Head of Supporter Relations Alan Kember reflects on a recent visit to Mozambique – and the Psalm that gives voice to an HIV positive woman’s cry.

Mozambique: a land of beautiful beaches and laid-back culture, according to the travel guides. But more than half of the 24 million people living here are poor. The country is overwhelmingly Christian but there are pockets of ethnic tension. And it has one of the highest rates of HIV in the world.

My visit took me to Maputo, Mozambique’s capital and most densely populated city, and to a small Assemblies of God church. The pastor greeted me with a broad smile and a big hug, and introduced me to 12 women who had come to meet me. We began by singing songs of praise to God – the ladies in the local Xichangana language and me following along as best I could! It was a joy to worship alongside these women and I wondered if this was a picture of heaven, with people from every tribe, nation and language standing before God.

A preventable tragedy

But I soon learned of the sorrow behind this happy scene. All 12 women I met had HIV, passed on to them by their husbands. Most of the women were also widows; their husbands had died from AIDS-related illnesses.

The great tragedy was that this was preventable. The virus was passed on through ignorance, and the stigma prevented people from seeking treatment. It’s a downward spiral that I heard about in communities across Mozambique.

The good news is that your support has helped to bring a unique programme of ours to this church – and things are changing.

The Good Samaritan programme unpacks Jesus’ famous parable and challenges people to think about what the story means for HIV-affected parts of Africa. The impact is extraordinary.

The pastor began running the Good Samaritan programme in their mid-week service. By acting out the Bible story, the people with HIV were able to see that they themselves were victims who should not be left ‘on the side of the road.’

Despite the stigma, men and women in the congregation began to open up about their infected status. “Our people are starting to support and care for those with HIV and vitally, people are getting the anti-retroviral drugs they need to survive.”

Seeing how the Bible has powerful and direct application to their lives has also made people eager to see what else it has to say.

The Bible gives hope

I met one lady, Nora, who told me her story. She knew she was HIV-positive after her husband died, but she only told her pastor after attending the Good Samaritan workshops. “At first I was in despair,” she said. “I thought my life had ended. But after attending the Good Samaritan programme I realised that God had not abandoned me, there was still hope for my life.”

Nora began to read her Bible more regularly, sharing Psalm 31 as a passage of Scripture that has spoken to her strongly. I was touched as I read along with her, thinking of her situation, “I will rejoice and be glad in your steadfast love, because you have seen my affliction; you have known the distress of my soul,” Psalm 31.7 (ESV).

“Now my heart has gone from despair to hope,” Nora said. “I have lost my husband but I still want to be a woman who serves the Lord. Before, I was nothing. Now I am a member of this church community.”

These days, Nora also helps to run the Good Samaritan programme in the area. I thank God for touching Nora’s life, for giving her new hope and purpose. And I thank you for your faithful, regular gifts which help to make this life-transforming work possible.

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Find out more about supporting our work in Africa.

Reader’s Question: Are there historical evidences that Jesus Christ lived and died?

In his article entitled The Quest for the Mythical Jesus, Robert Price discusses ‘the series of realisations about methodology and evidence that eventually led me to embrace the Christ Myth Theory’. The Professor of Biblical Criticism at the Council for Secular Humanism’s Centre for Inquiry Institute argues that even if Jesus really did exist, he is lost in the sands of time. ‘There may once have been an historical Jesus’, he writes, ‘but for us there is one no longer. If he existed, he is forever lost behind the stained glass curtain of holy myth’.

I believe that in advancing the Christ Myth Theory, Robert Price has deliberately refused to consider the overwhelming evidence for the historical Jesus.

In this brief article, I turn to extra-biblical sources to look for evidences for Jesus. I argue that in the works of non-Christian authors of the 1^st and 2nd centuries there can be found sufficient evidence of the existence of the man Jesus. I believe that these Jewish and pagan sources are reliable precisely because their authors were antagonistic to Jesus and his early followers. The clear references to Jesus or the Christ in their writings conclusively shows that the historical Jesus is not the figment of the imagination of the early Christians or a myth – as Price has argued. I will also explain why I think that on the basis of the historical evidence it is reasonable to conclude that Jesus was crucified, and that he rose from the dead.

The Historicity of Jesus

The first non-Christian author that provided evidence for the existence of Jesus is Flavius Josephus, a Jewish historian who was born in AD 37 (or 38) and died in AD 97. Born into a priestly family, Josephus became a Pharisee at the age of nineteen. After the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, Josephus moved to Rome, where he became the court historian for the Emperor Vespasian.

In his work entitled, Antiquities of the Jews, published around AD 90-95, Josephus gave an account of John the Baptist that is in complete agreement with the record in the Gospel of John. In Book 18, Chapter Five, Josephus writes:

‘Now some of the Jews thought that the destruction of Herod’s army came from God, and that very justly, as a punishment for what he did against John, that was called the Baptist; for Herod slew him, who was a good man, and commanded the Jews to exercise virtue, both as to righteousness towards one another, and piety towards God, and so to come to baptism …’

The accuracy of Josephus’ account of John the Baptist suggests that what he said about Jesus in the same document must also be reliable. This especially applies to the Arabic version of Antiquities, whose authenticity is endorsed by reputed scholars such as Professor Schlomo Pines of the Hebrew University. This is what Josephus wrote concerning Jesus in Antiquities 18:3:

‘At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus. And his conduct was good and (he) was known to be virtuous. And many people from among the Jews and other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die. And those who had become his disciples did not abandon his discipleship. They reported that he appeared to them three days after his resurrection and that he was alive; accordingly, he was perhaps the messiah concerning whom the prophets have recounted wonders’.

