CHC: Children, religion & money

Now I have been focussing on two aspects of the CHC saga: Sun Ho's music career and the financial aspect of the case - I have steered clear of talking about religion. Why? I guess it's because it is a touchy topic to say the least - I was brought up to respect the religion of others but it has come to the stage where I can no longer ignore this aspect of the topic. The point which really irked me was the fact that CHC has been targeting primary school children - now why does that make me so uncomfortable?

Let me tell you a little story about cleaning brushes. Have a look at the following picture - it is a cleaning brush made from coconut fibres, fairly common in Singapore.

Now when I was about 3 years old, there was a window which I used to climb up to and peer out of. I was an active, naughty kid and my mother knew that no matter how much she punished me each time she caught me doing so, I would will try to do it when she was not looking. So this was what she did, she got three of those coconut fibre brushes and placed them on the window ledge and she told me there a family of monsters there - a father, mother and the smallest one was the child. These little monsters would bite my fingers if I tried to touch them and they were very fierce and dangerous indeed.

I believed her. Come on, I was 3 years old okay and I didn't get close enough to those brushes to examine them. I merely believed every word she said like the gullible kid I was. Well, what did you expect? I didn't know any better as a child, I wasn't in any position to question what I was being told... until I was about 5 years old. I took a ruler and flicked the brushes off with the ruler. I picked them up with my hands and brought them to my mother - disappointed that I had been lied to. Instead, she just laughed at me as if the whole thing had been a big joke.

Children are naive and easy to deceive - such is the nature of a child's mind. It is easy to take advantage of a child's naivety (as my mother did). Now there are a few reasons why I think it's very wrong for CHC to target young children in their outreach programme.

1. Children are not yet capable of voicing their opinions and asking difficult questions.

That's not to say that children are stupid per se - but children have been conditioned to trust adults and submit to their authority. That is why we have come to recognize 'teenage rebellion' as the stage in their lives when they start rebelling against the authority of adults. Parents, does this sound familiar?

Daughter: I want to go to Sam's party this Saturday.

Parent: No you can't - you have to study for your exams.

Daughter But I have revised thoroughly, I don't need to study any more.

Parent: You can go to parties after the exams. Not before.

Daughter: I don't see how a few hours at a party at Sam's is going to make any difference.

Parent: Stop arguing. I've said so.

Daughter: You never let me have any fun!

Parent: You think I enjoy making you study? I'm doing this for your own good.

Now that may be the kind of conversation you can have with a 12 year old, but probably not a 17 year old - the 12 year old will submit to your authority but most 17 year olds will end up getting their way and going to Sam's party. What is the difference? The 12 year old will not trust her judgement enough to push her point because all her life, she has had to submit to her parents' wishes. Whereas by the time we get into our late teens and subsequently into adulthood, most of us learn to gain enough confidence to make our own judgement calls and decisions.

That is why I worry about anyone under the age of 15 being aggressively indoctrinated into religion - given that we all mature at different rates emotionally, I am picking 15 as an arbitrary point where I deem that a young person gains enough confidence to challenge an adult's point of view and offer his/her own opinion instead. At that age, the relationship also changes from that between an adult and a child to that between two adults - the adult no longer has the luxury of simply brushing aside the opinions of the child however valid.

Hence it is very easy for an adult to take advantage of this child-like naivety, when children genuinely believe that they don't know enough by virtue of their age and subject themselves to the better judgement of an older, wiser adult. These make children very easy targets to be indoctrinated into religion until they get to that age.

Now at the age of 15, I got involved in some of the activities as part of my school's Interact Club activities - these mainly involved visiting old folks home and also helping the disabled. One of my friends there said to me, "If you like doing things like that, my church also does all kind of charity activities, you don't have to be a Christian, you can come along. We're going to an old folk's home next week, wanna come along?"

