Here’s a very interesting interview with Bono, something which I imagine has been circulated for quite a bit now. Here are my favourite parts:
Bono I really believe we’ve moved out of the realm of Karma into one of Grace.
Assayas Well, that doesn’t make it clearer for me.
Bono You see, at the center of all religions is the idea of Karma. You know, what you put out comes back to you: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, or in physics—in physical laws—every action is met by an equal or an opposite one. It’s clear to me that Karma is at the very heart of the universe. I’m absolutely sure of it. And yet, along comes this idea called Grace to upend all that “as you reap, so you will sow” stuff. Grace defies reason and logic. Love interrupts, if you like, the consequences of your actions, which in my case is very good news indeed, because I’ve done a lot of stupid stuff.
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Assayas That’s a great idea, no denying it. Such great hope is wonderful, even though it’s close to lunacy, in my view. Christ has his rank among the world’s great thinkers. But Son of God, isn’t that farfetched?
Bono No, it’s not farfetched to me. Look, the secular response to the Christ story always goes like this: he was a great prophet, obviously a very interesting guy, had a lot to say along the lines of other great prophets, be they Elijah, Muhammad, Buddha, or Confucius. But actually Christ doesn’t allow you that. He doesn’t let you off that hook. Christ says: No. I’m not saying I’m a teacher, don’t call me teacher. I’m not saying I’m a prophet. I’m saying: “I’m the Messiah.” I’m saying: “I am God incarnate.” And people say: No, no, please, just be a prophet. A prophet, we can take. You’re a bit eccentric. We’ve had John the Baptist eating locusts and wild honey, we can handle that. But don’t mention the “M” word! Because, you know, we’re gonna have to crucify you. And he goes: No, no. I know you’re expecting me to come back with an army, and set you free from these creeps, but actually I am the Messiah. At this point, everyone starts staring at their shoes, and says: Oh, my God, he’s gonna keep saying this. So what you’re left with is: either Christ was who He said He was—the Messiah—or a complete nutcase. I mean, we’re talking nutcase on the level of Charles Manson. This man was like some of the people we’ve been talking about earlier. This man was strapping himself to a bomb, and had “King of the Jews” on his head, and, as they were putting him up on the Cross, was going: OK, martyrdom, here we go. Bring on the pain! I can take it. I’m not joking here. The idea that the entire course of civilization for over half of the globe could have its fate changed and turned upside-down by a nutcase, for me, that’s farfetched …
Silence of an activist state like Singapore can be interpreted as assent – especially since ministers here are quick to respond to domestic critics.
Chua Mui Hoong, ST Senior Writer
ST’s Chua Mui Hoong has been something like PAP’s bulldog nowadays. Over the last few months, she’s done a series of articles defending and explaining the government’s stand on a wide range of issues. Her latest came today in her article In Defence of Singapore Exceptionalism, a reiteration of the points raised by Shanmugam and CJ Chan at the NYSBA conference. As much as I hate to concede, I find it difficult to contest with her central thesis that “Singapore’s unique demographic mix, small size, history and geopolitical position compel it to prioritise communitarian over individual values, order over individual expression”, because its a notion I largely agree with.
Yet there is something that I do disagree with, namely her definition of Singapore as an “activist” state. This is a misrepresentation, because it gives the impression that a robust political culture exists here, when this is far from the case. read more…
Finally, after two years, I can write this
For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters,
Which spreads out its roots by the river,
And will not fear when heat comes;
But its leaf will be green,
And will not be anxious in the year of drought,
Nor will cease from yielding fruit. (Jeremiah 17:8)
Today was a pretty sentimental day for me. It is my last time, possibly, in number 4 for a while. It was the last time taking down the Singapore flag, as it was my last COS duty ever. It was the last time I would ever be bathing in the rancid HQ Coy toilets (thank God); the last time I would see mostly-naked men strolling around; the last time I would smell the draft of cigarette smoke linger in the corridors.
As I packed my stuff into my duffel bag, I contrasted this moment with how it all started. Many people might not know this, but the first few weeks of my NS wasn’t this easygoing — in fact, it was probably the toughest phase of my life yet. read more…
I was hearing a sermon on pornography and addiction today when an interesting thought struck me. When the speaker shared about how Satan manipulated man’s sexuality through porn, the image that came to mind was that of a ringleader conducting all his unsuspecting victims in some kind of sick circus show.
