The Gospel for a Post-Pandemic Singapore

[I wrote this on 25 May 2020 and it was originally published on lazyiroh.wordpress.com ]

I’ve been asked to do some research and thinking on how people would be suffering in a post-COVID Singapore, and how churches can prepare themselves to minister to these suffering people. This post serves as space to organize my initial thoughts on this issue.

1. Loss of Income

There should be a bunch of resources out there about how the gospel speaks to the unemployed or those struggling financially (and I will go curate some of them later), but it’s important to consider the unique flavor of struggling with financial issues in the Singapore context. In Singapore, being poor is often equated to having no dignity (why this is so is interesting but unimportant for our purposes).

Therefore, there is often a felt need to hide one’s financial neediness and to reject help as receiving help can feel deeply humiliating. Heart issues related to shame needs to be ultimately addressed by the gospel, but regardless, much tact and sensitivity needs to be applied when ministering and helping individuals who already feel humiliated and dispossessed due to their poverty.

A perhaps related issue is how some churches are wary to provide financial help, in the desire to be (rightfully) careful about protecting church coffers from unscrupulous individuals and to protect the funding of gospel ministry work. However, the process of means-testing done by churches can also add to the humiliation felt by needy parties, and increases unwillingness to seek or receive help.

Therefore, what can be a important but practical issue for churches is to select and train a diaconate of individuals who are God-fearing, secure in Christ (and not in their ability to do and be “successful” in ministry), have deep compassion and love for others, and with a good practical sense of finance – being able to determine how much a family is suffering by looking at the numbers. One suggestion is that a diaconate should have deacons who come from working-class backgrounds – this allows them to identify and empathize better with the pains of the poor, as well as provide better practical advice on how to live on little resources.

2. Loneliness

Even before the pandemic, there have been some resources on how loneliness is an increasing problem in urban areas, and some of that is worth looking into and curating. Needless to say, when the social distancing and mandated isolation occurs because of the pandemic, loneliness related concerns get ramped up significantly.

(CNA article on ground-up initiatives: https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/cnainsider/mental-well-being-during-covid-19-the-rise-of-intimate-sharing-12755980)

When discussing about loneliness in the Singaporean context, we run into the issue of how heterogeneous our demographics are. Different segments of society cope with (and have the resources to cope with) loneliness differently. Online spaces further segment society into different sub-cultures each with their own social and cultural norms. Despite the heterogeneity, one factor appears to cut through all sectors of society – the deep fear of being judged by others. One source of loneliness is the fear that expressing one’s true thoughts or feelings would invite rejection (and humiliation), and hence people look for the “right space” or the right group of people where they can feel “comfortable” or “at home” (and this leads to the formation of echo chambers). The concept of a “safe space” is sometimes evoked, but in reality there are no truly safe spaces apart from the gospel. Every subculture has their own moral norms, and those who feel inclined to subvert those norms (even for good reasons) will never feel safe. Our sense of safety can only come from the security found in the gospel – that no matter how we mess up in the eyes of humans, we are clothed in the righteousness of Christ and found acceptable in the eyes of God.

From a ministry perspective, there are two fronts – the need to train the church community to be sensitive and loving so that people can feel safe enough to be honest (and this might look very different depending on the profile of who you are serving); and the urgent need to point people to Christ as the only solution to their felt humiliation and shame.

3. Depression and Mental Health

There has been increased awareness of mental health issues both in churches and in society in general before COVID hit, but many would still argue that Singapore lags behind significantly in our understanding of and ability to help those who struggle with mental health issues. It is completely predictable that increased social isolation would result in a rise of mental health issues, both due to the lack of positive social interaction, and also due to being forced to live in close quarters with people who function as stressors or triggers. One meme showed that 2 groups of professionals would benefit financially after the circuit breaker is over (due to their increase in clients) – psychiatrists and divorce lawyers.

From a ministry perspective, mental health issues is tricky because our theology affects our understanding of mental health, and thus affects our approach to ministering to people. An additional wrinkle is that most mental health resources out there (Christian or secular) is cultivated from very western societies and their norms and paradigms. Is an emotionally healthy person in America the same as an emotionally healthy person in Singapore? If the answer is no, then is emotional health a social construct? Difficult questions, perhaps. Perhaps what would be most beneficial to ministers is to re-language psychological concepts into biblical ones. What does the bible say about suffering? What does the bible say about hopelessness and despair? What does the bible say about listlessness and lack of motivation?

From a practical ministry perspective, churches should be ready to invest resources into counselling ministry, and perhaps think harder about how the greater church community can be a platform for healing (or even reconciliation) for suffering individuals.

4. Social Class Divide

This is a tricky topic, and is the kind of topic which the Singaporean church likes to avoid talking about. But we should talk about it for at least two reasons. The first reason is that the rich vs poor tension will appear within your churches, and can seriously harm the sheep if not addressed. (On the flip side, your church community can be a powerful witness if the rich and the poor love each other in a way which is difficult to fathom outside of the church.) The second reason is that passions and desires to address the problems and pain brought about by societal divide can explode into a full-blown worldview which opposes the Christian worldview (or worse, infiltrate into the church in a syncretistic way). This has already happened in countries elsewhere.