The second reference to Jesus is found in Antiquities 20:9, where Josephus describes the trial and sentencing of James and other disciples:

‘After the death of the procurator Festus, when Albinius was about to succeed him, the high-priest Ananius considered it a favourable opportunity to assemble the Sanhedrin. He therefore caused James the brother of Jesus, who was called the Christ, and several others, to appear before this hastily assembled council, and pronounced upon them the sentence of death by stoning’.

The evidence is so overwhelming that Professor Pines could write:

‘In fact, as far as probabilities go, no believing Christian could have such a neutral text; for him the only significant point about it could have been its attesting the historical evidence of Jesus. But the fact is that until modern times this particular hare (i.e. claiming Jesus is a hoax) was never started. Even the most bitter opponents of Christianity never expressed any doubt as to Jesus having really lived’.

The Crucifixion and Death of Jesus

We turn now to inquire if there are convincing evidence from non-Christian sources for the crucifixion and death of Jesus. All the canonical Gospels report the torture and execution of Jesus. However, there are Gnostic Gospels that claim that this did not happen. For example, in the First Apocalypse of James, Jesus is depicted as consoling James with these words: ‘Never have I suffered in any way, nor have I been distressed. And this people has done me no harm’.

In the Second Treatise of the Great Seth, Jesus made it clear that he did not die and that it was someone else – Simon of Cyrene – who died in his place:

‘I did not die in reality, but in appearance … in error and blindness …[they] saw me. It was another, their father, who drank the gall and vinegar; it was not I. They struck me with the reed; it was another, Simon, who bore the cross on his shoulder. I was rejoicing in the height over all … And I was laughing at their ignorance’.

Islam makes a similar claim: that Jesus was not crucified, and therefore did not die on the cross. In the Quran, we read:

They denied the truth and uttered a monstrous falsehood against Mary. They declared: “We have put to death the Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, the apostle of God”. They did not kill him, nor did they crucify him, but they thought they did.

Those that disagreed about him were in doubt concerning him; they knew nothing about him that was not sheer conjecture; they did not slay him for certain (4:157-158).

Are there extra-biblical sources, penned by pagan authors that corroborated with the accounts in the canonical Gospels about Jesus’ death? The answer is Yes.

In his historical account entitled, Annals (written at about 115 AD), Cornelius Tactitus (ca. 55-201 AD) the Roman historian offers this account of the great fire in Rome during the reign of Nero:

‘Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name has its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular’.

Tacitus wrote about Christus (which is Greek for Christ) who suffered ‘the extreme penalty’ (death) at the hands of Pontius Pilatus during the reign of Tiberius. He said that the ‘mischievous superstition’ (i.e., Christianity) was checked for a while (after Jesus’ death), but broke out again.

The second century Greek satirist, Lucian, also wrote about the death of Jesus in his work entitled, The Death of Peregrine. ‘The Christians’, Lucian asserts, ‘worship a man to this day – the distinguished personage who introduced their novel rites, and was crucified on that account’. The Syrian author, Mara Bar-Serapion similarly alluded to the execution and death of Jesus in a second century manuscript:

‘What advantage did the Athenians gain from putting Socrates to death? Famine and plague came upon them as a judgement for their crime. What advantage did the men of Samos gain from burning Pythagoras? In a moment their land was covered with sand. What advantage did the Jews gain from executing their wise King? It was just after that that their kingdom was abolished’.

I have already cited the passages from Antiquities by Josephus that explicitly reported that ‘Pilate condemned him [Jesus] to be crucified and to die’ (18:3). The first century writer Thallus even corroborated with the Gospel account of the darkness that covered the sky at Jesus’ crucifixion, but attributed it to the eclipse of the sun. Although Thallus’ work is no longer extant, the third century scholar Julius Africanus referred to it, rejecting Thallus’ naturalistic explanation of the phenomenon: ‘Thallus, in the third book of his histories, explains away the darkness as an eclipse of the sun – unreasonably, as it seems to me’.

Perhaps the best evidence of the death of Jesus is from the Talmud. In its earliest period of compilation known as the Tannaitic period (70-200 AD), we have this remarkable passage about Jesus’ death:

On the eve of the Passover Yeshu was hanged. For forty days before the execution took place, a herald went forth and cried, “He is going forth to be stoned because he practised sorcery and enticed Israel to apostasy. Any one who can say anything in his favour, let him come forward and plead on his behalf”. But since nothing was brought forward in his favour he was hanged on the eve of the Passover.

‘Hanging’ is synonymous to crucifixion (see Galatians 3:13, where crucifixion is described as hanging on a tree). There is therefore plenty of extra-biblical material that testified to the crucifixion and death of Jesus.

Resurrection

We come finally to the resurrection of Christ. Since the second century, there have been a number of sceptics who tried to refute the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection. Recently, Richard Cevantis Carrier, who teaches at the University of California, Berkeley, has tried to debunk the historicity of the resurrection in his books and articles. Carrier sought to do this by reviving the old hallucination theory and dressing it up in a new garb. The origin of this hypothesis can be traced to 19^th century writers such as David Strauss and Ernest Renan.

