I was at a non-work/community volunteer type of training in the city on Sat. It was supposed to go on till 4 but there was a birthday party on, near home. A gorgeous little princess was turning 3 – a precocious little thing whose love for people around her (and food…) is so magnetic that it was hard to even be late for the party, let alone miss it.
And so I left the training soon after lunch, and came home in time to get to the party with Tress.
Later that night, I started to think about what I thought might happen the next day.
Some thought there was going to be a question and answer session in LifeGate church that arvo. I said to my mate that if he wanted to be present to say something, I would be with him.
I wanted to be there and stand with him. In the same way I was there and stood with Lim Kit Siang on the night his son, Lim Guan Eng was sentenced to jail, back in Malaysia in the 1990’s.
I have always believed a wrong need to be called out, and efforts to fix the wrong must be made. No one can and should think of carrying on as though life goes on, by simply discarding the wrong. Justice I think is front and centre of Christianity.
In particular, if a church has committed a wrong, so much more it needs to fix the wrong before it can move on. To move on without fixing the wrong is to betray what a church is all about. It isn’t just about coming together. It is coming together in truth, sharing in a righteousness won for us by our God, who “stopped” to fix our problems before “moving on”. Righteousness is perhaps together with justice at the front and centre of Christianity.
Anyway, as it turned out the fabled question and answer fizzled out into a non-event.
I had in any event, thought about being at the Q&A, to be with my brother – as he responds to misleading and dishonest things said about him. In thinking about how the session may pan out, one of the scenarios played out in my mind was one of reconciliation.
I was preparing to contemplate the prospect of reconciliation, should the Q&A elicit answers and responses that lead to a genuine step to fix things. That then would have truly constituted thoughts, feelings and actions that accompany responses to what God has initiated. That was a prospect in my mind because I believe that is what God wants. God does not want us to forget things in a hurry. He wants us to deal with things. Moving forward can only be meaningful, and therefore fruitful, if it is done in a way which doesn’t sacrifice the elements of truth, justice and righteousness.
Alas, the prospect of substantive reconciliation dissipated and the spectre of moving forward with unholy haste and of lies, deceit and bad faith continue to hang over LifeGate Church.
Ante 