Why Christians Are A Misunderstood Lot

Why Christians Are A Misunderstood Lot

Khen Lim




When churches conduct themselves poorly, Christians become misunderstood (Image source: cnn.com)

How difficult can it be to be a Christian? Easy, you just go to church often enough, learn to read and understand the Bible, become a prayerful person, maybe get involved in some ministries or attend a cell group. You’ll inevitably meet many people who offer you great encouragement to become a Christian and then one day, you wake up realising you’re baptised! That can’t be a bad thing, right? Wrong.

Morality, Where Art Thou?

Editorial Commentary

Khen Lim




Image source: paulgerhards.com

If you ever ask what the world’s single most problematic issue actually is today and well into our future, most people will point to individual or state-sponsored terrorism.

Some people will point their fingers to gun restriction laws or make an issue of the mass Syrian refugee or illegal immigration problems.

Some others will take aim at the colossal corruption that takes place at the highest political offices of the world. These don’t only affect Europe, Latin and North America but they’re certainly at our own doorstep and much of Asia too.

But I’d differ on this. I fervently believe that the single worst problem that our world faces today is the inability to tell right from wrong. People have long since misplaced their moral compasses and through massive inundation of liberalism and progressive thinking, we now do not believe in morality. Instead we are told that what is right or wrong depends on how you feel and empathise.

There is much to ponder about the increasingly disappearing issue of morality in the world we live in today. This is one major topic for the near future and we will dedicate some effort to talking more about it.

For now, you might wonder what God wants to say to us about morality and His Ten Commandments.

A Lesson from the Past

Comparing Julian the Apostate with our World Leaders

Khen Lim

For the relevant link article on Julian the Apostate, clickhere.

Today’s history lesson dates back to 1,653 years ago when the Roman Emperor Julian the Apostate died conceding to Christ that He was right after all. There is something very poignant about this because almost 17 centuries later, we still have yet to learn from it. Before the Emperor died, he realised that his defiance against Christ and his disdain for the millions of His followers was futile.

Julian’s background is hauntingly surreal. Check out how well educated he was. Find out the kinds of philosophical intellectuals he hung out with. Consider him a man for all seasons, supremely refined and cultured. He’d have been a real catch of the day too. He was baptised a Christian; yet he turned away from God and went against Him by deliberately reviving long-gone pagan religions. He reworked the very things that God was angered by. He squared off with Christ, thinking that as a Roman Emperor and assuming the cult of the Unconquered Sun, he was greater and more supreme.

Julian’s disdain for God is similar to what we see today in the tens of millions whose liberal antics would have been equally as if not even more despicable and defiant. I think that if we consider any of these – abortions, baby-part harvesting, same-sex marriages, transsexuality, embryonic stem cell extractions, euthanasia, Christian persecutions, anti-Semitism and hatred against Israel – we could possibly conclude that many of our world leaders today might actually be far worse than Julian the Apostate.

Julian died with regret lingering pathetically on his lips. His last words evidenced this. The tragic difference is that countless modern world leaders we know of may not be that remorseful even in their dying minutes. Where has the world gone to? And what are we Christians to do?

Today, we quietly celebrate the 100th edition of the Lux Mundi Sunday Weekly (LMSW) now read by readers from 70 countries, comprising 29 European, 13 Asian, 6 Mid-Eastern, 7 Latin American, 5 African, 3 Australasian and 6 Central/North American nations. Since August 2014, we have come a long way but it seems we still have a very long long way to go! 

Thank you for your support. We hope you keep helping us make up even bigger numbers!

The Day God Lost

Editorial Commentary on the Butler Act of March 13 1925

Khen Lim



Image source: jasongoroncy.com

On this day, ninety-one years ago, the state of Tennessee in America passed into law a new piece of legislation called the Butler Act, which stops public school-teachers from denying God’s account of the origin of man. It was this law that resulted in the Scopes Trial that pitched Creationism against Darwinism. 

