I have an explainer for these people. They are scripture literalists who believe (1) the end times are coming (2) numbers and fengshui shit (Chinese characters like 十、林 or anything like a cross means Jesus was around way back in China.. lol not kidding) https://twitter.com/benmatchap/status/1286524431292968960
(3) the end times are coming (4) hurricanes and pandemics are signs of God’s wrath for homosexuality
(5) Christians are the new chosen people (6) the other Abrahamic faith is ok but not the other other one

I grew up among people like that. I am still paying $$$ in therapy to erase this shit. But I will fight them whenever they try to do this stuff.
More importantly they believe that their relative class & economic privilege is a sign of God’s favor (lol). Many academic papers have been written about the Singapore Chinese middle class converting for economic and class privilege.
They also believe that it’s their divine duty to infiltrate the world of business and government and even entertainment so they can surreptitiously convert infidels. Look up the Seven Cultural Mountains concept. They truly believe that BS.
The end times are here and we are living in the less important version of the world, so we don’t have to care about the environment or whatever because Heaven is just around the corner. If this world is not real for you why don’t you leave us alone and why do gays bother you
Here’s a Christian View of that type of doctrine: https://www.gotquestions.org/Joels-Army.html 

Also look up blogs like C3 Church Watch, anything that plays Hillsongs is linked to those people.
This is also why Chinese Christians in power in Singapore should give you pause. This is truly what they believe. https://www.gotquestions.org/Christian-dominionism.html
Any criticism of them is simply spiritual warfare. So don’t worry, J*ann* Theng doesn’t care about your snarky remarks. She’s praying it all away.
In fact, searching for ‘Chinese characters Jesus’ brings up.. a Singapore Chinese Christian’s zany blog post about this. I knew I wasn’t hallucinating http://www.316-church.com/jesus-love-in-chinese-characters/
There’s also a lot of pressure for women in those churches to give birth without anesthesia and to loudly praise the lord for giving them painless births. They truly believe they’ve all had that.
In the mid and late 90s there was a techno-paranoid fringe of the church in Singapore that believed in zany things like Muslims got oil instead of God’s love (!!) and that we would all be microchipped with the sign of the devil by the year 20xx
In many of our GLCs there are bible study or prayer groups you can join. It’s a shortcut to career advancement since those groups are led typically by well-established org leaders.
This sort of thing leads to situations that sometimes go awry like DBS sponsoring homophobic events because their then senior leaders all went to the same homophobic church. The one that used to hang a banner you could see from a Queenstown MRT: GAY BUT NOT HAPPY??
I could write a whole book about fringe Christian beliefs in Singapore. I also had several Mormons in my class.. and Seventh Day Adventists. Maybe I was just more tuned in to this because I’ve been generally interested in Christian movements and their political intersections
I also know A LOT about Scientology! But that’s another story for another day and another country..
We should pay more attention to Singapore Christianity now that one of its pastors is one of the Top Ten Pastors in the World (incl the US) and he is so awful he would make Joel Osteen shy.
Other than the Christian homophobes in my extended family I’ve largely been lucky to have led a life away from this toxicity. The last time I met one of these people she said ‘can I pray for you’ and ‘do you have a crush on me’ so they seem.. to not know anything.
I once dated a Christian boy (!!) and I recently found his secret blog where he talks about how I.. led him into sin. Now that he also lives in San Francisco and also does the same type of work as me, I would love to meet him again
One day I will write about my brief heterosexual years of confusion. How they were far more storied than any of my gay stories
Anyway before I got distracted by tales of my scandalous dirty heterosexuality (I’m ex-straight??) I was talking about the church in Singapore. There isn’t one church as such. Mainline churches are very different; all of this prefers to the loose group of proto-Pentocostal folks
Charismatic / revivalist / Pentecostal. They don’t care really about theology because they’re self assured that they are absolutely correct.
The majority of these self styled church leaders in Singapore have very loose theological training. Many of them went to the Bible school equivalents of a degree mill
Increasingly I’ve also seen some non-church churchists come into Singapore who have even more extreme views. Most of them are American pastors based in places like the Philippines. They preach a Christian version of.. QAnon stuff.
