A Possible Reason

Front page on the Strait Times newspaper yesterday was the case of Pastor Rony Tan being called up by the Internal Security Department (ISD) for making insensitive remarks against the Buddhist and Taoist faiths. The paper made a huge point of saying Pastor Tan had personally apologized to the leaders of the two religions and Venerable Kwang Sheng, President of Singapore Buddhist Federation, had accepted the apology.

Basically everyone just wants to sweep the whole thing under the carpet and let the matter rest. Sorry to say this but that is just not possible. I say this because everything is already on the net!

The whole started when Pastor Tan interviewed a former monk and a former nun at his church sessions, made some comments which were insulting to Buddhism and Taoism and the sessions were video-recorded. To add insult to stupidity, the videos were then made available on the Lighthouse Evangelism’s website which Pastor Tan belong to. Of course this begin the age of the internet, people downloaded the clips from Lighthouse Evangelism and post it on YouTube and other websites. The pastor was called up by the ISD, after which he then issued a public apology on his church’s website and took down the clips.

Too late my friend!

If you go on Youtube, you can still find the clip showing Pastor Tan interviewing the former monk and the former nun. Sweeping the incident under the carpet can’t work when the clips is out there for millions of viewers all over the world. I also like to ask what in the world was Dr Albert Ting saying. In response to media query, the principal of Singapore Bible College said that the college trained would-be pastors to be mindful of what they say. Nothing wrong there, but he then say that “in the heat of the moment, a preacher can cross the line”.

Now usually I don’t blog about religion, I just don’t care that much about it, but how in the world is this “in the heat of the moment”? The interview sessions were not done “in the heat of the moment”, making the videos was not “in the heat of the moment”, putting it up on the Lighthouse Evangelism’s website was surely not done “in the heat of the moment”, so what in the world was Dr Albert Ting saying. Instead of finding a flimsy excuse for one of his pastor, he should have condemned the action of Pastor Tan. Even if he felt some loyalty to the pastor, surely he has to come up with something better than “in the heat of the moment”.

I mean talk about digging a bigger hole for yourself. That excuse is not just stupid but insultingly stupid. And this guy is the principal of Singapore Bible College? Well…at least we got a possible reason for the actions and stupidity of Pastor Rony Tan.