According to this theory, the disciples of Jesus were so emotionally attached to their Master that after his death, they hallucinated about him, believing that he has risen from the dead. Carrier writes:

I believe the best explanation, consistent with both scientific findings and the surviving evidence … is that the first Christians experienced hallucinations of the risen Christ, of one form or another … In the ancient world, to experience supernatural manifestations of ghosts, gods, and wonders was not only accepted but encouraged.

Theologians like Wolfhart Pannenberg, Christian apologists like William Lane Craig and historians like Gary Habermas have provided compelling arguments for the historicity of Christ’s resurrection. These scholars have marshalled the historical evidence to show that it is not unreasonable to conclude that the resurrection of Christ really took place.

Space does not allow me to develop their arguments in detail. I will simply summarise them, placing special emphasis on the historical facts on which they are established.

The Empty Tomb

The first historical fact is that the tomb in which the body of Jesus was placed was found to be empty by the women on the Sunday following the crucifixion.

Now, the reliability of the story of the burial of Jesus was never in question. This was because of the involvement of Joseph of Arimethea, who was a member of the Jewish Sanhedrin. Almost every scholar agrees that since a member of the ruling class was instrumental in the burial of Jesus, the narrative is unlikely to be fictitious. Furthermore, because it was Joseph who provided the tomb, it is unlikely that the women went to the wrong tomb on that first Easter morning. If they had, the mistake could have been easily corrected and the right tomb located.

The Jewish authorities could also have easily exhumed the body of Jesus from the tomb to prove once and for all that the claims of Jesus’ disciples about his resurrection are false. Instead, they concocted the story that the disciples have stolen the body (Matthew 28:11-25). In the fifth century, an anti-Christian document called the Toledoth Jesu revived the theory that Jesus’ disciples had stolen the body. But the Toledoth Jesu is deemed too late and unworthy as a source. Be that as it may, the stolen body hypothesis shows that the tomb was indeed empty.

In addition, we must also note that the disciples of Jesus did not go to some far away place to preach about Christ’s resurrection. Instead, they began preaching in Jerusalem, the very place where Jesus had died and was buried. As the Lutheran scholar Paul Althaus has rightly pointed out, proclamation about the resurrected Christ ‘could not have been maintained in Jerusalem for a single day, for a single hour, if the emptiness of the tomb has not been established as a fact for all concerned’.

Resurrection Appearances and Witnesses

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The second historical fact related to the resurrection of Jesus is the numerous witnesses who saw the risen Lord. The earliest account of the resurrection comes from the pen of the Apostle Paul, who wrote in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8:

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.

Here, Paul lists a very wide range of eyewitnesses to the resurrected Christ. Some of these witnesses saw him individually, while others encountered the risen Christ as a group. They saw him at different times and under different circumstances.

The indication that most of the eyewitnesses of the resurrected Christ were still alive is significant. Scholars have understood this statement as an open-ended invitation for the Corinthians to inquire for themselves whether this is true, since many who witnessed the risen Christ were still with them. Mention of James, the brother of Jesus, is also significant. This is because James did not believe in Jesus during his earthly ministry (John 7:2-9). But after Jesus’ resurrection, James did not only become a follower of Christ, but also an apostle who exercised leadership in the church in Jerusalem (Acts 12:17; 15:13; 21:18). Paul recognised James’ apostleship in Galatians 1:19.

The Gospel accounts of the appearances of the resurrected Christ are also diverse. There were multiple, independent accounts of these appearances. According to William Lane Craig:

‘This is one of the most important marks of historicity. The appearance to Peter is independently attested by Luke, and the appearance to the Twelve by Luke and John. We also have independent witness to Galilean appearances in Mark, Matthew and John, as well as to the women in Matthew and John’.

What about the theory forwarded by scholars like Richard Carrier that the disciples of Jesus thought that they had seen the resurrected Christ, but in fact were merely hallucinating? Gary Habermas has roundly refuted this hypothesis in fine paper entitled, ‘Explaining Away Jesus’ Resurrection: The Recent Revival of Hallucination Theories’. Again space does not allow a more thorough treatment. I provide a simple summary.

There are several reasons why the hallucination hypothesis is untenable.

Firstly, most psychologists dispute the reality of group or mass hallucinations. Rather, they maintain that hallucinations are private, individual events. But Paul said that more than five hundred encountered the risen Christ as one time. It is highly unlikely that these five hundred witnesses had hallucinated.

Secondly, the wide variety of times and places that Jesus appeared, together with the fact that the witnesses come from diverse backgrounds, is a huge obstacle to the hallucination hypothesis. As Habermas explains:

Men and women, hard-headed and soft-hearted alike, all believing that they saw Jesus, both indoors and outdoors, by itself provides an insurmountable barrier for hallucinations. The odds that each person would be in precisely the proper frame of mind to experience a hallucination, even individually, decrease exponentially.

Thirdly, studies have shown that hallucinations generally do not transform lives. However, even critics have noted the radical transformation of Jesus’ disciples. The same band of followers, who appeared fearful when their Master was crucified, suddenly became bold witnesses who were willing to die for their faith, after claiming to have seen their risen Lord.