Indeed, I went along and we met at his church where this middle aged lady took charge of us - we were a group of about 13-15 year old teenagers and there was a 'briefing'. During this briefing, well, I had to use the inverted commas as she was preaching to us as she knew there were non-Christians amongst us in the group. She quoted liberally but incorrectly from the bible and she tried to match current world events (such as the Iraq War) as evidence of prophesies from the bible coming true. Now even as a 15 year old, I knew she had made some basic factual errors in misquoting the bible - but I didn't have the confidence as a child to challenge her. I thought, "well she's an adult, if I tell her she is wrong, I would come across as disrespectful or rude. Or she might not believe me as I am still only a child." 

With that in mind, I chose to keep quiet despite my concerns with the bullshit this auntie was spouting. Now if that had happened just a few years later, when I was 18 - there was no way I would've kept quiet. I would've stopped her and challenged her on the spot. This is why it is a lot easier to preach to children rather than adults.

2. Children do not understand religion - only adults can.

Religion is complex - Christianity is hard to understand and that's me speaking as someone who has read the bible cover to cover more than once. How is it possible to break that down to children to get them involved in religion? This is what happens: adults pick and choose the parts they like to present a simpler, watered-down version of the religion to their children. That is a dangerous process when they choose to ignore what they dislike and focus on the parts which suit their purpose.

So in fact, children are not learning about Christianity per se, but they are learning a version of Christianity that has been stripped down and reassembled for them by another human being. Until they actually become old enough to start understanding the more complex issues regarding Christian faith, they may claim to have faith, they may claim to believe in Jesus but do they understand what they are buying into?

No, they don't. They are merely being obedient and doing as they're told and this is when it can be extremely scary. You can train children to be obedient and do as they're told - but do they behave a certain way because they are 'programmed' to do so, or do they consciously choose to behave well? Let me give you an example which demonstrates just how little critical thinking goes on in a child's mind.

Now my regular readers will know that I have been involved in gymnastics all my life and part of that is being a judge at gymnastics competitions. This was an incident from the year 2001 - when I was invited to judge at a gymnastics festival for juniors in London. I found myself judging the floor exercise event for 10 year old girls - now let me explain how it works. Every gymnast taking part is taught exactly the same, simple routine and they all perform it for the judge and the winner is the one who performs it the best. Not the most exciting competition to judge but this day was different. First, here's an example of such a routine for this age group.

Now this girl took a wrong turn mid-way through the routine and I thought okay, she forgot the sequence, then the next ten seconds was like watching a little girl get hit by a car - I jumped up from my table and yelled, "STOP!" but she still tumbled right into a wall. That's right. Instead of doing her tumble across the 12 x 12 metre square mat, because she had taken a wrong turn and was facing the wall, she continued to do her tumble into the wall and crashed really hard into the wall. I thought, surely any sensible kid with a bit of common sense would've seen the wall, realized, "ah that's a concrete wall" and turned around rather than tumbled into it. But not this girl.

Her coach and I ran over and even her coach said, "Didn't you see that wall?"
She replied, "Yes but I have to follow the routine."

Okay, for those of you who have children, I sincerely hope they have the common sense to avoid concrete walls and not run, jump or tumble into them. Look, if this girl (who was about ten then) couldn't exercise enough common sense to protect herself in this case, how is someone like that expected to negotiate the more complex issues when it comes to understanding religion? She had been simply programmed to follow instructions without question. Now you could probably get this girl to faithfully go to church every Sunday, memorize chunks of the bible - she is obviously obedient and good at taking instructions - but clearly, she is not capable of any kind of critical thinking or even basic common sense.

Surely, the honourable thing would be to back off and not indoctrinate people like that into religion until they're intellectually able to understand what religion is, rather than take advantage of their simple minds? Do the churches not care if these children actually understand anything at all whilst in church?

3. It is about making an informed decision as an adult.

Let's look at the minimum age for some things we can only do as an adult in Singapore.

