bribery and corruption

Asked what I had learnt from/of Singapore thus far and I begged to suspend judgement a little longer. But in that vein, I had meant to blog as soon as it happened: 'Bribery and Corruption in Asia' a lecture by Hwa Yung based on his book of the same title. It may perhaps give a window on life here, and on that subtle border relationship, here as a Malaysian perspective on a Malaysian concern was presented to a Singapore audience.

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As introduction the motives for the book at this time were these:
1. Malaysia's notable slide downhill from transparency over the last 25 years
2. His personal experiences of extortion
3. The pastoral dilemma of preaching against corruption while remaining sympathetic to a congregation trapped and intimidated by forces of systemic corruption.

The issue is the issue of praxis before a watching world, of in-ness and not of-ness etc. HY appealed to 'Incarnational Model' of Webber's Secular Saint. This is a model which is both-and-and of the following three, which all find biblical precedent and which find their coincidence in Christ:
1. As aliens and exiles and Anabaptists we withdraw to a pre-constantinium state of outside.
2. As Daniel and Joseph, we identify with the State, and present ourselves to the tensions and contradictions of Anglicans and Lutherans.
3. As transforming salt and light, neither withdrawing nor accommodating.

So, these three find themselves in Christ's incarnational combining of 1. separation from Rome, the Pharisees and idolatry, 2. his identifying with the world and 3. his transforming of life by death through resurrection.

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From an outline model for engagement he then offered principles.
1. Avoid active pursuit of bribery, don't extort.
2. Avoid passive acceptance of bribery, don't encourage extortion
~ although, of 6 references to bribery in Proverbs the sum is ambiguous (uncited but conceivably these: 15:27 condemns, vs 17:8, 19:6, 18:16, 21:14 condone)
~ also, Jesus, in rendering unto Caesar, was complying with a famously corrupt tax system.
3. Look to 'identify' only so far as needed for transformation.
4. Different Christians will draw the line a different point, don't judge.
5. Never lose sight of salt and light.

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The lecture then moved from a vague, broad introduction for social engagement as a concept, to the stark question, "Is transformation possible? And is transformation possible for Malaysia?" A response to this leant on three precedents.

Firstly Singapore, famously uncorrupt, but it seemed to go without saying that the circumstances by which Singapore is able to achieve this are exceptional, it is possible to subject a wealthy 30x20mile island to a level of surveillance unthinkable at the scale of Malaysia.

Then was mentioned the revival in Sarawak in the 1970s, at which time the police complained of having no work, this was mentioned so briefly I don't know what cause or consequence this apparently brief move of the Spirit has had, nor what specifically should be applied from this precedent. (And I can find fairly little further about it but ~ ref ref )

Then and most significantly the lecture dwelt on the Wesleyan revival in Britain in the late 18th -19th century, a popular golden era for apologists of Christian social activism. The various actions by Wesley, Wilberforce, the Clapham sect, the Oxford Movement, Bentham's Utilitarians are credited with avoiding a French revolution in England, a claim that lectures like this would do well to offer some, if only a soundbite, of critical substantiation.

Some sources were helpfully offered, including the magnificent : “Between 1780 and 1850 the English ceased to be one of the most aggressive, brutal, rowdy, outspoken, riotous, cruel and blood-thristy nations in the world and became one of the most inhibited, polite, orderly, tender-minded, prudish and hypocritical.” from Harold Perkins' Modern English Society.

Also cited was Wraith & Simkins' Corruption in Developing Countries, who highlight the undeniable religious force behind the change in Britain at this time and the fruit of uncorruption it bore. They talk about a change in the underlying value system which education and government policy had been ineffectual to make.

HY derives certain applications from observing this sustained, socially and economically influential revival:
- Theirs was not so much a direct assault on government level corruption but rather a long-term, small-step shifting of values beneath the surface of public life.
- They had an emphasis in preaching on thrift and integrity.
- Their vision was effected significantly through small groups, and in those an emphasis on a growth in holiness (this as opposed to the popular contemporary small group model which place an emphasis on numerical growth)

He drew these various Wesley threads together with Bailey (Kenneth D. ?) who has demonstrated that the quality of a society can be changed by a group as small as 2%.

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The format of the presentation made space for two brief formal responses from L.T. Jeyachandran and (?sp) Poh King before audience questions were fielded by all three .

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LT
- Look at Daniel, Nehemiah and Esther for models of representing God in a subversive way - There is a social dimension to the task of representing God.
~ Daniel was neither corrupt nor negligent - Daniel was honest and competent.
~ If you are being pushed around in a corrupt environment, ask if you are competent. The world and christians are too often honest+incompetent or dishonest+competent. If you are competent, society will put up with your honesty.