There are also other important points that should be noted. Why did the ‘hallucinations’ suddenly stop after 40 days? Why did it not spread wider, to other believers or disciples? The hallucination hypothesis appears unable to stand under the weight of such evidence and arguments.

Conclusion

The overwhelming extra-biblical evidence for Jesus shows that the New Testament accounts are extremely reliable. The NT’s account of the historical Jesus is corroborated by numerous pagan texts. But the NT has much more to say about this man than the fact that he existed. It testifies that the man Jesus is the incarnation of the eternal Word of God (John 1:1-14), the Saviour and Lord of the universe he has brought into being (Colossians 1:15-17). It tells us that Jesus Christ is the way, and the truth and the life (John 14:6) and that ‘whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life’ (John 3:16).

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Our Common Understanding of the Gospel

The key message of the Christian faith is the “gospel” (or good news). This inevitably leads us to the question, “What is this good news about?”

For many Christians in Singapore, our answer is likely to proceed along the following lines: “The gospel is clear and simple. Because of sin, we human beings are guilty in God’s sight and are destined for the punishment of hell. Out of his grace, God has sent his Son Jesus Christ to our world. Jesus died on the cross, where he paid the penalty for our sin and also transferred to us his righteousness. All those who acknowledge Jesus as their Lord and Saviour obtain the salvation won by him at the cross, and our spirits have a place in heaven when we die. At God’s appointed time, Jesus will come again, destroy our evil world and pluck the remaining Christians up with him into heaven.”

Problems with this Understanding

This “clear and simple” understanding of the gospel contains many valid truths. It is, however, also inadequate and problematic. This is so for many reasons; we mention three in this short article.

A. Strong Gnostic Influence

There is, firstly, the strong influence of Gnostic ideas in this account of the gospel. Gnosticism is a system of belief which draws a stark distinction between material existence, which is considered evil, and spiritual existence, which is good.

Gnosticism teaches that it was a good deity who created the spirit component of human beings, while an evil demiurge brought into being material existence, in which our spirits were trapped. Salvation, for the Gnostics, consisted of gaining the correct knowledge to enable our spirits to escape the prison of our material existence and return to the pure spiritual realm of heaven.

Gnostic versions of Christianity presented a major threat to the true Christian faith in the early centuries of the Church. Although they eventually faded away, the influence of Gnosticism on Christianity is still evident.

This is seen in our tendency to “over-spiritualise” the gospel. As in our “clear and simple” account, we often present the gospel as promising salvation only for the “spirit” part of human beings, with everything else in the world (i.e. the material bits) going into oblivion at God’s final judgement.

This fits perfectly with the Gnostic narrative, since the destruction of this material world represents the defeat of the demiurge and his evil schemes. The Christian faith, however, has always affirmed the one true God as the Creator of all that exist, both spiritual and material (which are both good). When we teach the final destruction of creation (save the redeemed human spirits), we unwittingly promote the notion that our God has suffered an ultimate defeat at the hands of evil.

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B. Failure to Deal Comprehensively with Sin

The second thing wrong with our “clear and simple” gospel account is that it does not deal comprehensively with the problem of sin. It is standard Christian teaching that sin has two key aspects: It is the wrong we human creatures freely choose to do, leading to our guilt and need for forgiveness. It is also the power over our lives which significantly influences our decisions and behaviour. We are (what the Bible calls) “slaves to sin” and stand in need of redemption.

The gospel account presented above addresses only the first aspect of sin. It tells us how the work of Jesus on the cross leads to us being cleansed of our guilt and receiving God’s forgiveness. But it says almost nothing about the second aspect of sin.

This kind of imbalance in the treatment of sin has led to a version of Christianity in our day which questions why anything matters once we have been forgiven of our sin. Why is there a need continually to confess our sins to God and to one another? Why do we even strive to live in a manner pleasing to God, if all of our sins (past, present and future) have already been forgiven as a result of the cross? These questions arise out of our obsession with the problem of our guilt, with little corresponding attention paid to the predicament of our slavery.

C. Lack of Guidance for the Here and Now

The third shortcoming of our “gospel” summary is related to the first two. Because of its Gnostic overtones and inadequate treatment of sin, it does not give much guidance for our life in the here and now.

Our guilt has been remitted, and our spirits have a place in heaven. All these are well and good, but what (on earth) do we do while we are still here on earth? Are things like Church membership and attendance, participating in the sacraments and prayer, embarking on social action and creation care, understanding and reforming our cultures and societies, undertaking our studies, work and recreation of any relevance to the gospel at all?

If we are true to our “gospel” summary, all we can say is that these commitments might at best be useful, if they help sustain us spiritually until we get to heaven. Otherwise, frankly, they are a total waste of time, as they have little bearing on the ultimate aim of getting our spirits to heaven.

It is no surprise that our common understanding of the gospel has led to an individualistic and consumeristic form of Christianity, where everything is measured according to its usefulness in helping to enrich our “spiritual lives”. It has also resulted in a severely privatised and truncated Christianity, which has nothing meaningful to say to the major concerns of our age, beyond the message to individuals that “your spirit can also get to heaven if you accept Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Saviour”.

What Then is the Gospel?

