Enforcing dress codes in church The arresting subtitle of the Sunday Times article by Elizabeth Soh (Feb 6, 2011) read: “Catholic churches are enforcing dress codes, as more turn up in inappropriate attire”. Such inappropriate attire included shorts and flip flops; attire that exposed the entire shoulder, chest, back or thighs; low rise jeans and [...]

In my office shelf I stumbled on an old photo album of some mission trips to the Mt Bromo area in 1990 and in 1991, and Peshawar in 1992. The photos were fading, and the album’s spine had unglued from the cover. Digitizing photos are so easy to do now with the macro function on [...]

Gritty days ahead The  Saturday’s Straits Times special report by Lee Siew Hua and Susan Long was an excellent analysis of the church scene in Singapore, albeit with a slant towards the currently newsworthy megachurches. Reading the well researched and eye-opening articles can give the majority of small churches a feeling of creeping muscular dystrophy. [...]

What is the most misunderstood aspect of spirituality? That it’s a kind of specialized form of being a Christian, that you have to have some kind of in. It’s elitist. Many people are attracted to it for the wrong reasons. Others are put off by it: I’m not spiritual. I like to go to football [...]

The heart of the gospel: justification by faith The heart of the gospel is justification by faith alone. St Paul wrote, “For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: ‘The righteous shall live by faith’”(Romans 1:17). “But now [...]

What if Richard Dawkins, in a public lecture in Singapore, had said exactly what Pastor Rony Tan had said about reincarnation, karma, and Buddhism? What if it made its rounds in cyberspace and YouTube? Would the Internal Security Department have given him a phone call? Would he have transgressed the The Maintenance of Religious Harmony [...]