Bible, Ballot and Bersih: Cultivating A Democratic Way of Life

Thanks Yue-Yi for not only a review, but also the extra bonus of her own story. ~ Sivin Kit

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Mendukung cita-cita hendak memelihara satu cara hidup demokratik

Bersih 2.0, Kuala Lumpur; July 9, 2011

Last night I was again outside the Malaysian Police headquarters. I keep wondering why I went. It’s as if I’ve been possessed. I know I will not enjoy anything else I attempt to do between 8pm and 9pm nightly. I’m struggling to understand myself. Things came to a head last night. I was asked to speak on why I was at the vigil. I declined. I was embarrassed to say I didn’t really know (39). …

I am attending the vigils because I have been radicalised by the Messiah. My attendance is my verdict on the abuse of power. My standing there is my running away from the cowardice which permits evil to reign. My presence there is power for others (45).

That’s Rama Ramanathan writing in The Bible and the ballot: reflections on Christian political engagement in Malaysia today. Published by Graceworks and Friends in Conversation, The Bible and the ballot is a slim volume of thoughtful essays by Malaysian Christians on why they care and what they hope for.

It’s always encouraging to hear from people who sound like reasonable human beings while affirming things that you sometimes feel crazy for believing. For me, that category of beliefs includes both Christian truth claims and Malaysian democratic aspirations. So The Bible and the ballot puts me in the position of a chorister who enjoys the preaching.

But there’s a more symbolic reason why I found this book encouraging. A few years ago I remember hearing a politician speak in a seminar in PJ about how he gets flak for his chosen form of public service because his fellow churchgoers disdain all of politics as corrupt. He was from a ruling-coalition party that I would never support, but I did agree with his argument that Christians in Malaysia need to engage in politics more — but also more responsibly, prayerfully, and humbly.

It’s comfortable to rest in high-minded but unexamined notions of dirty politics and the separation of church and state. Politics may be somewhat dirty, but most sociopolitical things are — and everything is political. We cannot imagine (or pray) away the fact that we have to respond to how our governments wield power. Growing up with three energetic siblings has given me a knee-jerk reaction against the platitude that “silence means consent” — but silence is an action. Neutrality is a choice and, while it’s often a good choice, it’s not always the best one.

Review and Reflections: The Pulpit And Politics (Part 1)

We at FIC are delighted that after reading our humble contribution David Chong has posted his initial review and further reflections on his blog. The post is reproduced here in full below for further interaction for those who might have missed it in its previous location. ~ Sivin Kit

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The Bible and the Ballot is a collection of articles produced by a group of Christians who are concerned with Christian political engagement in Malaysia today. They come from various church traditions who share connection with Friends in Conversation network. It was premised on the Lordship of Christ over all of life and sought to encourage other believers to think of their role as responsible citizens. In the following review, I will pick up some key themes and proceed to comment on selected articles.

The first contributor, Alwyn Lau, examined if the pastors could tell people how to vote from the pulpit and gave a clear answer: “Yes”! The argument is buttressed by references to biblical prophets and apostles who openly challenged corrupt kings and religious leaders of their day. Did Jesus pull punches in his confrontation against the Pharisees and Sadducees?

At least one reader/preacher expressed this concern, “Wouldn’t the pastor’s sermons, then, reek of partisanship when he takes side for a particular political party or candidate? What about separation of church and state?”

No, Alwyn argued, because a church becomes partisan only when she blindly swallows the rhetoric of a political party “lock, stock and ballot” without being a discerning critic of its faults also. After all, a church council could recommend to purchase its audio equipments from a particular brand (let’s say, Yamaha) without being accused of playing ‘favorites’, could it not?

As much as I welcome his concluding remarks about the centrality of the cross in our political engagement (“to serve and suffer for the community”), it seems that this “Yamaha sound-system” argument committed the fallacy of a ‘weak analogy’. A more representative analogy would sound like this: “Should a preacher recommend that church-goers purchase Panasonic air-conditioners from the pulpit because itsgreener technology is more in line with a creation-caring trajectory of the Bible?”

‘The Enduring Word: The Authority and Reliability of the Bible’ by Robert M.Solomon

This book is written to educate the general Christian population in order to help them deal with the issues raised by popular works by scholars in textual criticism, particularly Bart Ehrman.

Solomon in this work tries to cover all the major pertinent concerns surrounding the Bible such as the theology of scripture, the canonical process, the textual variants, and translation. With his gifted writing style, Solomon makes these topics easily accessible to those who have no exposure to them previously.

That is the strength of the work. It is a popular-level work meant to counter popular-level challenges.

‘From Christ to Social Practice’ by Ng Kam Weng

This book is originally the doctoral dissertation of Ng Kam Weng, the present Research Director of Kairos Research Centre in Malaysia, submitted to the University of Cambridge, under the supervision of Stephen Sykes who was then the Regius Professor of Divinity there.

The whole title of the book ‘From Christ to Social Practice: Christological Foundations for Social Practice in the Theologies of Albrecht Ritschl, Karl Barth and Jürgen Moltmann’ is already quite informative to the reader of what to expect.

The dissertation was done in the late 1980s and published in 1996 by Alliance Bible Seminary, Hong Kong. It is a research into the theology of three significant theologians, namely Albrecht Ritschl, Karl Barth, and Jürgen Moltmann.

Ng explores the social ethics produced by these three theologians from three different social conditions. He is interested to see how each’s theological response to their social challenges is connected to their Christology. The purpose of this is to identify “theological resources [of these past theologians] relevant to a contemporary ethical problem.” (p.6)