The summary set out above does contain key truths of the Christian faith: We are guilty of sin, God’s grace has indeed led to a “wondrous exchange” taking place on the cross, we need to embrace Jesus as our personal Lord and Saviour and Jesus will indeed come again to consummate God’s plan of salvation. But truths presented in a partial way, with other key aspects neglected or misrepresented, can sometimes be more dangerous than outright heresy, since the errors of the latter are far more easily detected.

If this common presentation of the gospel is inadequate and problematic, how then should we understand the good news of Christianity? I will end with this tantalising question, in the hope that it will push us to ask, to discuss, to study and to reflect, to the end that we discover (to our never-ending amazement) how deep, wide, rich, all-encompassing, powerful and utterly wonderful the gospel truly is.

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Dr Leow Theng Huat is a lecturer of theology at Trinity Theological College. He is a member and local preacher of Wesley Methodist Church.

I always wanted to visit Israel, and was thankful for the opportunity to do so with IBEx. The Bible Society of Singapore is a trusted name, and the trip was all-inclusive—even though the participants come from different denominations, we were united as one when we worshipped Jesus. I was so satisfied and pleased with the service and helpfulness of the BSS staff that I recommended my best friend’s parents to come along, which they did!

The tour was a truly “kiasu” one. We had a busy yet comfortable time, but we saw and explored an incredible amount. Our guide, Eli, was outstanding, and added other Biblically significant locations to the itinerary with our consent. Over the course of the tour, the participants developed bonds of friendship through worship. Our Spiritual Directors, Brendon and Cathie Clancy, exceeded my expectations. Their sincerity and love for the Lord transformed what was already a wonderful experience into an incredible and inspirational journey.

On the trip, I experienced closeness to Jesus that I have rarely had before. It was such a constant intimacy that I never wanted to end. I found myself drawn into a conversation with Him about what I was seeing, walking, touching and feeling. Each day, I woke up refreshed and ready to spend another with my Saviour as His beloved. While I knew this special time would eventually end, I am thankful to God for it.

Since coming back, I am no longer the same person. There is a deeper feeling of “shalom” inside me. While I am finding it challenging to always be conscious of Jesus’ intimate presence, I continue strive to do so—to never worry about anything, knowing that everything is firmly in His hands.

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The tour went above and beyond everything I hoped for, and I am happy to endorse IBEx, Brendon and Cathie Clancy, and our guide Eli.

I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some.”—1 Corinthians 9:22b (ESV) 

Our world is an incredibly complex and diverse place—249 countries and territories¹; 7.6 billion people; more than 7,000 living languages spoken. To bring forth God’s Word to the nations, the United Bible Societies (UBS) Fellowship, comprising of 148 national Bible Societies, adopts the approach of the apostle Paul in becoming “all things to all people”, reaching out to various people groups at their respective levels. As part of the UBS Fellowship, The Bible Society of Singapore seeks to do likewise in its outreach efforts in our home country of Singapore. 

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A Multi-faceted Society 

Much like our world (though on a smaller scale), Singapore is an ethnically, culturally, socially and economically diverse country. Our “Little Red Dot” is home to people of various ethnicities with their own distinct cultures. The country is also one of the most educated in the world, a thriving centre for arts and culture and a world-class business hub.  

Such diversity underscores the differences in the worldviews, interests and experiences of different peoples. With increasing exposure to these differences amid this multi-faceted environment, questions also arise as to how upcoming generations will be affected by their own worldviews and ways of life. 

Therefore, sensitivity to various needs and challenges must be present in our efforts to make God’s Word known in our local community. 

A Multi-faceted Approach 

To address such concerns more directly, The Bible Society of Singapore has been exploring new outreach avenues in recent years. One such avenue is the use of the creative and performing arts to express Scriptural stories and truths. Such depictions help to stimulate the interest of both believers and non-believers in God’s Word. They also enable people of different ages, countries and cultures to engage with the Word in a more interactive and lively way.  

Our most recognised programme in this avenue is the annual Colours of the Bible art competition and exhibition. It has been running for four years now in collaboration with the Embassy of Israel, and has seen participation from countries such as the Philippines, Myanmar and Israel.  

In 2017, two new programmes were also launched. DECLARE—an arts worship project initiated by Arts Collective, a new ministry of the Bible Society, and supported by the Elijah7000 fellowship of fathers—united Christians of different nationalities and denominations in a corporate 72-hour-long reading and artistic expression of the whole Bible. The Bible and Chinese Cultural Festival showcased an expression of God’s Word through traditional Chinese painting and calligraphy and had an indelible impression on many.  

“It’s the first time I have seen Chinese paintings and artworks depicting the Bible. I’m heartened that we can create more awareness about Christianity among the older, senior Mandarin-speaking citizens in a language they are familiar with.” 

—Wee Bee Hua, a viewer of the Bible and Chinese Cultural Festival 2017 

This year, God willing, we not only hope to continue running these events, but also to collaborate with internationally-acclaimed singer-songwriter Don Moen and his ministry, Worship in Action, for an upcoming Unity in Prayer Musical. 

Increasing efforts have also been made to foster inter-generational discipleship—a vital need today in the face of increasing confusion, scepticism and suspicion of authority claims. In the last two years, events such as the NextGen seminars and the D6 Family Conference have been well-received as participants learnt how to winsomely engage and mentor their children and youths in a variety of family and ministry contexts. Following their success, the inaugural Chinese D6 Family Conference was also held in 2017 for the benefit of Mandarin-speaking Christians and their families. 