- A solid theology is needed, one for all of life. Too many pastors know how to die but not how to live, having been converted by the evangelist who asks, “If you were to die tonight...” Unfortunately, on account of the statistical improbability, very few of them actually did.
~ This theology does not run from Gen3 to Rev20, it also includes a theology of Creation and a theology of New Creation, and all of the tension of the now and the not yet.

- Your job is your calling. Using 'calling' for so-called Christian work is a heresy.
~ Even engineers have a biblical precedent, in Heb11v10, a city with foundations, God is our great public-works department engineer.

- 'Bribery' – we need to choose our words carefully. When oppressed by violence it would be useful to clarify that as 'extortion' – conscious that the this may be the thin end of the wedge, but a distinction which makes space for the level of force applied is helpful.

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PK
- Acknowledge our fallen proclivity to rationalise, exaggerate, and self-justify: “..If I don't pay my family will go hungry..” ~ Know that you can decieve yourself and convince yourself to believe anything.
- Be challenged not to simply take the easy way out. Prepare for this.
- Don't walk alone, neither out of fear nor out of pride. We should be accountable, gather for difficult conversations with like-minded business professionals who will challenge us on our motives.

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Q&A - Summary

How far should we go?
- Build your business in such a way that you are never dependent on a single deal that could hold you to ransom and force you to compromise.

To what extent was the wealth of industrialisation the source of 18th century change in English morality? (And Singapore's?)
- Those who most readily heard Wesley and Whitfield were the artisans not profitting from industrialisation.
- Revival shaped industrialisation, trade unions were church-derived structures, often held in churches and accompanied by hymn singing.
- Ref. Vishal Mungalwadi's India the Grand Experiment: Foundations of Independence. Trevillion: “Responsibility of the ruler is the welfare of the ruled” - This is not the out-working of market force, there is a moral imperative at work apart from wealth.
- Education and economy cannot uplift a society from corruption because morality is a relational concept which cannot come about as a result of impersonal forces.
- (Briefly and tangentially, because LT can..) That India and China did not come to modern science on their own is because of the intimate link to a Biblical view of reality that modern science is predicated on.

What attitude to places without the structures of Singapore?
- It is important to establish that the uncorruption of Singapore is not virtue. Virtue is a function of freedom – so infact morality in Singapore is infact conformity. Christianity however, gives you the strength to live virtuously. Creativity an chaos are two sides of freedom, restrict one, you necessarily restrict the other.

how should we then wear?

"I wondered if you came across in your time at L'abri anyone exploring Christianity and fashion? ...fashion is art and what we wear functions as a work of art ... it relates back to your question about what place physical beauty has. Any further thoughts on that? The industry as a whole clearly has a lot of faults - but stripping that away do you think there is anything biblical there?" (Also see http://www.modelsforchrist.com/)

There weren't any explicitly in the fashion industry this term at L'Abri, there were photographers and related artists, and generally fashionable people.. Artisan Initiatives at St Mary’s tends to have a gaggle of fashion industry types and they link to MFC in their publication, I haven’t followed it before.

Slowly I am preparing for the blog my thoughts on Christians, Craft and Image, and trying to take in idolatry and the environment all in one, it is a convoluted piece. So for fashion, just as with architecture, we cannot say a piece of clothing is inherently wrong, God made us creative, we are fallen, everything is a mixed bag.

However, I do think some fashion is virtually irredeemable, though I feel that about some architectures, and it is possibly an unhealthy black and white approach. But some systems of deceit and illusion, of slavery and production, of shallowness and addiction, leave in their wake such a slew of victims and offer such fleeting happiness to the consumer as to demand that Christians demonstrate that a more joyful way of clothing oneself is possible, even if that means making them yourself, Gandhi did, Shane Claiborne does..

But calling things ‘bad’ is relatively easy compared with affirming the ‘good’, where in post-structuralist, hyper-environmentalist architecture school ‘beauty’ is considered unnecessary or arbitrary or even damaging. There is a borderline pharasaical legalism around ornament, tradition and story. It is spilt perfume all over again.

Doing and wearing fashion as an expression of something within a language that is both meaningful and redemptive is so hard in a context where we often do not share signifiers (a guy wears a rainbow t-shirt to denote peace in one community, which means something else in another language community), and where we do not have sufficient information, indeed there are vested (pun intended meh) interests by companies in keeping us from knowing the means of production (so ‘fairtrade’ ‘sweatshop-free’ ‘green’ become sloganised and make a mockery of our petty morals).

