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.