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“I thoroughly enjoyed [Brian Housman’s] sessions and his honest and open sharing of his personal experiences. The family topics are also varied and diverse.” 

— Anonymous participant at the D6 Family Conference 2017  

Alongside these endeavours through the arts and in bridging generational gaps, a variety of initiatives have also been taken up to meet the needs of other demographic groups. These include: 

• Engaging the well-educated on contemporary issues with a Biblical perspective through the ETHOS Institute for Public Christianity 
• Reaching out to the marginalised such as partnering with Prison Fellowship Singapore in the printing of special Free on the Inside Bibles for prison inmates 
• Serving different ethnic groups such as printing the Peranakan Bible for Peranakans, and serving the Indian community through the new Alliance of Indian Ministries  

That Some May Be Saved 

As the apostle Paul sought to “become all things to all people”, he had one clear goal in mind: “that by all means [he] might save some”. As the Bible Society follows in his footsteps, we too pursue the same goal: that people may know God through His life-giving and life-transforming Word. Our outreach efforts and their impact would not be possible without the help of our supporters and donors.  

As we strive to do more this year, we pray that God would be pleased to raise up more labourers, that together we may reach even more people with His Word through various avenues, to the praise and glory of His grace! 

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The amazing women in the Central African Republic were celebrated on International Women’s Day. Written off by their society and in the midst of civil war, Ken Dachi discovers how they’ve been empowered by Scripture in their spiritual lives – and beyond. 

School wasn’t in session but you could hear voices from one of the classrooms. It sounded like women singing.

The country’s tense, and so, getting to this little town on the outskirts of the capital was, logistically, very hard. A journey that should have taken 10 minutes, took about an hour. But our staff team in the Central African Republic wanted me to see it. 

We entered the classroom and saw that it was full of women. When the singing finished, each got up, walked to front of the classroom and wrote something on the chalk board, in their local language, Sango. I don’t speak Sango, so I was relying on sign language until there was a break for some translation. 

It transpired they were writing words that meant something to them from the Bible. They wrote about topics like hope and love, using Scriptures from Genesis to Revelation as reference texts. I discovered most women couldn’t read and write before they’d started meeting in this classroom.

These women are part of a literacy programme that uses Scriptures as reference texts. In Central African Republic, approximately 80% of the population consider themselves Christian, but many don’t, or can’t, read the Bible for themselves – especially not these women. But here they learn to read and write, spell, construct sentences.

I thought of the journey we’d taken to get there. Roads are potholed, public transport is dysfunctional. Most women get there by motorbike, bicycle or on foot. To see them gathered isn’t a simple feat: it’s a great sacrifice that gets them into one classroom. These women were committed.

And they’re reaping the benefits. I asked one of the ladies what this class, this learning, has meant to her. “Respect,” she says. “My husband said, ‘I have noticed there’s something different about you… does it have anything to do with this place you go to twice a week? You are doing most of the things yourself – engaging with shop keepers.’ I told him, ‘Yes, I attend literacy classes.'”

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What really moved me was watching four of these women get up and read the Scriptures out loud. It was fascinating because you can tell they’ve only just broken into learning. You could read the joy on their faces.

Another lady had stood to read Psalm 128. “Well now I know what it means,” she said. “I can read for myself and know what it means; I can know God cares for me. It’s one thing hearing from my church leader but it’s different when I can see it myself.”

She now considers herself a productive member of society. When you are marginalised, you are a forgotten entity, no one sees any value in you. She can now understand her value as an individual. The environment of learning has been a life-changing, transforming place. 

A third lady told me she had never ever been inside a classroom before joining the programme. She knew schools existed but had never had the privilege or opportunity to attend. She has not missed one single session. 

To be there and to see all this redefined my understanding of hope. Looking at the news coming from the Central African Republic, you will not hear stories likes this; only news about the war. You need to dig deeper and find pockets of hope. God still ministers to his people. 

There is so much joy. 

Can the church help envision the cities of the future?

The 21^st Century world will be an urban world. The Asian Development Bank states in 2008 that over one billion people would have moved from the rural villages to the urban settings in Asia by 2030.

In another three decades, over 3 billion people in Asia (two-thirds of Asia) would have become urban dwellers.[1] Will we see an urban world where humans and God’s creation can flourish or one with a degraded environment where we live more like savages in the proverbial urban jungle?

Manuel Ortiz states that urban growth is more than a sociological reality; it is the fulfillment of God’s intentions since the beginning of time.[2]  The cultural mandate given to mankind to populate and steward the earth indicated that God has intended for human settlements to develop not only in the rural villages but also in the cities.

The earliest cities were built by the sons of Adam in the book of Genesis. The Bible traces how the history of mankind started in the garden but will end in the city.

Singapore is a small city, merely the size of a small district in some of these leading world-class cities in the world, but yet we are recognised today as global city. Singapore’s rise from a small fishing village to a world city, from the third world to the first, is well known now. It now aims to be a smart city in the 21^st Century.

Conn and Ortiz note that cities seek to create a dynamic environment as an integrating centre of influence and power, as the “symbolic centres that concentrate, intensify and orchestrate culture’s re-creating forces”.[3] Lily Kong notes that the new Singapore cityscape with her iconic architecture of commerce and culture reflects the city-state’s aspiration and claim as a cultural centre, in line with the government’s integrated urban, national and global ambitions.[4]

However, the more important investment will be in shaping and moulding a people who value the spiritual beyond the aesthetics, who value the soul alongside these technocratic capability. Can a global city have humanity and a soul?

