Modern Living, Postmodernism Mentality or Are We?

One would have thought that 2008 would be a better year with the "8" sticking at the back. Not a superstitious person myself but others are. :P

Let's have a quick look at what has happened recently: stock markets crashing down, M'sian Political instability, Sichuan earthquakes, etc. Of course our CLMC is not immune from it. Number of attendance drops, offering on average drops, and even our stronghold (small group) numbers drop tremendously.

In this postmodern times, we are supposed to be more intellect when compared to our modern times generation people. However, it seems not the case today. Is it because being smarter only brings degeneration to a church? Will being smarter reduces dependence on God?

In some sense, yes to both questions above. So are we supposed to be forever dumb? or forever ignorance of how fast the world is gaining knowledge? Surely NOT!

We need to catch up to the world, in order to compete or able to converse with them. We can't be living in the stone/dark age (premodernism) while people have nearly passed postmodernism. A lot of East M'sian Christians are still in denial or left behind pretty badly. They are just happy in their small circle of brothers & sisters. Celebrating B'days, challenging cold jokes, guessing "un-IQ" questions, etc are part of their normal lives. Not saying this is bad, not at all. However, they seriously lack the balance between having fun & moving forward.

While others have steadily progressed ahead, they perhaps have not started warming up. They can't be blame for such lifestyle attitude. Part of reasons for this pathetic condition would have to be due to the way they have been brought up. In an education system that encourages no questioning but pure acceptance, home education that taught elder is always right and cultural behaviour that is constantly centuries behind.

However, we as East Malaysian Christians must wake up now! It's not too late! It's always better late than never. If we are to survive in this world, we need to be able to compete! To be able to compete, we need to equip ourselves! Read more books or even blogs in this case! Challenge the ideas, questions their credibility, however not forgetting to gracefully accept others' ideas if proven to be more superior. Learn from them!

How can a Christian be smart in the world yet be an obedient servant of Christ? Just always remind yourself, the source of wisdom is knowing & accepting Christ Jesus.

I strongly urge CLMC people can use more of their wisdom & knowledge to help the church in its fragile situation. Don't just play the blame, gossiping, accusation and ignorance game.

By the way, CLMC website was closed down about 4-5 months ago now. No news on whether it'll be re-opened again? Part of the reasons the website was closed is because our management people couldn't differentiate between comments & web contents.

From wiki:

Web content is the textual, visual or aural content that is encountered as part of the user experience on websites. It may include, among other things: text, images, sounds, videos and animations. This may include documents, data, applications, e-services, images, audio and video files, personal Web pages, archived e-mail messages, and more. And we include future stuff as well as present stuff."

A comment is generally a verbal or written remark often related to an added piece of information, or an observation or statement.

The reason given was because the web contents are unacceptable. However, if we look carefully, it's not the web contents those are not acceptable, but the comments in the forum.

Now, the question next is what is considered appropriate in a forum? Everything that's good & nice? All prayer items? So fake?

People need places to vent their frustrations or give their ideas. If the management is not so approachable or smart enough to accept new ideas/criticism, then forum would be their last choice.

A church that is honest in admitting the fact that Christians are all sinners anyway, we are not "holier than thou" would be a church that is of God's will and not a church full of masks. By admitting the fact, only then we can put down our sinful nature and come together to share ideas and work together in unity.

By banning the forum or website will not help the church in any ways. Do you think for one second that if forum doesn't exist, people will not have grumbles or dissatisfaction? Will be lucky if it didn't cause more problems. How can such action be encouraging our members to express themselves freely? To be more critical thinkers? Sure they're some idiots who will cause some problems. We shouldn't let the minority spoil the whole good process of encouraging more critical thinkers from evolving. Freedom comes with responsibilty, freedom of speech is not excluded too.

So, will we witness a more sophisticated intellectuals East M'sian Christians soon? Not anytime soon, i guess.