The majority of the clergy have either been totally silent or when they chose to speak, do not address the root cause of the problem. It is precisely because of this attitude that allows such blatant unbiblical practices in Christianity to go unchecked. Evil runs rampant when good men keep silent. Thankfully, there are a few good men willing to speak the truth - here are some of them .
Rev Paul Choo .
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The Many Innocent Faces of Kong Hee - by Spittle Spat
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| Credit : Spittle Spat |
For me, it is more a disingenuous statement of "I have done nothing wrong" than a statement of "I have been wronged." In the face of overwhelming evidence, a carefully-considered conviction, and a reasonably lenient sentence (because the prosecution found it "manifestly inadequate"), Kong Hee's appeal statement is undoubtedly a case of giving to Caesar what belongs to God, that is, he turned repentance on its head by whitewashing his guilt - whether by association or otherwise - with the good name of Apostle Paul, who died a martyr for God. Here is what I mean.
Apostle Paul was accused of many things like rioting, breaking Jewish laws and committing treason against Rome. He was then held in remand for two years waiting for his case to be reopened. He then exercised his right to appeal before Caesar, who presided the highest court in the Empire.
This is what Kong Hee wrote: “…Jesus had said to him, “Be of good cheer, Paul; for as you have testified for me in Jerusalem, so you must also bear witness at Rome”…He was also convinced that the evidence was on his side, and that he had a fair chance of winning the appeal in Rome.” Of course, Paul was acquitted of all charges before Caesar and he continued his missionary work to Western Europe, and as far as Spain.
But in 66 A.D, Paul was rearrested, imprisoned in Rome and beheaded by order of Nero Caesar. At this point, Kong Hee penned, “In God’s sovereign will, Paul was destined to be a martyr. However, before that appointed time for martyrdom, Paul exercised his legal rights within the judiciary of his day, and fought for the freedom to preach the gospel as instructed by the Lord Jesus…He fulfilled the purpose of his life and was not disobedient to the heavenly vision. Paul appealed not because he was defiant toward the ruling authority. He appealed because
(a) the weight of the evidence was in his favour,
(b) he had a clear mission from the Lord Jesus that he still needed to fulfill, and
(c) he was exercising his legal rights as a Roman citizen, a privilege that God had blessed him with.”
Wow…a standing ovation is in order. I have been a lawyer for more than fifteen years and have filed appeals for my clients before, but I have not seen such an intricately contrived justification for an appeal. Kong Hee must have really felt wronged by our justice system on so many levels. He must really be tormented by his own unproven, or unprovable, innocence.
Here, I am compelled to ask this: Is Kong Hee portraying himself as the modern day Apostle Paul? Is he saying that what he is going through is no different from what Apostle Paul went through in his days before the Sanhedrin? Or, is this just another of his outlandish public relation stunt to milk his congregation for maximum support? You be the judge. For me, the association is irresistible, tactical even. My personal bet is that he is suggesting to the readily suggestible - with the subtlety of a jackhammer of course - that his fate is intertwined with that of Apostle Paul. That’s my takeaway from reading his statement of appeal. Can it be interpreted in any other way?
You see, he could just make it simple and say outrightly that his appeal was based on errors in some aspects of DJ See’s judgment, but he didn’t. Instead, he drew upon the experiences of Apostle Paul and used it not only as a backdoor to hanker for another bite of the I-am-still-innocent cherry, but to tell his congregation that he's got God's backing. This is reminiscent of the time when he told his audience that God apologized to him for going through what was then called the refiner's fire. As such, to me, this is clearly a calculated and deliberate move (some may even call it shameless or pathetic, but I simply call it unrepentant). This is my personal reading of that statement of appeal. Can you blame me for being too presumptuous?
But before the eager crowd goes oohs and aahs over it, let’s read what Apostle Paul wrote about his own experiences in 2 Corinthians 11: “Five times I received from the Jews thirty-nine lashes. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, a night and a day I have spent in the deep. I have been on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers on the sea, dangers among false brethren. I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked.”