———————————-
With the last roll of the drum, the show had finally ended. The men and women were lead back to their cages in two compliant rows where they would wait until the next performance.
Seeing this made me feel nauseous inside. Satan had no right to coerce these people into doing something so demeaning, so against their own dignity.
“Satan, how could you do such a thing! This is an abomination!” I cried out.
Noticing me from afar, he smiled. “Am I doing anything wrong? If this was truly inhumane, your Father would object, but alas — he has allowed me to continue my operations.”
“But why? I would think this would be worthy of His intervention.”
“It is. But I have a secret, a special something that protects me. This ’special something’ is the cages that I use. I want you to take a closer look.”
Reluctantly, I obliged and examined them carefully. They seemed normal enough to me.
“I don’t see anything strange about them.” I said. “They’re just normal cages, the same type you would use to keep animals.”
“My boy, that’s because you aren’t looking closely enough. I want you to take a close look at the lock — or rather, the lack of one.”
Surely enough, there was no locking mechanism on the cage door. It was strange — I would have ignored this detail if he hadn’t pointed it out.
“Where is the lock then? If you don’t use one, how do you keep them from escaping?”
“That, my boy, is my secret.” I could tell he was relishing completing the next part of his sentence. “The secret is… the latch is on the inside.”
If you’ve been wondering why I haven’t been writing a lot lately, its because I’ve been spending I’ve been writing for this instead.
For a long while, the few of us at Living Waters (my church) realised we weren’t sharing the Gospel with our friends. A lot of it was due to personal fears about sharing the Gospel, that it would sound too abrasive in a postmodern era. For some of us, it was the fact many of our friends already had negative preconceptions about Christianity — either Christians who had forgotten about their faith after a while, or people who have actually been traumatized by church experiences — and thus it would be very hard to broach the topic with them, let alone invite them to church.
Thus, after prayer and careful thinking, we’ve come up with Christianity Revisited, a six-week course designed for this purpose. Its a candid look at the faith as we go through basic topics like “sin”, “justice” and “pleasure”, studying the Christian worldview surrounding each of these areas. The atmosphere is also casual and relaxed; we’re going to try our best to reduce the “churchiness” with no praying, singing of Christian songs and fire-and-brimstone message at the end. You’ll get a fuller idea at this page.
Anyway, I understand that there are some people who have been frequenting my blog who have a lot of questions about Christianity or religion in general. The style and content of this course will be very much in line with how I’ve tried to approach Christian topics in this blog, so if you like what you’ve been reading, please consider coming for this! Of course, there will be a team of other people around my age (early 20’s) who will handling the teaching and facilitating, so you’ll get to meet them too.
So, if you’re interested, please drop me an email at alastair.su@gmail.com 
Come find out what this writer is so crazy about.
-A.S.
Two stories caught my eye on the papers today. The first was the commentary on Obama’s ailing campaign against Fox TV, a politically-motivated news channel that has been smearing Obama with allegations like “Muslim extremist” and . The sad fact is that a good number of Americans must buy Fox’s blather, or at least enjoy it in some kind of strange way, for there to have been an upgrade in the network’s ratings. And given America’s liberal stand on the freedom of the press, Obama’s hands are pretty much tied in terms of the counter-measures available to him.
The second piece was the transcript of CJ Chan Sek Keong’s speech. What particularly grabbed my attention was his take on defamation and its implications for the Obama-Fox situation:
I would like to say something about the law of defamation. We are not talking about the right of free speech per se, or responsible speech. We are talking about irresponsible speech that damages the reputation of other people.. The law of defamation penalises defamatory speech because it damages a person’s reputation. Both the right of free speech and the right to reputation are valuable rights. The law of defamation seeks to balance the rights to free speech with the rights to reputation.
Worthy of defamation?
In my opinion, Obama should have every right to sue Fox for defamation in this context. His reputation isn’t just being damaged here; its being defecated upon. Defamation should be used as a measure of last resort; the first measure against should not the law, be a public mind discerning enough to tell truth from fact. However, with Fox’s campaign looking increasingly vicious with approvals on the rise, it looks like the “last resort” conditions are fulfilled. Obama, take a page from LKY’s book and JUST GIVE HAND A DEFAMATION SUIT ALREADY.
