It's not about a word

Pastor Jerry Dusing kept on stating the above during the Kairos forum, 'Religious Liberty Under Threat'. He was not supposed to one of the speakers but was invited to share. Pastor Jerry is the President of SIB Sabah who is suing the Govt for confiscating their Sunday school materials because those materials contained prohibited words e.g. 'Allah'.

He said SIB has no alternative but to take this course of action (suing the Govt), not because of the prohibition of the word 'Allah' to be used by non Muslims, but because to tell the Govt, 'Enough is enough.' We are going to make a stand and we are not going to compromise anymore.

There has been a slow but systematic program of Islamisation in the country which Dr. Ng Kam Weng termed it as the 'Salami Politics of Islamisation in Malaysia'. Slice by slice, bit by bit, this process has crept into the fabric of Malaysian society through the public administration system, education system and now the judicial system. We have protested in the past when we felt threatened by sending memos to the Govt and normally out of 10 points the Govt will back down on 5 points and we will happy and grateful about this. But everytime we concede 5 points, before we realized the Islamisation process will be completed. I know that for years Dr. Ng has been warning the Malaysian church of this phenomenon but his warnings have fallen on deaf ears. In the interest of harmony, the church may have compromised too much.

Pastor Jerry shared that our brothers and sisters in East Malaysia faced an even greater challenge. He highlighted 3 examples where lives have been impacted negatively because of Islamisation.
i) the requirement of having the status of one's religion embedded in the Mykad. Many mistakes have been highlighted in the Press (Dr. Ng's son was made a Muslim without his knowledge!). Anyway, this problem is especially acute in East Malaysia because the term 'bin' or 'binti' which means 'son of' or 'daughter of' are freely used by the non Muslims bumiputera unlike in West Malaysia where they are normally used by Malays only. So the tendency of the data entry clerk to input the wrong religion is very high. Pastor Jerry cited actual cases where people have problems marrying because of their religious status. Christians who are baptised now found that they are Muslims when they want to get married
ii) poor students from the interior are targets of conversions when they stay in hostels in govt schools
iii) Muslim youths marrying the Christian girls and of course when children are born they are automatically become Muslims.

Pastor Jerry said what has happened in East M'sia is no laughing matter. He said this a few times because though Kam Weng was quite serious in laying out the issues that confront the church but as usual we couldn't help laughing over his witty presentation. Kam Weng looked a bit chastened I think but I saw him nodding his head agreeing with Pastor Jerry on what is at stake. The fate and survival of the Malaysian church in face of the onslaught of Islamisation.

The Govt has asked for the postponement of the case for more time to reply to the Plaintiff's submission. The more likely reason is the request was made in view of its sensitivity and the coming election. SIB has no choice but to agree as even if they object, the judge is likely to grant it. However, they managed to bargain for a concession i.e. the books be returned to them and they have got it. The submission made on behalf of SIB can be read here.

We cannot remain submissive anymore. Submission to authorities as mentioned in passages in Romans & 1 Peter, I believe is not absolute. Francis Schaeffer said that the authority is not an autonomous authority but a delegated authority. Hence, if an authority acts contrary to Scripture, then it is the duty of a Christian to resist that authority. Through peaceful and legitimate processes, of course.

Taking the Govt to court is one way. Voting them out is another way.

Let us continue to pray for our SIB brethren who have shown us the way.