So, what did our very own “Apostle Kong Hee” suffer? How is their fate intertwined? Apart from the 2 years of investigation and 3 years of protracted trial, which resulted in conviction beyond all reasonable doubt, Kong Hee was and is living in the lap of luxury all this while in one of the most expensive resort-like condominiums in affluent Singapore. He owns a number of premium properties and is widely adored (God knows why) by thousands of die-hard church members who readily give of their time and money to him and his beloved wife to be disposed of at their sole and unfettered discretion. He and his wife also drew high monthly salaries and bonuses.
Unlike Apostle Paul who suffered shipwrecked thrice, stoning and had spent in the deep, enduring dangers in the wilderness and at sea, and amongst false brethren, and went hungry and naked as he persevered to spread the good news on bare feet most times, Kong Hee and his recently ordained pastor wife in contrast traveled in style and class, rented extravagant apartment overseas, and spent tens of thousands of dollars on her wardrobe, makeup, consultancy fees, medical, restaurant food and hairdo.
That’s not all. Apostle Paul was also jailed on many occasions and he had even converted the jailer and his household as he (and Silas) sang hymns to God in the worse of circumstances. The songs belted out were simple, from the heart and purely accapella. China wine however is far from simple. It was sordid in fact. It was sexually suggestive, blatant. It portrayed loose morals, fornication and even adulterous liaisons. It was financed by fraud, falsification and dishonesty. And there is no denying that Kong Hee, in his blind zeal and ambition, was at most times more consumed in promoting his wife’s music career with money meant for the building fund than to spread the gospel. Can Apostle Paul and Kong Hee be any more different?
Further, while Apostle Paul knew by his Savior's assurance that his appeal will succeed as “the weight of the evidence was in his favour and he had a clear mission from the Lord Jesus that he still needed to fulfill,” can the same be said about Kong Hee and his current appeal? Can Kong Hee say that he shares the same destiny with Apostle Paul in his appeal and that his Crossover Project had the divine endorsement from our Savior? I guess what Kong Hee needs now is not so much an appeal to the appellate court, but an urgent appeal to his own insular heart.
Personally, I think Kong Hee had pushed things too far. He wrote that “In God’s sovereign will, Paul was destined to be a martyr.” Again, it is difficult not to see the parallel here. Is Kong Hee playing the martyrdom card? Is he saying that he is sacrificing for God the same way the early disciples had given their life for their Savior? Can we expect a second apology from God? For me, the suggested intertwining of fate gets more and more convoluted as Kong Hee digs deeper and deeper into his own trenches of self-delusion.
In the end, there is no denying that Jesus’ disciples gave their lives for the cause - just like Jesus gave of himself at the Cross. They died a martyr’s death. While James was put to death by Herod Agrippa I and Andrew was crucified in Achaia, Kong Hee however “engaged in covert operations and conspiratorial cover-ups” and “contrived to create cover stories and clever round-trips concealing their unlawful conduct.” While Matthew and Thomas died a martyr in Ethiopia and India respectively, Kong Hee and his leaders misused “CHC’s funds, which included siphoning off large amounts from Building Fund for Sun Ho’s music career.” And while Simon Peter was crucified and felt himself unworthy and asked to be put to death with his head downwards, Kong Hee and his leaders “chose to defraud the auditors with falsified accounts…and the evidence points overwhelmingly to a finding that they had all acted dishonestly and in breach of the trust reposed in them.”
Alas, only one disciple died in his own hands and that was Judas Iscariot. He hung himself. I guess Kong Hee did somewhat the same by going through the 140-day trial. By his own hands, Kong Hee tightened the legal noose that goes around the only hope of his own redemption and restoration, and that is, his repentance.
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spittle splat Sunday, 9 April 2017
The gospel according to Kong Hee.
It's a sad day for the church as a whole. It is even sadder when leaders lead not by example, but by popularity. That is the theme of this post and here’s a little background. We are all called as believers to and for the same mission, that is, to fulfill the Great Commission. We are to be the light and salt of the world. We are also called to be set apart from the world, holding up the name of our savior, Jesus, in honor, hope and victory.