Age of consent (ie. for sex): 16
Voting age: 21
Minimum age to get married: 21 (but 18 to 21 year olds can get married with the consent of their parents)
To serve national service: 18
Minimum age to buy alcohol: 18
Minimum age to buy tobacco: 18 (Smoking under the age of 18 is an offence.)
Enter a disco like Zouk: 18

Why are Singaporeans not allowed to smoke or drink alcohol under the age of 18? Or have sex under the age of 16? These are clearly laws to protect children - they are there for good reason. Children should not be indulging in activities for which they are not mature enough to make an informed decision about. If an adult chooses to ignore the health warnings on a cigarette packet and chooses to smoke anyway, fine - that's his choice to make as an informed adult. Likewise for voting and getting married - these are activities again reserved for adults because we expect people to think and function like adults before we trust them to understand the consequences of an election and marriage. Can you trust children to understand the responsibilities of marriage or voting? No, you cannot.

By that token, shouldn't we protect children from aggressive evangelists, at least before they turn 18? I know the Christians may get really angry at this stage and scream at me, "how dare you put Christianity in the same category as tobacco and alcohol, as if it is a bad thing?" Yes, but there is a minimum age for marriage as well - and you Christians go on and on about how important marriage is. If marriage is so good, why don't you let children as young as 10 or 12 get married? No? Because they're not old enough to understand what marriage actually is nor are they ready for it at that age.

This concept isn't really that alien to the Christian church in any case, as there is the age old tradition of confirmation. The rite tends to be seen rather as a mature statement of faith by an already baptised person and it is often only offered to those who have completed a course of bible study - there isn't strictly speaking an exam they need to pass before they are offered this confirmation, but it does mark a deeper, more profound understanding of one's spiritual relationship that can only come with many years of studying theology.

Now let's go back in history to the middle ages when literacy in Europe was low - people then still went to churches regularly and were probably far more Christian than their modern counterparts. However, given most barely read or write, their understanding of the bible was not based so much on what they have studied - but more a mix of tradition, hearsay, folklore and superstition. Yes these people may look extremely ignorant to our modern eyes, but isn't this exactly the kind of understand of religion that children have?

My point is this: we tend not to remain in that child like state. Through a combination of nurturing and education, we are led into adulthood where we have a very different kind of relationship with religion - whereby one either studies it, understands it and embraces it (through confirmation) or studies it, understands it and then rejects it (and becomes an atheist). Either way, I see any kind of childhood religious experience to be rather limited and vapid, compared to what how one approaches religion as an adult.

4. Parents should have a say and be involved in the process.

Now I know that many younger people will probably disagree with me on this - but I still say that as a child, if you are living under your parents' roof, if they are paying for everything and you have no money without them, then tough - they should have a say as to what kind of religious upbringing you have. They may be liberal and allow you to explore religion in any way you desire - that's fine, but that should still be a choice for parents to make.

From the parents' point of view, they bring a child into this world, they spend so much time, energy and effort bringing up the child - of course, they are entitled to have a say in the child's religion and most would want the child to have the same kind of religion as they do. As a child, if you want to adopt a different religion - that's fine, but you should not do so whilst you're living under your parents' roof without their consent.

How would parents feel about their young children being preached to? Even if they are Christian parents, they should have the right to know what kind of religious doctrines are being preached to their young, innocent children. The fact that CHC (and other similar organisations) are engaging with such young students behind their parents' backs is a major cause for concern, even for Christian parents in Singapore for it effectively locks them out of the equation.

Now this was the sermon that has provoked this very angry reaction in Singapore it was delivered by Pastor Tan Seow How from Heart of God Church The main sermon that pastor Tan delivers following his video clip revolves around giving; how important it is for youths to give (money) to the church: "If they do not give as a youth, they will never give as adults."

Yes, quelle surprise, it boils down to money. We are never far away from money - remember why we have been talking about this in the first place: Sun Ho squandered S$24 million on a pathetic pop career in America. Where do you think that kind of money comes from? Now if working adults want to give their money to CHC to support project Crossover, then fair enough, it's their right as informed adults to do whatever they want with their money. They can bet it on the roulette wheel at the casino, they can pamper themselves with luxuries or they can give it to the church: it's their money, their choice.

But hold on a second here, if you're targeting teenage students - they don't work. They have no income of their own, they are completely dependent on their parents for pocket money. So if the church wants a share of their pocket money - well, surely the parents should have a say in the matter for it the parents' hard earned money after all.