I can imagine the response of many Americans dismissing this suggestion as “extremist” and “unconstitutional”. But it does beg the question: are there certain situations where defamation can bring about social good?
Anyway, while I agree with most of CJ’s points, here’s something I don’t agree with:
That said, in Singapore, you may criticize any person or institution in any way you like provided you do not cross the line as laid down by law. And people in Singapore do freely criticize the government, including the courts.
CJ sir: when was the last time somebody was outspoken about the government and our courts, and did not face some kind of legal retaliation? The trade-off in our legal penchant for defamation/contempt of court is while you “protect” the reputation of key public figures, you create at atmosphere of fear and cynicism that discourages political participation after a while.
I was astonished to find out today that in response to a very short post I wrote on Japan’s phenomenal suicide rates, a counselling professional from Japan had actually wrote in to shed light on the situation there. Rather than plugging back to the original post, I’ll publish his letter as its definitely worth reading.
Ok, since sometime in June, I decided that I’d keep all posts here serious and on-topic. However, I will have to break my own rules as this is truly exceptional. I cannot resist sharing this.
There was a terrible jam this morning along Serangoon Road. I live somewhere in Newton, but it took me almost one and a half hours to get to my destination at Kallang Pudding Road. I sat on the 66, staring at the view outside while the bus crawled along.
One thing that caught my attention was a cab passenger who was clearly frustrated at the severity of the jam. Though I could not make out his words, his irate gestures suggested something like: “Bloody hell! I’m already late for work and now this has to happen to me! Why am I so suay sia?” Its a feeling everyone can identify with, when you’re caught in a sticky situation and feel the effects of Murphy’s Law working against you.
At this point I thought to myself: what if the jam was caused by a road accident? Because if it was, then it would really be a matter of perspective, wouldn’t it? While a road accident would be a terrible inconvenience to somebody, like the man in the cab, it could be turn out to be a terrible tragedy for the person involved in the accident.
Later on it turned out that it was an accident, and probably a fatal one at that. At the PIE/Macpherson Road turning, a motorcyclist collided into another moving vehicle. Though traffic police had already cleaned up a good part of the mess, I still saw the smoldering remains of his motorcycle on the road, along with these long, dark streaks which could only be his blood.
That morning, a man had died tragically. But somewhere else was another person, cursing and swearing at his foul luck.
-A.S.
I’ve often heard a line of argument that goes like this: “My main problem with the gay issues is that the Church is so biased in their judgements. They speak up so vocally against homosexuality, but they don’t apply this treatment to the other sins: adultery, pornography, lying, cheating, stealing and so on. What’s up with the crooked scales, hypocrites?”
To a large extent, this statement is very true. The gays rightfully point out that the Church, like the Pharisees of Jesus’ time, can seem very adept at pointing out specks of dust in other people’s eyes when there are huge planks sticking out of theirs. However, there is one thing that still remains which may strike a few raw nerves, but I’ll say it anyway.
In the eyes of God, all sins are equally held in contempt by Him. Furthermore, all of fallen short of the glory of God — whether you’re gay, straight, asexual, bisexual, Liverpool fan, Man U fan, Chelsea fan etc. The one thing that makes homosexuality stand out though is the fact that to the LGBT camp, homosexuality is not a sin, whereas most other sinners will confess their wrongdoings after some time. For example, let’s say a pastor gets caught up in adultery. In his moment of madness, the pastor would probably have rationalized it away. However, after his transgressions are openly brought into the light, you would probably not see him trying to brazenly defend himself. He knows that what he did was clearly wrong.
I’m not in a position to cast judgements here, or to go into the theology of sexuality to explain why the Bible says homosexuality is a sin. This is another story in itself. Rather, I’m just clarifying why the LGBT camp seems to feels so discriminated against, and why it receives so much negative attention from the church. More often than not, it has been unfairly victimized against, when weighted against the church’s own wrongdoings and neglect of others issues. But seen from this point of view, its not difficult to see why this has happened.
-A.S.