While the Butler Act reinforced the law for decades thereafter, it was in 1967 that a teacher Gary L Scott who successfully sued the state for wrongful dismissal, citing his First Amendment right to free speech. He didn’t leave things at that but instead took up his fight with a class action lawsuit, looking for permanent injunction against enforcement of the law. Within three days, the Butler Act was no more.

History teaches us that these sets of events were where Christian lost the fight against the progressives, atheists, liberals and modernists (PALM) who collectively, through early efforts by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), sought tenaciously to dismantle God’s influence firstly in education and then later throughout all aspects of public life. 

Image source: themadmailman.wordpress.com

Today brazen schoolteachers and lecturers outwardly and openly dismiss the Christian faith and mock God with a fiery determination to challenge His sovereignty not only in classrooms and lecture theatres but also in courtrooms, legislative assemblies and even supermarkets and departmental stores. 

As the PALM community becomes increasingly outspoken and tenaciously vitriolic, knowing that the law has constantly supported up, Christians feel they are losing the fight and are slowly but assuredly being painted to a corner.

But we can still win this if only we fortify our focus on God and not the war.

Elijah - A Lesson About Overcoming Human Frailties

Editorial Commentary

Khen Lim




Image source: en.wikipedia.org

The thing about Elijah isn’t that he was unique and special in any otherworldly way. By all accounts, he was colourful and interesting but what I think is even more interesting is that Elijah is like all of us, at least when it comes to human vulnerabilities.

When we read of his incredible stories, we should not ignore that, like us, his life was also filled with turmoil in which his days could go up and down like a yoyo. One day, he was bold and fearless and the remarkable decisions he made reflected the strength and depth of his faith in God. On another day, he was tentative and fearful and he plumbed the depths of depression and went into hiding. Elijah’s life teaches us the principles that demonstrate the victory in the life of a believer as well as defeat and recovery.

Just as it is for the prophet, when we decide to concentrate on the noise and the tumult of life in this world, we inherently take our eyes off the Lord. If we just stop putting too much impetus on our fears and move away from the deafening threats of a slowly-collapsing world around us, we will hear God’s voice and enjoy His reassurance, and then walk in obedience to His Word. Then we can be victorious and be rewarded for it.

Elijah’s story is, above all, a beautiful lesson about our human frailties and how we can triumph by overcoming them.

Have a great week.

Confusing 1 Corinthians 6 with Romans 13

Editorial Commentary

Khen Lim

Image source: blog.gaycatholicpriests.org

In 1 Corinthians 6, Paul suggests that when two Christians have a legal dispute, they should settle it without taking their case before an unbelieving judge to arbitrate.

Civil cases are inherently different from their criminal counterparts. A crime represents a danger to society, meaning that it must be reported to law enforcement agencies according to Romans 13. This means the investigation, arraignment, hearing, sentencing and incarceration are all within the authority of the government.

Can You Tell the Truth from All the Surrounding Misinformation?

Editorial Commentary (1 Cor 5:1-13)

Khen Lim



Actual snow in Sapa, Vietnam in 2013
Image source: says.com

Recently, news on the Internet have been abuzz with reports that some parts of Malaysia could be in for a nice and snappy cold weather change. As low as 16^o Celsius was touted. Apparently the Meteorological Department (MET Malaysia) predicted that as near to Ipoh as the suburb of Subang Jaya in Petaling Jaya was a likely recipient, making it not much different from the higher-altitude Cameron Highlands.

To make things more exciting, MET director-general Datuk Che Gayah cited Kuala Krai in Kelantan as having experienced such low temperature last year. And considering that Vietnam had just experienced snow and Bangkok was hit with a similar 16^o Celsius change, locals were apparently bracing for an exciting time.

That was in late January, which was before the Chinese New Year season arrived. We are now fourteen days into the month of February of 2016 and the ‘closest’ we got to were patches of scattered showers but nothing approaching the cool torrentials. There were no signs of baseball-sized hail. No snow blitzes unlike Sapa in Vietnam in 2015 that was hit with a temperature of -1^o Celsius.