Before he confronted Calvary, Jesus reminded us that we will have troubles, implying troubles from the world. But he also reminded us to take heart, for he has overcome, and so will we. Alas, there is nothing in those words of Jesus that quite prepare us for overcoming troubles that are created within the church by leaders for whom respect and trust are duly accorded.
And here, I am specifically referring to the other five appellants in Kong Hee's team and what the Appeal Judges have to say about them here:- "None of the appellants, particularly Eng Han, Ye Peng, John Lam, Serina and Sharon, could be said to have gained anything from what they did other than pursuing the objectives of CHC." If anything (or anyone) is said to have profited from this unwholesome enterprise called the Crossover Project, then the founders themselves are clearly the main and only beneficiaries.
On this point, I tend to agree with the dissenting Judge Chan’s view based on the force of common sense when he said that "it was very clear Kong's wife had benefited from criminally misappropriated funds to fund her music career." Now, this is not to say that the other two Judges disagreed with Judge Chan. In fact, Sun Ho's jet-set lifestyle unbefitting of what is expected of a self-sacrificing pastor, her personal ambition and excesses on the road to becoming famous and influential for what she deems as evangelism, and her uncharacteristic involvement in songs and videos that casts a bad light on moral values and Christian principles were all spread out in plain sight for all to see, ogle and marvel at.
To put it bluntly, I guess part of her Crossover plan was to generate lust in order to attract remorse, to entice the audience with filth in order to invite reflection, and to serve up a sordid concoction of immorality in order to plant the first seed of conversion. So, the three Judges were kept fully apprised of all that (that is, the excesses and extravagance that form the element of self-profit and self-enrichment). But on a procedural technicality, it reports that "while the prosecution noted in its oral submissions that there was benefit accrued to Kong Hee's Wife, Ms Ho Yeow Sun, this was not raised in its written submissions for the appeal. The issue of personal benefit was, therefore, not factored into the sentencing."
With that so-called omission, the hands of the law were unfortunately tied. The Judges therefore could not factor into their appeal decision the reality that Sun Ho had profited from the building fund for the purpose of sentencing. But, you may ask, the hands of common sense shouldn't be similarly bound right? Surely, the truth (or reality) supersedes technicality, right? In other words, in the Court of Conscience, it is clear that Sun Ho and Kong Hee were the only beneficiaries of the Crossover Project.
All this leads to the unavoidable conclusion that the couple therefore used the church funds for self-gain, whether directly or indirectly, and that cannot be denied; unless of course one deliberately favors uncommon sense over common sense, or self-delusion over spiritual discernment. So, this brings me to the point about troubles created within the Church (and not so much by the world).
The Crossover is a strange hybrid creature of evangelism where the pastoral couple, holding full sway over the unwitting tens of thousands, invite the world into the church in order to convert the world. If a metaphor helps, this is somewhat like nursing a serpent back from the cold hoping that she will defy her nature by not biting her benefactor in return. The truth is, the Crossover Project may have started with ennobled goals. But along the way, the puppeteers became the puppets as personal ambitions, consuming pride and unrelenting desperation took over and caused the pastoral couple to lose their way, their head and their faith.
If the Crossover Project was a $50 million dollars pyramid scheme, then the ones who sat regally and opulently at the top are none other than Kong Hee and his wife, Sun Ho. And you can say that the other five were just at the wrong place, wrong time and wrong company (and if I may add, serving the wrong leadership at that time). As such, Kong Hee deservingly got the harshest sentence because he was the ultimate leader of the five. It is said that his role was that of the spiritual leader of the other appellants. In addition, Kong Hee provided the "overall direction and moral assurance for their actions" and his significant other-half who inspired him to perpetuate this criminal misappropriation was none other than his wife, Sun Ho.
