Some people complain when they hear sermons from religious preachers which they think are too “political”. Many feel uncomfortable when these preachers question the existing social and economic and even political order and the prevailing values of the day. Politics, they feel, has nothing to do with religion. In fact, the sharpest critics of such preachers are those who have a conservative and narrow understanding of what it means to be a compassionate and concerned human being in a world where 2 per cent of the world’s population control half the world’s wealth. Others feel that politics is of no interest to them and they do not see how it is connected to their lives. In Christianity, Jesus himself was “politically incorrect” in his sermons: the values he expounded – compassion, sharing of resources, love, justice – were sharply at odds with the values of the Roman Empire as well [Read more]
As we celebrate 50 years of Independence and 44 years of Malaysia, we would do well to consider some of the cleavages in our society that have given rise to simmering tensions every now and then. Our ethnic-based political system compartmentalises us into neat categories of Malays, Chinese, Indians, Kadazans, Iban, etc. And now we have certain groups dividing us on the basis of religion. Granted, not all these divisions are created by the politicians but they have to bear some responsibility for allowing the system to unleash these forces and divisive laws and rules on the population. The bumi-non-bumi dichotomy is one such example; you know, the emphasis on race, rather than need, when it comes to affirmative action policies. In the last few years, a new divide has emerged: the Muslim-non-Muslim divide. This has arisen from a number of factors which we won’t go into in this piece. [Read more]
Very often, we admire the brave women and men of history who dared to stand up and lead their people against authoritarian and tyrannical rulers. We are so inspired by their raw courage that sometimes we fail to see that they were just ordinary people like us who felt compelled to act because of the injustice they saw around them. Throughout history God has used “small people” to achieve miraculous deeds. It is almost as if He was trying to overturn the natural order of things. Most people usually regard the strong – rather than the meek – as the natural inheritors of the earth. When Moses was asked to lead his people out of Egypt, his first reaction was one of horror: he felt his lack of eloquence – some believe that he had a speech impediment or suffered from stammering – would be a major handicap. This is [Read more]