It is difficult, the fashionable Christians too quickly pull the, God-made-me-creative-to-express-who-I-am-Stop-with-your-Puritanism, the less fashionable Christians too quickly assume some bizarre moral high ground, based on flawed theology that is anti-the-physical-body.. This is the same conversation as Christians and food, Christians and architecture etc, and my stock response leans heavily on a return to locality, to community, and to traditional creativity, which requires that I for the sake of argument eschew many of the fruits of a hyper-specialised, technology-enabled modern life; this is a noble hope, but is not an adequate compromise and comes with its own list of theological short-comings…

The efficiency of a machine age has been used a trumph card justify all means of production, to supply all confected 'needs'. When that which formerly was a legible meaningful expression, or 'art' as you have called it, becomes a fashion 'industry,' clothes become consumer goods, their meaning becomes impoverished and there comes a disconnect between producer and consumer, the gifts of nature - cottons, leathers etc - and the joy of using them, the creator and the creature. Out of this we struggle to live in meaningful gratitude, which almost inevitably reduces the entire transaction to the sum of its vices. Vitally the role of christians should be affirming relevent art and craft at every level, shifting people's default state from consuming to creating. The fashion born out of vanity, insecurity and bare greed is easy to throw stones at, a braver move is to consider the process of production and the language of decoration and how we can integrate these in contemporary life, in redemptive and joyful ways. Catherine knitted a pair of socks for Anna in the last week of term, it was a deep joy just to watch, as were all the hats knitted, songs written and pictures painted, the socks just seemed more fiddly. This sort of physical work should be a spiritual discipline, this sort of personal expression constitutes the sort of truly Good Work that we would do without being paid, it is redeemed work. And so for the joy set before us... I have not yet seen a theology defending the 'art' of shopping, it is not inherently wrong, but it is opted for on the basis of expediency, consuming rather than creating is complicit in fracturing community and cheapening the value of work and people.

There is another area to be explored, that of festivity, of parades and carnivals as sabbath time and their associated attire, playful wear and colourful story, and ways in which this should trickle down to the every day, if we only did not consider ourselves too sophisticated to play like that in any but an ironic fashion.

Here I am again filling cyberspace with unfootnoted opinion, tenuously strung together argument, self-evident truths mixed polemically with spurious conjecture.. and no Bible.. The question we're asking is How Should We Then Wear? And I would point people chiefly to AF's lecture on "Intentional Community as a Subversion of Modernity" and CSL's essay on "Good Work".

Image: sxc.hu

doughtnuts

http://bloggingjames.blogspot.com/2008/03/for-love-of-god.html

Jim Jams.. I would say, “Ah doughnuts.. you and I have too much time on our hands.” But we don't. When we stand before God, tonight perhaps, and he demands of us, how did you spend those precious hours I gifted to you, when you were in the heart of emerging student culture, in deep community, with people who don't truly know life or love on your doorstep, in your house.. How did you spend it. Bickering and bitching about doughnuts? Is this the plank in our eye. Are we simply not captivated by Christ.. !! - http://jasonclark.ws/2006/01/27/is_ranting_chri/

I'll blog this one out, inconclusively perhaps.. I am increasingly convicted of a need to curb my cynicism, and to post a lot more love joy and peace. pray. for. me.

“Handing out a doughnut with a casual “because God loves you” is profoundly ungodly.”
Steady on. On a scale of one to ungodly, this one surely is some way down the list..

"Have we taken the word love, interpreted it through the paradigm of our world experience and applied it to God?"

Yes we have a limited experience of love, yes we interpret, and by these interpretations we begin to understand God.. Perhaps if they were to assert, God is the doughnut giving God. Or that doughnuts were the substance and limit of the Love which is God, one might assume this.

"Have we thus not allowed God to interpret his own word?"
What does that mean? For the author to interpret his own word, is a hermeneutical loop. It is not so much the word we are concerned with, nor even the quotable verses describing love is patient etc, as we are concerned for the substance which it represents, which has been demonstrated in history objectively uniquely perfectly in Christ, in his LIFE and death and resurrection?

“If we truly want to share God’s love with people then we should tell them how God loves.”
This is the conservative sound bite, the emphasis on the preach, and I hold preaching in higher and higher esteem as I drift back into Piper. But lets not abstractise or intellectualise the love of God. Cor13v1 you can quote the whole bible at them, but if you have not love.. if there is not love, demonstrably active in you... How are we splitting doing love, from speaking of love. I'm baffled, I presume we are discussing Trent as the purveyors of this doughnut gospel, and within my experience of what passes for doctrine there, doughnuts are not preached as the limit and substance of God's love.

How does God love? God loves through creation, God loves through provision, God loves through Christ, God loves through people.. God loves us as children, cherished and precious, the apple of his eye, all of that. Christ's death is the clearest, most vivid, picture of God's love, the climax of a divinely orchestrated plan. This is the point that must be told of, BUT it is surely not the only way God loves?