All we had was just plain old rain. Chinese New Year 2016 came and went without nary a splutter. No episode of cold weather was even within sight. Instead the customary sweltering Chinese New Year heat was what we got and all the brouhaha amounted to yet another misinformation. I can just imagine how some people would have felt anticlimactic or crestfallen.

Spurious weather reports (for Malaysia at least) are just one of countless examples of how information cannot always be relied upon. And if you want to be reminded of the most recent infamous example of misinformation, look no further than the Y2K issue that almost caused a global meltdown; perhaps as near to a pandemonium as the whole world got to.

For Malaysians, let’s not forget that every end of the year for the past decade or more, we’ve all been hearing about how the next year was always going to be an en-masse economic disaster. Doom was unfailingly nigh. And every time, that disaster never exactly came. While GST and the poor Ringgit performance weren’t exactly great news over here, they didn’t really constitute an all-out economic disaster that doomsayers had been touting. And right now, we’re again told that 2016 will be that disastrous year. We’ll just have to see.

In fact, every day, we face a constant deluge of information of which we’d be incredibly thankful if we can trust even one percent of what we read and hear. And it’s not just local news. What we read about in America and Europe are just as unreliable.

American media likes to tell us that they’re climbing out of their massive unemployment problem but the real news that we don’t often see tells us otherwise. While Germany blames the recent rape crisis that was sparked across different cities on their own local German citizens, many of us are wondering how misinformed the government and media can be when everyone else seems to know that certain sections of the Syrian refugees need to be questioned.

Trying to disentangle ourselves from the unreliable information everywhere is like figuring out how we can rid ourselves of the yeast (leaven) in our lives (1 Cor 5:1-13). Try as we might, the answer is no unless we excommunicate ourselves from society, go live in the most remote parts of the world and shun ourselves from social contact and the rest of civilisation.

So long as we live within the structures of society, we will continue to be fed all sorts of information that we are persistently told we can trust be it socio-economic, political or news about the environment. There has been so many lies that, at best, it’s too difficult to know what aren’t anymore. And the more we look around us, the bleaker the picture is in terms of what we can rely on.

Jesus called the Pharisees ‘yeast’ because they covet their Old Testament knowledge even to the most exacting point and yet they were too blind to see beyond their noses at the big picture, the truth of God, the coming of the Messiah. In fact, throughout the Old Testament, there are many passages that talk about the coming of Christ and yet the Pharisees still could not recognise Him in their face-to-face encounters. With the Truth staring in front of them, they actually decided to send Him to His death.

And so we keep trying and trying to figure out if the news we get is reliable or not but in our abject helplessness, we confess to know that the only one reliable piece of truth is Christ and Christ alone.

You and I know that truth. We learn about that truth. We live that truth.   

Have a great week.

Apologies for Missing Sunday Weekly Download

Dear readers

Many of you would have expected to be able to download yesterday’s Lux Mundi Sunday Weekly (LMSW) edition but found no link to one. In fact much of the website has not been updated for the past one week and to all of that, our sincere apologies.

I have been completely caught off-guard with unexpected challenges at home to deal with. Even so I thought I still had Saturday to work on it but even so, I couldn’t find the time or opportunity. In the past days, I had relatives come from Canada to visit. Then my newborn twins – now almost three months old – have been as temperamental as Mount Krakatoa! I’m told that because they are girls, their wailing is especially piercing and highly amplified. I’m actually convinced that babies have a volume knob with only two positions - Off and Full Blast. With two in tow, the cries are as close to ear-deafening as you can imagine. We just came back from the paediatrician who told us both of them have colicky issues that won’t go off until they’re at least four months old.

On the same day, I had to send my aged father to the hospital for an urgent blood transfusion that took up pretty much the whole day. And because there was a kink in the IV line (and nobody noticed it), that meant the first bag of blood took ages to finish before he could be switched to the second pint. By the time all of these chores were over and we got home, it was close to 10:00pm.

