Turning the other cheek

NO aspect of Christian faith warms my heart more than knowing God is my Father. Whether I am in joy, sorrow, tears, laugher or fear, when I come to my Father in prayers or at worship services with the utterance of My God, there is always a warm feeling that passes through my body.

It is an inexpressible joy to know I have a God who loves me and listens to my every prayer.

I believe the same hope and faith is found in every Christian who calls out to God, whether they call Him God, Abba, Lord or Allah.

The Christian Federation of Malaysia said 60 per cent of the approximately 2.6 million Christians in the country use the word Allah to refer to God.

This means with the ruling of the Court of Appeal, about 1.6 million Christians in the country, made up mostly of indigenous people from Sarawak and Sabah, will have to call out to their Father in heaven in a different way -- whether in prayers, praises, worship or reading their Bible and Christian literature.

It also means those natives who have used Bahasa Malaysia in their worship in addition to their native tongue and who, for calling their God Allah, are turned instantly into law breakers without breaking any laws in the very land where they are the sons of soil.

It has deeper implication - that our rights as citizens to freedom of worship have been curtailed by the verdict of the Court of Appeal.

What will the impact be on inter-faith relations? Will they become more tense, noting the ever stronger reactions from Sarawak and Sabah even with the Prime Minister breaking his silence to assure these two East Malaysian states are allowed to continue using Allah.

The “righteous anger” was communicated by the people of the two states, starting from the Most Revd Datuk Bolly Lapok, the Anglican Archbishop for the Province of Southeast Asia and the Bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Kuching, to politicians, lawyers and ordinary citizens.

Allah is a generic term used by Bumiputra Christians in their personal and public prayers, worship, preaching and everyday life. Without it, our Bahasa Malaysia speaking Christians cannot even pray properly.

My colleague, a senior journalist and a former priest who has travelled far and wide, said: “I come to understand that many Arab countries and others, es-pecially Malta which is known for its early record of being Christianised by St Paul in early days of Christianity -- are using Allah to call God. This historical fact strengthens the wide claim that the use of Allah in Christianity predates Islam.”

It is a traumatic experience to be called “criminals” or “law breakers” for using Allah in order not to confuse other people using the same word. It has never been an issue for many generations, much less the cause of any social or national security problems both inside and outside Malaysia.

According to the National Evangelical Christian Fellowship (NECF), in the states of Sarawak and Sabah where Allah is most widely used by BM-speaking Christians who outnumber the Christians in peninsular Malaysia, JAKIM statistics show between 1990 and 2001,11,818 Sabahans and 9,603 Sarawa-kians converted to Islam. This means these two states have the highest number of Muslim converts by far than any of the other states in Malaysia.

COA ruling is a slap on our right cheek! How does one strike another on the right cheek? A blow by the right fist in this predominantly right-handed world would land on the left cheek.

Striking the right cheek with the right hand is only possible when the back of the hand – or using the left hand, which, incidentally, was an insult in Jewish society of yore.

We are familiar with the biblical teaching of “turning the other cheek.” The person who turns the other cheek is, in essence, saying: “Try again, your first blow failed to achieve its intended effect. I deny you the power to humiliate me and demean me.”

Christians should insist on integrity, justice and the pursuit of the values of their teaching of non-violence by turning the other cheek which is non-violent and resistant, cheeky and openly subversive to injustices.

We can be non-violent and still act and speak in ways that resist and undermine falsehood and unjust power.

And that, I believe, is a good part of what Jesus is after in this “turn your other cheek.”

The measured statement of Bishop Bolly who was a member of the team at the inter-faith dialogue between the worldwide Anglican Communion and Al Azhar University in Cairo, reflected that inter-faith courtesy and integrity that transcend local politics.

In fact, many of our leaders -- whether from the ruling government or the opposition -- have largely main-tained their equanimity and sensibility over an extremely contentious issue in the past week by “tur-ning the other cheek.”

For one, The Borneo Post also brought our Senior Minister Tan Sri James Masing, a Christian minister, to the in-ternational scene. He was quoted in Los Angeles Times as saying he was saddened by the ruling and warned the Malaysian government “must not politicise religion.”

Later, Masing also said for him, the assurance by the federal cabinet that Sarawak and Sabah can use Allah in their worship and text but not peninsular Malaysia is not satisfactory.

“It means one nation with two religious definitions,” he pointed out.

Batu Lintang assemblyman See Chee How has also “turned the other cheek” on the ruling and further asked whether Sarawakians could turn a blind eye to the injustice and prejudice suffered by their fellow countrymen and women living in Peninsular Malaysia, considering “they are no lesser Christians than everybody else.”

See said Sarawakians, in sharing the same destiny as all the citizens in the peninsula and Sabah, should speak up on this injustice, and leverage on the state's position as the kingmaker in the country to stop the prejudice against Christians in Malaysia.

“We should all stand together with our Christian brothers and sisters in Peninsular Malaysia so that the ban on the word Allah in The Herald can come to an end soon with the federal court making a decision.”

By turning the other cheek, we are pressing on to the power who had slapped our right cheek that religious bigotry, racism and extremism should not be perpetuated and allowed to fester and poison our nation.

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