Now if the parents are happy to encourage their children to donate part of their pocket money to the church (or to various charities), that's fine - but all that should be done with the parents' consent and not behind their backs. This is Singapore - we don't trust children with money. Even if you want to open your own bank account, you need to be 16 in Singapore to do that. Those under 16 can settle for a junior saver's account where you can enjoy the same privileges of the banking services but your parents get to monitor your finance and set limits.

5. And what happens when the child grows up?

Even if you do get a child to believe what you tell him there will come the day when the child will pick up a ruler, flick the brushes off the window ledge - then what are you going to do then? I have a feeling these churches don't really think about it - that's why people leave the church, disillusioned and disappointed because those who have the audacity to ask difficult questions are often scolded for not having enough faith or not trusting god's plan. But one can only remain silent for that long when one has burning questions to ask - and that's why people leave.

Churches like CHC can respond in two ways. They can do the difficult option, which is go after people like me and try to get me to come back to church. Not easy, given that I have know the bible very well and can quote verse and scripture at you if you don't know your bible well enough, I will take great pleasure in exposing you as a charlatan. No, that's why they are quite happy to leave atheists like me alone and they go for the other option: those who don't ask difficult questions. Children. And heck, even children who do ask difficult questions will not know if you're giving them a bullshit reply because they are too young to know the difference. They are going for the easy target and avoiding the more difficult ones.

But really, are they the only ones doing this?

How very low and devious of these churches to target children like that, when it is clear that it is their money they are after. Or is it? After all, is this anything new? Let me tell you about an experience I had many years ago when I worked a few weeks at this horrible Christmas attraction called Santaland at Earls Court, West London. It was a Santa-theme park and there are many Santa grottos, but on weekends and as we got closer to Christmas, the queues got ridiculously long and we had to entertain the children as they queued up to see Santa in his grotto. Yes I was one of those entertainers who tried to bring cheer to those children (and their parents, who by that time had probably lost the will to live).

One of the things we did was to ask the simple question, "So what are you going to ask Santa for Christmas this year?" And oh boy, those kids would rattle off a long list of expensive toys and gadgets they wanted, as if this big fat jolly old man would magically deliver those gifts on Christmas morning. I would always watch the parents' faces as they listed what toys they wanted and I wondered, "are you going to seriously buy all that for your child? What a nasty, greedy child you have, what a shit parent you must be, you two deserve each other, may you have a rotten Christmas, next!"

I remember walking around the Christmas market and thinking, all this crap is aimed at children. All these toy companies: Mattel, Hasbro, Tomy, Ideal Toy Company, Toy2R, Playmobil etc - they're not targeting the parents (who are the ones buying the toys), no they're targeting the children and a lot of money is spent on advertising specifically targeting children. So the child can just point at the TV screen during the ad break and scream, "Mummy, Daddy, look! I want that one! I want it, I want it!"

Good grief. Really, parents, what do you do when your child does that?

It is big business for these toy companies and they make a lot of money from this market - is it any wonder that the churches look at this business trend and think, "now there's a lucrative market we should get into if we need money for our church funds". So it's okay for Mattel and Hasbro to exploit children but not churches? We are keen to protect the children in our society from so many things - but yet we subject them to all this consumerism which is somehow acceptable, even celebrated as a way to show how much we love our children? Go figure.

There is something very wrong here, indeed, the very same parents who don't want CHC to preach to their children are the same parents who will run out to the store and buy some overpriced plastic crap after their kid watches some ad on TV and screams, "Mummy Daddy, I want that one!" Let's be fair to the churches here - yes they are being mercenary, no doubt about it - but they are a part a product of the society we lie in. Churches are run by humans and it's unrealistic to imagine that god or whatever divine being will intervene to prevent churches from being materialistic, predatory or even committing financial fraud.

Perhaps this will be the much needed wake up call to Christians in Singapore - they are often told that going to church is entering god's house and somehow god is in charge, rather than human beings like you and I. And then they are told to put their faith in god and trust god's will - effectively asking them to close their eyes and not subject the people running the church to any kind of human scrutiny. Well they can only get away with that for so long, even in Singapore. I can't wait for the CHC trial to start.