What does this mean for ministry though? Before any action is taken, there may be a need for some serious soul searching to be done, and to ask if the church has inadvertently sidelined certain segments of your sheep population (e.g. the poor, racial minorities, lower education levels, etc.) and how it can do a better job of showing the equality of dignity of all individuals who are equally valued by Christ. Any kind of doctrinal teaching will only smell like hypocrisy if these people are suffering among your congregation.

But there is indeed much teaching to be done, from the pulpit or otherwise. Primarily, there is a need to point people to Jesus as the ultimate savior, and not man-made solutions to societal problems. But there is also a need to teach people that societal and cultural stigmatizations do exist, and Jesus wants the gospel to be able to cross those barriers. There is also a need to show how easily our hearts are deceived into thinking our our prejudices and discriminatory attitudes are justifiable, but again the only one which can clean our hearts is a holy devotion to Christ, not allegiance to man-made ideologies. There is much to be unpacked here further, and the nuts and bolts can get tricky. But the broad principles are there – because Jesus loves us, we can love others. Sin in our hearts will prevent us from doing that sometimes – which is why we need to pursue holiness.

5. Strife and Conflict (both online and offline)

In some sense this is the oldest problem of mankind, and there is no lack of resources or pastoral wisdom on this issue. But Singapore-style conflict, especially that online has a few traits which ministers should do well to take note. Firstly (as is the same as many issues above), much of the heart issues involved has got to do with shame and rejection – the need to feel validated and affirmed for being right. This is why people feel the need to put in much effort to prove one’s correct-ness, often escalating an already heated situation. Again, the only solution is the gospel, and how being in Christ (and elevated with Christ and glorified with Christ) means our shame has been covered, and there is no more need to “prove” ourselves. This also needs to work out practically in a church community which embraces and loves people whole-heartedly and unconditionally.

Second, conflict is also a result of a particular worldview which has permeated throughout much of Singaporean society – that there is only one correct answer (or correct perspective) to all problems, this “correct” answer will usually appear obvious when it has been discovered or revealed, and only “stupid” people would disagree with such an obviously correct answer. This worldview is deeply flawed for several reasons, but most problematically, people who subscribe to such a worldview may deny the concept of a “worldview” itself – often they feel that objective information is possible, epistemically accessible, and that they have already obtained it, therefore cementing their own status as epistemic authorities. From an sociological perspective it may fascinating how much of Singapore society believes in this, but for our purposes, it is more important as ministers to teach and provide an alternative worldview for our congregations and show how they ought to treat people they disagree with (flowing out from a Christian worldview).

6. Meaning in Life and Existential Anxiety

One assumes this is primarily about how the church can provide answers to those who are seeking outside the church – but realistically speaking, much of our own congregations probably have their lives shaken up because idols (which they did not know they were worshiping) were suddenly taken away from them. Many of them would find a loss of meaning in their lives – “I thought I had lived for this purpose, but now that has been taken away from me, so I don’t see the point of doing anything anymore.” Sometimes its more “surviving is so difficult now, I don’t see the point in putting in so much more effort”.While yes this is also a mental health issue, one of the biggest value propositions of the Christian faith (more often recognized by non-Christians than by believers) is that our faith provides us with a worldview that leaves no room for existential angst or anxiety. What is perhaps harder is showing how the gospel does that, and then making the gospel real in our hearts (which admittedly can only be done with the work of the Holy Spirit).

From a ministry perspective, churches need to articulate how gospel truths work out in terms of concepts such as meaning and purpose in life. If the chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever – unpack this in concrete terms for our congregation (and for non-Christians) to see. Show how the gospel changes the desires in our hearts to WANT to glorify God, and show how unceasing satisfaction can come from enjoying an eternal, infinite God (as opposed to whatever temporal and finite goods there is to enjoy on Earth). This also naturally extends into teaching on pursuing holiness, and making Godly priorities in life.

7. Societal Underbelly - Migrant Workers and Others?

This is the part which I am most undecided about and need the most research. One one hand, this feels like an extension of the “social class divide” issue above. But on another hand, some parts of society are so segmented and hidden away that we probably have zero representation of them in our churches, and close to zero accessibility into their lives. Migrant workers for sure, but also foreign domestic helpers, sex workers, the disabled, and who knows what other people groups I’m unaware of. The COVID explosion among the migrant worker population has brought them much public awareness (including awareness of Singaporean attitudes towards them), but there are likely suffering people groups that elude such awareness.

I personally think there are more complex issues to think about here – for example, there is probably a need to talk about issues related to power relations when it comes to domestic helpers, And then there are trickier issues related to politics and national economic policy when it comes to migrant workers. At this point, it appears difficult to answer the question, what is the role of the church (if any) in helping to address some of suffering of people in this category, and also the related question: how then should we teach our congregation? As the plight of migrant workers get highlighted, it seems unlikely that the answer is to teach nothing. More research and thinking required.