My deadline window was therefore shot and Issue 78/16 for January 17 2016 is now history. Therefore the next issue will be Issue 79/16 earmarked for this Sunday, January 24.

I sincerely apologise for that.

Khen Lim

Editor-at-Large

Don't Let Secularisation Destroy Christmas

Can you hear it now? Is your radio on? Or are you walking among the shops?

Khen Lim




Image source: therooftopblog.wordpress.com

At this time of the year, Christmas songs are playing everywhere. From glitzy departmental stores to commercials and media ads to online shopping sites, the Christmas aura is so consuming that even the blind can see and the deaf can hear. Some Christmas songs have been done to death for decades, so bashed and rehashed that you just want to shut your ears walking past the shops. But with all of that, you just know Christmas is around the corner!

It seems even non-believers get into the swing of Christmas. There’s something about this day that revellers are aplenty throughout the world. While Malaysia isn’t the best example, Singapore sure is, with Orchard Road’s more vibrant atmosphere resplendent with colourful decorations, dazzling sprinkling lights, church choirs going on public carolling and the splendour of giant Christmas trees.

In New York, Christmas in a cold December winter is white of course. Lately there have been nonsensical calls for the huge Christmas tree traditionally in front of Rockefeller Centre in Midtown Manhattan every year to be known as a ‘holiday tree’ instead but other than that, this is one of the most iconic Christmas signatures anywhere in the world.

Image source: catholica.com.au

And with all these visual rituals, it’s hard not to miss the symbolism but this is where, for some, the ‘reason for the season’ have taken leave of senses. The Rockefeller Centre example is just one of thousands I can cite. Here are some others, if you’re not up to scratch:

-        Christmas cards, signs and wrapping papers emblazoned with sterile ‘Happy Holidays’ markings

-        Starbucks renaming their Christmas Cups, calling it Red Cup

-        Commercialisation of Black Friday shopping deals in deference to any emphasis on the birth of Christ

-        Banning of Christmas celebrations because it offends or traumatises the ‘sensitivity of Muslims’

-        The widespread use of the expression ‘War on Christmas’ to denote the media offensive against all Christmas-related ‘controversies’

-        The preference of calling Christmas a ‘December solstice holiday shopping season’

-        Wishing shoppers ‘Happy Holidays’ rather than ‘Merry Christmas’

-        Calling Christmas ornaments ‘Holiday Ornaments’ instead

Christmas is under attack and it has been for decades if you haven’t noticed. Anything Christian is actually becoming increasingly an offence to many these days. Christmas in particular is persistently in the cross-hairs of atheists, anti-Christians, progressives, liberals, Muslims, leftists, secularists and the cultural devoid. So what should we do? How should we respond? Where do we go for help?

For now, I can think of three broad things we can do. I’m sure you can think of more but I believe this is as good a start as any:

Firstly keep faith with the original story of Christmas even as the world forces its secularised consumerisation upon us. Remind yourself that Christmas is far more than just getting the latest PlayStation or having a swanky dinner at Maxims mixing it with high society. The truth of Christmas must be found more than 2,000 years ago when baby Jesus was born in a manger as prophesied in the Old Testament.

Although the gifts and the revelry are all part of the celebration, remembering the theological significance will help safeguard its importance. It will help us to underline the fundamental gist of Christmas. And like most things, going back to basics enable us to appreciate what it is in the first place.

Image source: emma6414.wordpress.com

Secondly, resist from being drawn into disputes arising from deliberate misinformation about what Christmas is and isn’t. It’s surely not worth it. There is much that has been written about Christmas being Saturnalia, a Roman-based ancient pagan festival on the very same day, which is December 25, on which the deity Saturn is revered.

Some others also point to the very fact that Jesus wasn’t even born on this day and in fact, certain churches eschew the celebration of Christmas as a result. The truth is we may know the year of His birth but not the actual date but is this an ample excuse for not recognising that Christ was born?

