've used the term 'rhetorics', 'dogma' etc, guess that's how I feel about what I've been through - we were living and serving a system, and for that we have done horrible things to people. I implore you, please don't let that happen again no matter where you are or what you do. Don't replace the law with another law for Christ's sake!

Decent...

Robert: We're Jews Avner, Jews don't do wrong because our enemies do wrong.

Avner: We can't afford to be that decent anymore.

Robert: I don't know if we ever were that decent. Suffering thousands of years of hatred doesn't make you decent. But we're supposed to be righteous. That's a beautiful thing. That's Jewish. That's what I knew, that's what I was taught and I'm losing it. I lose that and that's everything. That's my soul.