Some times, I get really annoyed with the actions of my fellow believers. First, it was Thio Su Mein and Josie Lau with their coup stunt at AWARE. Now, it’s Rony Tan with his offensive remarks of other religions.

I do not know what goes on in their minds. Perhaps for Thio and Josie Lau, they felt themselves to be champions defending good Christian values against homosexuality. While I can understand the ends, I definitely cannot agree with the means. In the case of Rony Tan, perhaps he was overjoyed that someone has come to embrace the love of God and would like to show case it, but he does not need to sound like a jerk while doing so.

In my opinion, the result of the action of both groups had put all Christians in a bad light. Not only did it do nothing to further the Christian message, it is now a set back as more people will be convinced that Christians are religious bigots who are incapable of tolerance and condescending of other religions.

Rony Tan got off lightly just like the person who made offensive comics on Jesus Christ. The ISD merely slapped him on the wrist by warning him. He could have been fined (or jailed?) for sedition just like the couple who put offensive tracts into the mailbox of their Muslim neighbours. Fortunately for him, the magnanimous leaders of the other religious communities he so offended had accepted his apology. Unfortunately for the rest of us Christians, the general animosity against Christianity from members of other faiths probably raised a few notches.

Looking back at the entire matter, I had originally wondered why would Rony Tan made such offensive remarks to the general public. I then discovered that he did so to his congregation, and the video was then made available on the public domain – the church website. His biggest mistake was to believe that since this is meant for the consumption of his church members or other Christians, they would perhaps have found it inspiring or acceptable. Sadly, not only did he fail to consider the possibility that among the congregation there could be non-believing visitors invited by Church members, who would hope that they would be inspired by the message and turn to Jesus, he obviously also failed to understand anyone could have accessed the website to view those videos and make a copy due to the open nature of the Internet.

Though without a doubt his message was offensive in nature, I must also ask why a person who does not already agree with the Christian message is viewing the video on the church site. It would suggest to me the objective of this person was to clearly seek contention and clearly he ‘hit a gold mine’ this time. I absolutely question the intention and the purpose of the person reposting those videos to the Internet since some of the reaction would definitely not be directly at Rony Tan, but would spew over to the rest of the Christian community. But before I go further into that, I must point out that unless Rony Tan (or his church) was dumber than I thought, it is unlikely they would have given permission to post these videos on Youtube. As such, some copyright laws have already been broken in this case when the video was produced by and legally belonged to the church. The person who post it should be wary of this on top of the other associated troubles.

Now, back to the objective of the posting those videos on Youtube, I would hope that the intention is not sinister and solely for the purpose of getting Rony Tan to understand the seriousness and stupidity of his remarks. However, I wondered had the person first confronted Rony Tan directly, and only chose the drastic action of publicising the videos only after the pastor was unrepentant and uncompromising. After all, the videos on Youtube will now alert and even anger more people who would otherwise not have known of those offensive remarks.

Since Rony Tan has apologised and the leaders of the offended religious communities have accept his apology and even gone so far to declare they do not intend to unnecessarily pursue the matter any further, I cannot help but suspect there is a more sinister intent – to incite public anger targeted at the Christian community at large – for every other minute the videos remain online.

I believe the Internal Security Department (ISD), which is ever vigilant in preventing any outbreak of animosity between racial and religious communities in our country has already considered this and planned to take appropriate action. Otherwise, it would indicate to everyone that it is perfectly alright to incite anger and hatred against Christians when there is now no further purpose for the videos to remain online. Since the comments of Rony Tan are seditious, shouldn’t anyone who continue to publicise them now be considered an accomplice of sedition, no matter what his original intentions and purposes are? Just like when the Far East Economic Review (FEER) published the libelous comments of Chee Soon Juan, it was also sued for libel by our esteemed leaders of the government gahmen. To further elaborate, if these videos are allowed to stay on Youtube, does it not suggest it is alright for anyone else (or even me) to publish those tracts online even after the couple who distributed offensive tracts about the Muslim Prophet has been convicted by a court? I doubt the court would look at it kindly even if I argue (or justify) my intention as educating the public on what is offensive to our fellow Muslim Singaporeans.

While the ‘delivery method of the offense’ between the tracts and Rony Tan’s comments is different – the former being active (delivered to the doorstep), while the latter being passive (brought to attention by someone else), the question now would be who should now be held responsible for ‘delivering the offense when those video are left online after the culprit has admitted and apologised. Consider the scenario: When this matter has blown over, another person who may have no recollection of the entire affair may come across these videos several years down the road. Would it not then have caused continual distress and anger to this person, even when Rony Tan may no longer have made any such comments for a long time?

I would also want to point out, now that a pastor can be criticised for his message to his congregation, the pandora box is now opened for anyone to take any religious teachers to task using the same methods as long as they considered the remark offensive. While I am not suggesting that it is wrong to take Rony Tan to task, it is possible that instead of promoting religious tolerance the exact opposite is now achieved. It certainly implied to me that it is now ‘open season’ for anyone to criticise a teacher of another faith as long as he didn’t like what is spoken about his religion.

To think of it… atheists who considers all faiths to be hogwash and superstition should take note of the plight of Rony Tan and be wary whenever they mock believers of a religion.

Addendum: I was informed that one of the users have removed the video from his Youtube channel.