Atheists of course love to direct us to the elements of adulteration in Christmas that makes it meaningless such as Santa Claus, Yuletide, eggnog, Christmas tree and so on. And consumerism has great attachment to all of these, turning Christmas a special spiritual event into Christmas, the commercial spectacle.

Image source: progressiverevelation.blogspot.com

All of these are seriously distracting and they draw us into time-wasting disputes that go nowhere. Inevitably, we end up upset and Christmas this year might turn out forgettable to some of us. I have a better idea – instead of all that, let’s reflect on and be grateful that Christ was born. Paul the apostle would say, use the time to be spiritually productive – go and be a real witness for Christ!

Thirdly, please go and share the Gospel. As God has bestowed upon Christ, the Name above all names (Php 2), you and I should therefore celebrate the Gospel just as we celebrate Christmas. Let us all wear the Gospel in our hearts! Let us not be thwarted by those who try to bend our will to join in the secularisation of Christmas. Jesus says, “When these things begin to take place, stand up and life up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near” (Lk 21:28).

What you can do is find someone who may have nowhere to spend Christmas and no one to share it with. Why not invite him to your church. Pick him up and bring him along. Then share the Good News with him. Tell him what Christmas truly is and why it is important for him to know it.

Lastly, the more the world wants to hijack Christmas, the more we must embed it deep in our hearts, that the birth of Christ remains what it is meant to be. For all that is said and done, Christians must learn to be patient; indeed as patient as God Himself is. God indeed is (very patient) and in fact He is to the extent that He has allowed secularists to have their say.

And that in itself is what the true Christian meaning of tolerance is. However the secularist will forever attempt to muzzle our message and they do so by using their brand of false ‘tolerance,’ which suppresses all views in which non-believers disagree with or find offence with. Still the Christian message is insuppressible and here’s why:

Early Church Father, Tertullian recorded that even in his days, envious secularists were already persecuting Christians because their faith in Christ was so unrivalled against their Roman paganism and therefore, the more they suppressed, the more the message flourished.

Christianity’s glory shines best not only because of its true tolerance amid diversity but especially when the chips are down. Through the impenetrable greatness of principles enshrined in Christ, Christians shine in the light of good cheer, knowing that as we stand up for Jesus’ way, light and the truth, we can celebrate His birthday no matter what the secularists throw at us.

To all our readers, have a wholesome, safe and spiritually meaningful Christmas.

None of the 128 Needed to Die

Editorial Commentary

Administration



Image source: nbcnews.com

According to the latest BBC news (at this point of writing), the present Paris attack has claimed 128 lives with 180 others injured. The attack took place in a night of gun and bomb attacks at a concert hall including restaurants and bars at five other sites with one just outside the Stade de France stadium where France was playing World Cup champions Germany. All of these were in and around the centre of Paris.

It might be politically incorrect to say this but there will be more of the same attacks to come. At any rate, this wasn’t the first time for Paris. If our memory isn’t too short, you might remember Charlie Hebdo and Hyper Cacher, the Jewish supermarket. And they were hardly ten months ago.

The godless continue not to recognise that these are not only the End Times but that, appeasing evil merely brings more unmitigated evil. Similarly a stubborn refusal by liberal socialist politicians to call it what it is – purely unadulterated Islamic terrorism – leaves plenty of doors open for more of the same to come. And they will surely come before the year is up. It might not be Paris but it will surely be somewhere where the same blasé attitude prevails.

Much of Europe is embroiled in the most incompetent assessment of what terrorism is about and how poorly they have been managing the situation; no less mired by a complete lack of due diligence. When you bring in tens of thousands of Syrian refugees without any checks and balances, it tells you everything about utter European ignorance and political indifference. But when 128 people died because of government stupidity and a refusal to acknowledge and then act against Islamic terrorism, the fault must lie equally between I.S. and, in this case, the French government.

Looking at where we’re at in the scheme of things, Ephesians 6:10-20 might come at a humbling but right time. Maybe we can now see these verses for what they’re worth. Maybe we can now wake up from our slumber and take things a little more seriously.

Editor