Two Homes

After our Prime Minister delivered his 2013 National Day rally speech, many, it is reported, were struck by his sympathy in considering the growing concerns of Singaporeans. It seemed like a patent departure from his previous approach. He no longer spoke like he was reading out the nation’s scorecard, with GDP growth and birth rates as the standards of measure for success. A prominent theme was reducing socio-economic inequality. This was most clearly featured in terms of making public housing more affordable, and in terms of alleviating the stresses of the education system, which the PM conceded was a regretful consequence of premature academic stratification (or 'streaming', as it is known). For illustrative purposes, the PM during his speech assumed the role of a housing agent, an occupation of neither mediocrity nor prestige: a middle class man, earning his living on the one hand, reflecting the beneficience of the state on the other.

My concern here, however, is not directly with society; it is with the church. I begin by noting that it would be naïve to think that the church, correctly known as a community of love and interdependence, does not foster inequality. It does inherently, and indeed does so by God's design. That is the reason Paul saw fit to analogise to the human body the composition of the church and the distribution of spiritual gifts therein. 

But what do we mean by inequality within the church? Such inequality has two dimensions; the first is physical prominence, and the second is importance of gifting. Some parts of the body are more prominent than others. These would include our eyes, hands, among others. Some are more practically important, for the purposes of survival. These would include our brain, heart, lungs, among others. We would rather lose a finger than lose a lung. Similarly, it is not unfortunate that the church remembers the passing of the wise and faithful elder better than that of the silent and regular congregation member. What is key is that this inequality does not exist in respect of inherent value, so that the elder is more precious in the sight of God than the congregation member. Paul was at pains to stress this (1 Cor 12:21-26).

However, it is a little more complicated in the wider church, and by this I mean all individual churches considered as a whole in one particular society, not in the world. In this respect, the intermingling of social stratification and ecclesial demography is apparent, and to be expected. The intermingling arises because the distribution of church members is unequal not merely on account of physical prominence and importance of gifting, but also on account of value in terms of social status.  Presbyterian English churches, traditionally Reformed in doctrine and expository at the pulpit, boast well-qualified and sharp-minded preachers; they attract an English-educated bourgeois with a penchant for ‘solid-teaching’. Emergent non-denominational churches blend such intellectual appeal with novel itineraries to attract a growing national cohort of graduates, undergraduates and young couples. Chinese Methodist churches, an entire franchise, embody an island-wide network of Wesleyan outreach, attending to those society has left behind – the old, the poor; as they become a home for Chinese immigrants, they also struggle to retain an increasingly English-educated youth membership. And the megachurches: where material blessings uniquely abound; except of course, from within 8,000 people enthused about a tangible kingdom, the missing other end of a business deal cannot be that difficult to find – it merely depends on faith.

Two implications may be drawn. First, as this phenomenon continues, the identity of an individual church becomes increasingly bound up with the social status of its members. The mere fact that different churches cater to different people is unsurprising. But a highly unequal society situated within in a small geographical context has large potential to generate a corresponding polarity in ecclesial demography. Consequently, the identity of the wider church will more easily appear and indeed become increasingly heterogenous to that one society. It is not clear if this is a good thing. Second, in conjunction with society's pace of unequal development, churches at the top and bottom end will become 'oversubscribed', and churches that fall somewhere in between may become irrelevant. For the purposes of the wider church, will there be a parallel middle-class gap?

Returning to the PM's speech, it will be recalled that he promoted a vision of many routes leading to multiple peaks. The goal is greater social mobility. In Singapore, this refers to the traversal, by way of merit, from one social class to a higher one, these higher social classes existing across a variety of professions. You can buy an HDB flat according to his loan schemes, qualifies the PM qua housing agent, ‘if you work hard’. It is this attitude that the PM hopes will continue to characterise an increasingly diverse society that has infinite ambitions and limited opportunities – the healthiest kind of competition to produce hope and excellence for the future state. It is this attitude that will buy you a home.

The church is different. First, one should have no desire to move from one church to another as a matter of ambition to scale the social ladder; though admittedly this is probably rare. There is no a priori social hierarchy of churches. Rather, the symmetric inequality of the wider church with social strata is a result of the church's ministerial and evangelistic mission. The wider church  laments the slavish grip of the middle-class on the arbitrary ladder-step and she seeks to turn its eyes to a better reward.

Second, and more fundamentally, there is no meritocracy in Christianity. Christ does not tell us to work hard so that we can earn our right to an estate in heaven. Not unlike the PM’s role-playing attempt, Christ in fact became one of us, as a divine agent, to tell us exactly the opposite – that it is impossible. Grace is our foundation and faith is the least and most we can ‘do’. Unless the church recognises the fundamental antithesis between the social and soteriological premises, she will find it difficult to navigate her context and exist as a persuasive counter-cultural witness. She will either be petty and nonchalant about ecclesial differences, or cultivate an insular ministry without realising why people are staying and leaving.