So, while it is correct to say that there was no personal gain for the other five appellants (Chew even gave more than half a million to the church), it goes against the reality of things (not to mention common sense) to say that neither Kong Hee nor Sun Ho benefitted personally, whether directly or indirectly, from the senselessly extravagant experiment that is the Crossover Project. And now that the verdict of the appeal is out, you'd expect them (that is, Kong Hee and Sun Ho) to at the very least apologize for what they have done, that is, and more specifically, their questionable leadership, their mindless ambition, their careless ways of applying church funds, their extravagance, their cowardice, their shifting of responsibility, and their hypocritical stand of projecting a martyrdom image.
I mean, isn't it time to reflect, resolve and come clean? Didn't the Appeal Court say that the accused had "resorted to deceit and lies" to hide "the truth of their transactions from auditors and lawyers, because they wanted to keep the use of the church's monies for the Crossover Project confidential?"
If this is so, one can expect no more pretensions, right? No more games? No more denial? And no more smokescreen? Well, guess again. Kong Hee was the least repentant of them all after hearing the verdict on Friday morning. While Deputy Pastor Ye Peng was heard telling the court that he is prepared to bear a heavier sentence if the sentences of Sharon and Serina could be correspondingly reduced, Kong Hee however expressed disappointment over the reduced charge and sentence. He was expecting total acquittal.
Till this very day, he remains "unimpeachable" by the standard of his own self-styled theological legitimacy, or self-declared innocence. He is one leader who has refused to accept any responsibility or be accountable for his actions. He neither gave to Caesar nor to God what belongs to them exclusively and respectively. Alas, I guess the only lies for which we are truly punished are those we tell ourselves. And such punishment perpetuated by one's deceit and lies has brought down the integrity of the Church as a whole as well as the lives and families of those who had followed their leader in the hope that when the time comes to do the right thing, their leader would stand up to the plate and be counted.
Well, I guess it would be wishful thinking on my part to expect Kong Hee and Sun Ho to acknowledge that they have failed in their leadership with the blind pursuit of the Crossover Project to its self-serving end. (I know he had apologized yesterday, this time by asking for forgiveness for being unwise. Yet, it is an apology tainted by a form of tactical maneuvering that still denies any and all wrongdoing - as charged and convicted - but admits to some unspecific failure in leadership in order to preserve that humility stance and milk the sentimentality of his congregation. Alas, some apology moves you forward - it addresses the wrong. Others just keep you even more confused - because it avoids the wrong altogether).
And while the National Council of Churches of Singapore has done the right thing to put on record that, on behalf of the council, it "will be sending a personal message to express (their) continued prayers for pastor Kong Hee, his family and CHC, and also assuring him and (CHC of) continued fellowship with (them) as part of the body of Christ," who is then appointed in the higher echelons of the ecumenical church to counsel Kong Hee back from his prodigal path of impenitence? God knows, his church is not up to the task since it is not a sanctuary where a broken and contrite heart goes to seek repentance, but it is an echo chamber where an insular and stubborn heart goes to seek self-affirmation. If God, accordingly to Kong Hee, had apologized to him, who then will the council send as the next "prophet Nathan" to wake Kong Hee up from his deluded state of mind or his misplaced divine illusions? Surely, with a case this big and the repercussions this widespread, it is the leader who ought to bear the responsibility and make amends accordingly right? In other words, repentance, reformation and restoration cannot be a one-way street right?
Alas, let me then conclude with the gospel according to Kong Hee, and part of it is ironically stated in the papers yesterday. It reads: "The investigations cast a spotlight on Kong's prosperity gospel, which marries materialism with spiritualism, and the attempt by the church, which at its peak had 30,000 congregants, to reach out to the "unchurched" by turning Mandarin pop singer Ho into a star in America." That is about just right when it comes to describing the way Kong Hee runs the church. The passage talks most pertinently about a marriage and the making of a pop star. However, what the reader may understandably overlook is the word "spotlight", and it has been shinning most endearingly on the couple since the Crossover Project was launched, and no one else. Cheerz.
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