To grow as a city with creativity and cultural influence, we need a sense of spiritual transcendence. It is a call to grow our soul, to touch base with our humanity, to have the courage to fulfil our destiny. It will mean valuing the history of not only the city but the historicity of the man in the street, exploring the social dimensions of our city and probing deeper into our own shared consciousness.

Can a city be a place to foster humanity and community?

Urbanism as the distinctive culture of the city is exciting and evolving, and the creative innovators are constantly transforming and transmitting the urban culture in the city. The church can play a part in the emerging urbanism. The urban church as an organic and organised community is a great resource for developing creative and sustainable urbanism.

However the church would need to be strategically aligned and structured for transformational urban ministry with broader vision and to re-invent herself for the opportunities which will call for innovative solutions and daring responses.[5] The urban church has to step out of the comfort zone, to first engage at street level, to be the Church incarnate and present at street level, in order to contribute to the new urbanscape.

The urban church can consider the three spiritual identities and roles in urban missions, viz. as priests, prophets and pilgrims.

Firstly, the urban church can unleash her members as priests to point people to God and His Kingdom. In the city where the masses live lives of stress and desperation, loneliness and despair, there are many who are constantly seeking Transcendence and the meaning of their lives.

The church and her members as priests can mediate the presence of God by pointing people to Transcendence and divine guidance as they work in the city, whether they are in the public, private or people sectors, whether they are formulating policies, enacting legislation or executing them. By modeling faith in God and faithfulness at school or at work, the church affirms the creation or cultural mandate given by God to be productive as we care for and “till the land”.

Secondly, the urban church needs to speak up and speak out prophetically as we voice and envision the cities which are fit for human flourishing and habitation. Currently, there are over 830 million urban poor living in the urban slums in cities around the world. Such urban mismanagement and urban squalor dehumanises people and perpetuates the degradation of the urban environment and contributes to the ecological crisis and climate change in the world.

The urban church cannot be content with merely saving souls for heaven at the expense of caring for God’s creation and creatures on this side of eternity. We need to speak up prophetically as we envision what God’s shalom would look like for the cities in the world.

The urban church can reference the New Urban Agenda which has been adopted by world leaders as part of the United Nations’ new sustainable development goals, which seeks to provide the roadmap for building cities as engines of prosperity, centres of cultural and social well-being while protecting the environment.[6]

The urban church speaks and acts prophetically when it participates in policy inputs and planning at the municipal level, contribute to development of new urban spaces and lead in community building in the local neighbourhood. The urban church participates through mobilising the members and community with the wide range of skills, training and expertise to help shape the new urban landscape and urban culture.

Finally, the urban church can model for the city what God’s pilgrims look like, a community of strangers who have settled in the city and yet awaiting the arrival of the city, not built by human hands, whose architect and builder is God. The pilgrim community is a community of strangers bonded not necessarily by historical, national, ethno-linguistic or cultural ties.

The pilgrim community is created by faith in Christ, faith in a common eschatological future in the Kingdom of God. That is why it is an eschatological community with the responsibility and power to love one another and to serve one another, especially in the historical situations it finds itself including the times of human suffering.

Can the urban church model and translate the kingdom values of love, acceptance and compassion in new urban communities comprising migrants from over a hundred nationalities and ethnicities? Can the urban church help build communities of perseverance and resilience in times of disaster and crisis based on the pilgrim’s vision of serving one another as we journey together to the celestial city?

The church in the city can become an urban church when it develops an eschatological vision for transforming the city with the transcendent values of God’s Kingdom.[7] Just as Singapore as a city-state had announced the lofty aspiration of Singapore to become a global city serving beyond the Southeast Asian hinterland, the church in Singapore can aspire and envision itself to become an urban church, an Antiochan church serving the cities of Asia and beyond.

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Notes

^{[1] http://www.adb.org/news/op-ed/liveable-clean-green-and-resilient-reshaping-asia-s-booming-cities-takehiko-nakao}

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^{[2] Manuel Ortiz, “The Church and the City” in Manuel Ortiz and Susan Baker eds. The Urban Face of Mission, p. 43}

^{[3] Harvey M Conn & Manuel Ortiz, Urban Ministry: The Kingdom, the City & the People of God, 2001: IVP Academic, p. 222}

^{[4] Lily Kong, “Cultural Icons, Global City and National Identity” in Michael Nai-Chiu Poon, ed., Engaging Society: The Christian in Tomorrow’s Singapore.  2013: Trinity Theological College. Pp 24-40}

^{[5] Lawrence Ko, “The Role of the Asian Church in Missions” in Bambang Budijanto ed., Emerging Missions Movements: Voices of Asia, 2010: Compassion  International and Asia Evangelical Alliance, pp 1-10}

^{[6] http://www.un.org/sustanabledevelopment/blog/2016/10/newurbanagenda}

^{[7] Lawrence Ko, “The Church and the Soul of a Global City: An Eschatological Vision for 21st C Singapore” in Sadiri Joy Tira & Tetsunao Yamamori eds., Scattered and Gathered; A Global Compendium of Diaspora Missiology, Regnum Books International, 2016, pp.360-366.}

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Lawrence Ko is the National Director of Singapore Centre for Global Missions. He has been a pastor, corporate trainer and missions director over the past 27 years, engaged with projects in human resource development, Christian media and environmentalism.

