Even before the investigations are concluded, a clear line has been drawn. On one side, there is a group which is convinced that there is some fraud being committed. They are convinced that the Pastor Kong Hee is the chief suspect (and to some extent, his wife as well). They have made allegations to that effect gleefully and with abandon. In my personal opinion, it is foolish to do this in the public domain without any hard evidence. Should investigations clear the pastor later, he (and possibly the church) can bring charges against the most vociferous of them and make a good example.

Anyway, there is already a Facebook page called “We believe City Harvest Church is guilty and corrupted!!” with 766 users at the point when I penned this post. I have joined the page to read what is being posted, but I do not endorse anything written. From what I have seen so far, most of the people who have commented there simply didn’t like City Harvest Church (CHC) and how it is run. To some extent even New Creation Church (NCC) is getting some flak. A certain post on a matter in the U.S. leaves me with the suspicion that certain elements there simply had an axe to grind against Christianity as a whole. I probably won’t stay on it for long, since comments or articles linked on the page appears to be degenerating into general Christian bashing.

Fortunately, at this point of time there weren’t a lot of counter comments from City Harvest Church members (or ‘Harvesters’, as some called themselves) on the page nor has it degenerated into a general meaningless flame war. There were only two (who maybe imposters) with an atrocious attitude that is unbecoming of a Christian. While they have only posted one comment each, the comments basically dismissed anyone opposing CHC either for being non-Christians or having contributed no money to the church. Fortunately, those were the only ones I can see on that page. Meantime, there is some gibberish on the page which looked like an attempt to flood it. I hope it has nothing do with any person(s) affiliated with CHC because employing ‘brown shirt’ tactics to silence detractors is just soooo low class.

I have also noticed some pro-CHC pages (or counter-groups) on Facebook but I am not really interested in the mutual back-scratching among CHC members. Call me biased but I can do better with less fan-boyish rhetorics. (I have enough of those just by reading comments from iFreaks going gaga over an Apple product.)

From what I have heard from my friends, they are rather disturbed by the rhetorics which in most cases are just scripture quoted out of the context to suit the writers’ own purpose. There’s even a silly dude making remarks about buying arms and fighting back. He seems to believe that with church members numbering half the size of SAF and ‘God on their side’, victory is assured.*shudders*

While this silly dude may probably be just joking or thinking he is being gung-ho, it will be no laughing matter if the ISD comes knocking if it sees those comments as seditious and a threat to national security. Sedition remains a serious crime in this country.

Anyway, from the bits and pieces I have gathered from news reports, blog posts, excerpts of comments from CHC members, forum postings etc, it is crystal clear to me most CHC members are convinced that nothing illegal has been committed. They have utmost faith in the church’s leadership and believe that this is either the act of the devil, a trial from God or some kind of set up. Since no one can yet say for sure whether there is any wrongdoing , I only hope that their faith is not misplaced. After all, it is also written: It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man. [Psalms 118:8 KJV]. Having confidence in the moral character of one’s church leaders and having faith / trusting in God are two matters entirely.

Based on their conviction, it is almost certain that church members will come together to collectively pray (and even fast) until this matter becomes clear. But while they look to God, they might also want to rein in the loud blabbermouths going around making remarks (like those of that silly dude) which do nothing to defuse the situation. If there is any visible effect, it convinces detractors (or CHC-haters or whatever you want to call them) even more that the church and its members are problems in themselves.

Meantime, there seems to be efforts presenting the Pastor Kong as a good friend, easy going person and a nice guy etc. While there is nothing wrong in letting the general public know more about Kong Hee the person more than Kong Hee the Pastor, the effect is negligible if the general objective is to win over people into defending him. The people who dislike (or even hate) Kong Hee will not be swayed. There is no doubt even members of the Triads would consider their own brothers good men and loyal brothers. That said, I am not insinuating that the Pastor is comparable to Triad members or any wrong has been done. I am just giving an example to bring out the point that all people are multi-facet and there is a side of them we may never know.

Furthermore, it is rather amusing some believed this to be a conspiracy of some sort by those who are jealous of the church’s ‘achievements’. I wonder who these ‘sore-eye monsters’ might be and what motivates them to ‘fix’ CHC. These CHC members might as well just believe to be another of the Illuminati’s conspiracy if they choose to believe that the COC (Commissioner of Charities) and the CAD (Commercial Affairs Department) is not just doing their due diligence to ensure that all the accounting of the church’s finances are in proper order.

Some CHC members are clearly letting the numbers and success of the church get over their heads. It is doubtful any non-Christians will be wowed or bothered by the 33,000+ figure because there might probably be more devotees at the renowned Waterloo Street Kuanyin Temple collectively than worshippers in CHC. Now that’s something for these jokers to think about when they talk big about their numbers. To add on, if these CHC members are so concerned with numbers, they should (and must, since they contributed to it) question the finances of the church even though ordinary members cannot attend the AGM. According to this blogger, $86 million of contribution is collected but only around $2.9 million is committed to charitable work while a good $9.3 million is paid in salary (including bonus) to just 150+ church workers. One might need to ask what is being done with the remaining hoard of money, not to mention why are normal members expected to contribute just as everyone else but treated as some kind of second class members in the church?

Finally, if there’s anything the Singapore government gahmen is even concerned with CHC, it would be that all regulatory requirements are fulfilled and everything is in proper order in accordance to the law. Our mini$ter$ are even more successful than Pastor Kong and the CHC and they have no reasons to be even jealous of its success. They clearly won’t lose sleep over CHC’s numbers nor its purchase into a major shopping mall in Singapore, but they will not sleep well if any accountability issues in the church’s finances leads to some unnecessarily upheavals in our otherwise harmonious society. They are now focused on putting more speed into the economic recovery to prepare for the next General Elections.

So before I end, I would say what a former AWARE ExCo member has said to all these blabbermouths:

Shut up and sit down!

Recommended Posts:
Yeap Chee Seng Weblog:
– City Harvest Church And The Devil
– Flawed Defence Of City Harvest Church

sgboleh:
– A weird advise from another financial adviser
– Some simple notes and advises of Shield Plans