My theory is that they’re largely aware that popular opinion has turned against their overt overtures in public life. I doubt we will see clumsy things like the AWARE hijacking in this decade. Instead, things like (TrueLove dot IS) and this influencer video is their future
The danger, I think, lies in how many secular Chinese Singaporeans in positions of authority will see these incursions info secular life by a Chinese Christians as Not A Terrible Thing. Coz it doesn’t affect them, and has the trappings of things they like (money, power)
I don’t believe they will let up, and that they will continue to see this as a cultural war to wage and win. The only difference is they’re going to be more low key about it and they’re going to keep their actual views and deeds among their inner circles.
Anecdotally I know that things have gotten worse for LGBTQ+ people back home. Where we once felt there was a brief glimmer of hope, now there is.. none? The Christian anti queer band marches on. As someone with one foot in that world, I believe they are getting more powerful.
We also need to take a hard look at the impact of Chinese Christians in our healthcare system. If our doctors are trying to convert us (so many stories), not helping with reproductive health, not being open to queer people, what good are they for?
Anyway as a country I think we are up for a national conversation around our weird ideas around race and religion. I don’t know how this government that can barely talk about racial things other than how great they’re doing at it..
Can actually see how their CMIO policy that emphasizes numerical and cultural supremacy of the ethnic Chinese population is going to be in for a world of hurt when they realize that..
That population can no longer be reliably Confucian and whatever. The fabric of Chinese Singapore is changing: English-speaking well-educated Singaporeans are in charge, and they’re all.. in some kind of weird brain cult.
When I was 11 I went to a certain church along Bukit Timah and endured a three hour production of a play called Heavens Gate and Hell’s Flames. I think that was my first indicator that Dominionisr Christianity was going to be big in Singapore.
Because people watched 3 hours of a play that told them they were going to burn in hell if they weren’t the right type of Christian. And they all fell to the ground and convulsed and converted. True story.
As a child I went to (several) mission schools. The correct answers to who is the great man who ever lived were (a) Jesus Christ (b) Lee Kuan Yew
Harry Potter was banned because it was Satanic. As was Baby G watches (?!) and Cabbage Patch Kids dolls. Hahahaha
At the time (this was the 90s), I don’t think Singapore had caught on to some of the extreme Christian strains. I remember receiving anti-Muslim zines (Jack Chick tracts) as a child and being horrified. Eventually they were banned
I know that this religion and community brings comfort to a great many people. Including people in my family. But I wish they also acknowledged the net negative impact their brand of Christianity has on queer people, secularism and on the world at large.
I left the church not because of my sexuality (I had long reconciled with it, and I have had some basic theological grounding.. I was NOT conflicted). I left because my church was mobilizing to support unjust wars in the Middle East. Because, Muslims
That pastor has gone on to become a global charismatic Christian superstar. He has received many awards for his services to.. Zionism (legit awards with that word in the name). He mobilized tens of thousands of people to support
Apartheid in a faraway country, even going to the extent of collecting money for it.
At that point I realized that this brand of Christianity was about perpetuating toxic world views across the political spectrum, while propping up its beliefs as untouchably holy. It felt, often, like they believed in an impending holy war.
I also think that journalistic stories need to be written about certain churches in Singapore who have brought their members to financial ruin because MLM schemes are rife. Who can forget ‘I sold my house to fund Sun Ho’s geisha singing career’ testimonies
Now we have Christian cinemas (apparently run by the parents who produced the vile person who produced said video), an increase in home schooling (coz need to protect their children from evil), and radical religious publishing houses and influencers
I’m so sensitive to this community I can guess, when I read a Carousell or FB or hear somebody speak on IG Live, with some precision, that they belong to this type of church! Some signs: “blessings” “give away for blessing” “PTL” (praise the lord)
Civil society needs to keep an eye on the types of vendors that bid to provide courses in sex education, traditionally step one in a complete takeover attempt. Look up the history of Liberty League, if you weren’t totally online last decade
As recently as 2004, an anti-trans conversion therapy group received public funding to work in schools. To me, conversion therapy at the time was limited to nutjobs like COOS and Cornerstone. That was its public coming out.
If you are a queer Christian as well, know that you are not alone. I found community before I left Singapore at Free Community. There are also plenty of resources online. Don’t let people like that convince you you’re broken. They don’t know anything other than hatred. /the end
(I tweet all this, as I advise my family members on how to set up praise and wornsip on Zoom)
You can follow @skinnylatte.
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