Humans are ritual animals. Their deepest ideas and feelings are not just communicated in words, but more deeply in actions, signs and symbols. In fact, in many Asian societies, it’s mostly actions. Traditional Chinese and Japanese don’t say “I love you” to their wives and children, but they show their love through a variety of ritual actions.

The evangelical emphasis on “word” may actually deprive us of our capacity to express our faith more fully in word and ritual. We have tended to reduce the Christian faith to a set of principles like the “Four Spiritual Laws”.

It is not coincidental that the magisterial Reformers understand Word and Sacrament as constituting the church. John Calvin’s definition is perhaps representative: “Whenever we see the Word of God purely preached and heard, and the sacraments administered according to Christ’s institution, there…a church of God exists.”

The theology underlying this affirmation is the Incarnation. The Logos takes on human flesh. The glory of God is revealed in a way that we could see and touch. Christ in the flesh is the Sacrament of God; through him we can see and touch the God who is otherwise invisible. The Incarnation shows that material and spiritual are not inherently opposed as in Greek dualism, but that the physical can ‘contain’ the spiritual. It is in the context of sacramental theology that we can appreciate the importance of rites.

Sacred rites are not “add-ons”, something extraneous, used for illustrative purposes. This is the way a lot of exclusively word-centered Christians tend to understand rituals. For them, rites are merely visible words or object lessons.

The necessity of rites can be seen in the fact that there is always a gap between concepts and actual practice, not because our practice falls short of our grand theories and concepts, but quite the opposite: our concepts always fall short of actual practice. This is being increasingly recognised even in the practical fields of economics, management and social planning. No matter how well we plan and provide guidelines and procedures to cover as many scenarios as possible, they always fall short of what is actually practiced by people on the ground. Practices are more complex than what planners could anticipate.

Most of us living in housing estates in Singapore are familiar with the meticulous ways the estates are planned. But one thing that these planners seem to have failed time and again is in the layout of footpaths. Residents often don’t use them; instead, they find more efficient ways of getting around by creating their own well-trampled footpaths across lawns and fields. We could say that these residents, in their daily walking ‘rituals’, have instinctively found a better way of getting around that the planners could not foresee. Ordinary people have a kind of practical knowledge that no amount of planning could cover.

In the second half of the 20^th century, a number of postmodern philosophers have highlighted the importance of practice. They have shown that there is an irreducible knowledge that comes from embodied practices which cannot come through verbal-rational expressions. Among them, I will highlight the theory of practice by Pierre Bourdieu.

Most of us tend to think that we start with thinking and follow it up with practice. Thus in traditional pedagogy, we often are told that we must first learn the theory and then apply it in practice. But Bourdieu says that practice itself is an irreducible, precognitive form of knowing, not just a consequence of prior thought. We see this, for instance, in the way children are socialized into a community. They begin by practicing speaking before they learn the grammar of speech.

Practice or bodily action and interaction is a way of knowing. Practice forms habits by which we make sense of our world. These acquired habits are formed unconsciously in cooperation with others in community. This is very much like the way the liturgy works. Orthodox Christians understand this truth well by not segregating worshippers according to age groups. Segregation (which is what many Protestant churches are doing as a matter of course) will inevitably result in the failure to socialise their children and youth into the church as a liturgical community.

In short, Bourdieu’s theory of practice implies that we are all liturgical animals. Rites form habits which shape our thought patterns and worldview.

Bourdieu’s theory of practice is especially important in our present world shaped by the IT revolution and the Internet. In the internet world, there are many practices shaping our thought-patterns and worldviews without our even being aware of it.

But the internet world is a jungle. There are the good, useful, even beautiful, but also the ugly, the flippant and the downright evil. All of these are accessible to anyone at their fingertips—literally.

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Christian philosopher James K. A. Smith warns us that the seemingly innocent smartphone may be training us ritualistically to “a heretofore-unimagined level of intimacy with machines”. It unconsciously inducts users into the secular story that says “I am in charge,” and in the end they become “more like Milton’s Satan”. In Milton’s Paradise Lost, the poet had Satan holding a conference in hell and proclaiming: “Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven!”

This is the kind of world that millions are inducted into via the Internet: “We are in control; we have the freedom to choose whatever we want to do, see and hear. What I feel is who I am.”

But the ‘freedom’ of the Internet comes at great cost: First, the new grammar of the Internet has so cut off its devotees from the literary traditions that they are no longer able to read the “great books” that represent the best of our human heritage, including the Bible. Second, with a largely under-developed capacity for face-to-face conversation, they have also lost the ability to engage deeply with others.

Rites do matter. But what kind of rites is the modern church inducting its members into in its segregated “contemporary” worship with its frivolous songs and flaky sermons? If the current generation of church leaders is sowing to the wind, the next generation will reap the whirlwind.

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Rev Dr Simon Chan (PhD, Cambridge) had taught theology and other related subjects such as liturgical, spiritual, Pentecostal, and Third World theologies at Trinity Theological College for 27 years. His most recent publication is Grassroots Asian Theology: Thinking the Faith from the Ground Up (IVP Academic, 2014).