The final verdict is testing. The wider church itself is also a society, but a different kind. It is one that aims to guide its members towards a better, biblical vision of home. Whereas this vision stands in stark contrast to the vision our PM would have us believe, the latter is no less important. The church must know and infiltrate the strata of people begotten by their social premise, and she must be content that some of her components will be acting more prominently than others, if she is to commend our eternal abode to a people preoccupied with laying hands on a 99-year lease.  

On Routine

I am slightly cautious with being accustomed to routine because it seems to deny some measure of my autonomy. It is a strangely liberating feeling - although to some, unsettling - to wake up to a series of substantive decisions that have yet to be made, which as a matter of probability would never in its fulfilment recreate a day adequately similar to the previous day, or to the same day of the previous week. Conversely, routines are, in effect, restrictions on the choices you might make over the course of time. 

This is of course a rather narrow conception of routine, and much turns upon how scrupulous its provisions are. Further, even the most spontaneous or disorganised people live within minimal habitual boundaries, the most patent of which would be eating and sleeping. One simply has to do so, preferably in a routinely manner, to stay alive.

The difference, I suppose, is that these habitual restrictions on the course of one's life in a day are fundamentally involuntary. By contrast, a daily routine to most of us probably means a sequence of actions or procedures regularly followed that we constructed on our own, for our purposes. Another way of putting it is that rather than merely taking momentary decision-making out of your own hands, a routine is simply making those decisions in advance. Now this surely is no restriction on autonomy, is it? In fact it is a more sophisticated manner of exercising it. 

Barring any deterministic objection (which this note is not meant to address), I think the real question is perhaps why we value the concept of autonomy, especially in relation to its practical out-workings. Much can be said, but for now, the most penetrating analysis must come from James, who wrote,

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”—yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin. (James 4:13-17 ESV)

In gist, I think the short answer is that autonomy is not designed for the preservation and attainment of personal agenda, attractive as that may sound. It is nevertheless a legitimate volitional principle but what it expresses is one's capacity for true obedience to divine agenda. Consequently, I suppose, biblical autonomy enshrines above all the need for a constant, regular, if not, at least routine, searching for what the Lord wills. 

Resolutions

The term has sung its last note. Its end colours the turn of the season, and vice versa. If there is one thing I have learnt, it is that resolutions in the negative, that is, beginning with I will not, only empty over time, like autumnal branches and their radiant but disloyal associates. Negative resolutions are not true resolutions, for a renunciation on its own is like a departure without a destination. Even wanderlust is, to an extent, decidedly purposive. But like wintry days are an invitation to bide one's vigour for the promise of spring and beyond, my resolutions, I hope, will cease to be holdovers of past sins but instead become ends towards a greater end.

A Scent

A scent is a breath of love,
warm and laced with the dew
            of tired lips,
            simmering and escalating.

A scent is soluble affection;
no more chemical than love,
            invisible, and best not
            studied nor synthesised.

A scent is a pensieve breeze
which in its wake demands
            a journeyer's courage
            and a curious mind.

A scent caresses,
and awakens a game
            of feral pursuit
            and velvet words.

A scent is a girl in a bottle
            who escapes because she cannot be contained.

Forgive Me

It is equally if not more difficult to accept forgiveness than it is to forgive. That is because it involves a self-reckoning of one's trespass, and that of the virtue of the pardoner, who for what is worth has on other occasions lapsed in his own honour but at present stands trustily. It is even more difficult when he has not, or is kind and just, or both. The uncloaking of one's fallen nature to face the stainless hope of redemption therefore requires nothing less than a miracle of the heart and will. As Herbert Prochnow rightly counter-quoted, "To err may be human, but to admit it isn't." Humility, it seems, is humanity's rarest and most precious trait.

Protecting the Good

It might be said that a public servant is one whose duty is to protect the public good and whose creed is sworn singularly unto the culture within which it wishes to thrive. To complicate matters, "good" is almost always defined by culture, which in our day and age has been prone to leave generous room for definitions of any sort; this might in fact be the only "good" - in its own entitlement - consistently defined and practiced (although not consistently logical). This unfortunately makes it hard for anyone to decide what, if at anything all, to protect. It was therefore of little surprise to me today, when I had the honour of conversing with an eminent public servant, to discover that he was fundamentally an ardent disciple of John Dewey, whose thought (ironically), as one writer put, had aimed not at fixing the belief but at fixing the situation.

The important man still unflinchingly garners my deepest respect, and I suppose the culture - or any culture - survives because of selfless people like him who loyally heed its creed. But more than that, as we appoint and anoint to protect the public good, how much more shall we thus defend and debate the concept of "good" itself, to protect it too, and any hope of meaning at all?

Song and Sense

Music aside, good songs tend to make sense while bad songs don't. Even after navigating a slew of awkward diction ("I love my...closest ties") and strange grammar ("Mornings, I wake up, refreshed..."), I'm still left wondering what in the world "love at first light" even means. It doesn't help that the lyricist is a renowned local poet. So today we still find "Home" the homeliest. The reason may escape our notice, but it might just be because, amongst other things, the speaker makes a simple, sensible and sincere argument: "This is where I won't be alone, for this is where I know it's home." For most of us, it is an argument that is true, or at least that we hope to be.