Love is God's being, Love is done, Love is given, Love is received.. God is in Trinity that he might be Love, Lover and Loved. Christ became man, he did life on earth, he did love on earth he showed and taught us how do living. He died for our sin. That we too might do dying to ourselves and be raised in him. These are all things done, more than heard and assented to.
(Also note: people need to hear the specific story of Jesus, the 'gospel' message and by hearing that believe and by believing in him truly have life and a saving relationship with the father... this is not to the exclusion of that, I am defending people's right to give out doughnuts and tell people God loves them as a legitimate form of christian service in a hurting world)
..He *does* love

There is a God. He loves people. We love because he loved first. People don't know God loves them, or they deny it.. They need to know God loves them. To 'know'.. two great passages Eph 3v19 “and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge” surpasses knowledge! what does that even mean? Then in Phil1v9 is “and it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment” Rob Bell drew out of this in his current series on Philippians, that the knowledge in play here is epignosis (?sp) which is not knowledge about, but knowledge gained from participation, knowledge through experience, from having lived it, not so much by having studied all the books on it.. That whole sermon Rob Bell pushes really really knowing that we might really tell and really do.
...the world needs to know love

We live in a visual culture, and there is a need for visual metaphors that speak of God's character but even further than that Art and Soul, (Brand and Chaplin 2001) and The Creative Gift (Rookmaaker 1981) I just finished reading both speak of the need for for art, images, art without justification, art simply to be beautiful, without agenda. In a culture that has forgotten what it means to share its stuff. This is prophetic performance art..

“love” as a word and concept..
Love.. this is a word relating to a concept and within this culture, that is post-christian, formerly 'christian' notions take on entirely other connotations. So words come in and out of meaning, sometimes they may need to be retired, sometimes refreshed. Language enables. In cross cultural mission, languages exist without words for grace, or sin, and so need to be invented.. id' appeal here to anyone who knows how this happens is done, as we need it in this culture. Jesus speaks in pictures in part for this reason. Perhaps this word needs to be re-worked into our vocabulary.. one which in a fatherless generation.. in so broken a generation needs to be started wherever we can. Love is patient, love is kind, love is ..there is a place for random acts of kindness, which begin to paint a picture for our generation of what the dying sacrificial love looks like (this may or may not apply to doughnuts).

I object to the notion that to give out doughnuts, and to give out doughnuts because god loves them is wrong. Wrong in and of itself? By virtue of the jammyness of the doughnuts and the jauntiness of the 'because god loves you'? No, I believe however that the conditions motivations and resources exercised in giving away doughnuts might be called into question. You might rightly say that doughnuts are not needs.. and would be probably right.

“People are going to love you for a doughnut, people are going to persecute you for telling them the gospel, the Bible assures us of that.”
As if we are to go out of our way to seek persecution..? Here I would question not so much the doughnuts and whether they speak of love, but the approach that lead to this rather than some more dangerous demonstration of love, more costly or sacrificial love.

(Although you could say that the people here giving out doughnut ARE being persecuted by your good, well-intentioned self..)

The sort of persecution I would expect would be from doughnut manufacturers, where, when the kingdom of heaven breaks in, and not just a couple of people are sharing their doughnuts, but everyone is making and sharing the doughnuts they have, at such a scale that it turns the economic systems, which make the doughnut manufacturers rich, upside down. Then you get persecution, then you challenge prevailing world assumptions.. This message is a gospel, this message is good news to the poor and the doughnutless.

Matthew 5:10-12 : "Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness...

- There is the problem with models of evangelism that they are a model. You can attack any model, simply for being a model, because a 'model' is not spirit led and compassion driven, its dry.. you. give. out. doughnuts. If a model becomes a rote.. a formula.. then legalism and cheap grace set in.
- There is also the notion of going without “a purse or bag or sandals” into evangelism, when Jesus send out the 72, and here there would be an element of trying to buy favour with people in order to evangelise.. but are these people trying to 'evangelise' or even mention Jesus, this purpose may fit better into the framework of community building, or simply loving your neighbour.. lunchbars on the other hand.. ;)
- The passage in Luke 10 then continues.. “and do not greet anyone on the road.” What does that mean?
- Also (Some time ago I had a link for this, via a Jason Clark post, but I've lost it..meh) It contended that giving doughnuts to shoppers was not giving to the needy and was infact proliferating a glutted culture of excess..

To be honest I don't know where I stand on the doughnuts issue.. Certainly IF talking about Jesus is actively discouraged, one would wonder what the enterprise was built upon.. We have to pick our battles, and these people love Jesus. I would say that I have a father that comes running down the drive to put a ring(-doughnut ;) ) on my finger, who loves me with a reckless, foolish love, not for anything I have done, not for anything I have earned. A doughnut is a picture of that, a glimpse of that undeserved gift of grace and my hope is that there will be doughnuts in heaven..