today has been a busy day again and i still havent got the chance to go to town to buy my dress. tomorrow is D-DAY. i wanted to go shop today after pastor sy roger’s session and before bible study at holland v. but there wasnt enough time in between and i ended up waiting in church with sally and mich for pastor yk to finish his bible study before hitching a ride from him to holland v. i spent my time reading science articles on creativity. haha.
anyway had some thoughts during pastor sy roger’s session. it was basically about the hows and whats in setting up a ministry to help those struggling with sexuality issues in the church. anyway i realised that PAP is quite wise in the writing of legislation concerning homosexuality. apparently homosexuals are arrested for ‘cruising’- or looking for sexual partners in public places and the statement made by the government is that they are not arresting them base on their gender orientation but the fact that they were a potential harm to the vulnerable and were arrested based on inappropriate behaviour and potentially hurtful, threatening/predatorial behaviour. so while the government does not alienate and discriminate they achieve the need to create boundaries and protect the rest of the public. the western society on the other hand had sacrificed the security of the society in the name of ideals. in the name of personal freedom, public welfare has been heavily compromised.
there was also a discussion of the need to consider the multi racial, multi religious society we live in when setting up a Christian ministry that is open to the wider public and christians alike. it was alot of legislation wording being discussed. but somehow the Declaration of Religious Harmony was brought up, i think something was discussed about how we need to respect it. personally i used to be very apprehensive of the Declaration for 2 reasons- people live in religious harmony or they dont. you can’t articificially create a Declaration for a way of life, for a perspective. and secondly- how can there be harmony and unity when the teachings of the different religions are so inherently different. from the christian point of view, you are called apart from the world, so how then is there harmony with the world?
but then today i found some value in the Declaration. it is precisely due to this Declaration and the desire to maintain religious harmony that religious freedom can exist and the church can function and grow. the Declaration set boundaries but these boundaries keep out the vices of disorder and conflict, and as churches stay within the boundaries to live in harmony, to not discriminate other religions- it could exist in a very much protected environment. in any case, i think now that harmony does not mean sharing the same religious point of view or teachings, rather sharing the similar values of wanting to maintain the peace and cohesion of society. and it is within Christian teachings to live in peace with our neighbours. so i suppose that the Declaration should be upheld and not belittled by believers and churches.
2 Comments
October 21, 2009 at 9:53 am
I just read an article on CNN.com regarding unity in the Catholic Church without cultural uniformity (i.e., as Anglican congregations join while retaining their rites). I then wrote a post about the relationship of unity and doctrinal uniformity. In general terms, does unity require uniformity?
November 9, 2009 at 10:50 pm
hi, sorry for the late reply.
in general terms, i do not believe that unity requires uniformity. in fact, apostle paul teaches in 1 cor 12 on unity despite diversity. paul uses the human body as an analogy, likening each believer to be a part of the body. the ear and the eye has different functions/looks etc yet they all work together for the good of the body.
i would go as far to say that christianity is about unity through diversity – God has given each believer a unique gift/talent that he has to excel in, in order to bless the rest of the body of Christ.