Last Temptation of Stamford Raffles, Illustrated Guide to Surreal Botany and Romans 15:7 - 33

going for service on saturday = a lazy sunday in

a pretty sunday morning. a soft breeze under a blue-sky sun. breakfast is in bed because of renos. gryphon tea company's queen's tea. a delish cottage cheese muffin from a lovely person. the full heft of absolute dark knight.

So lazy a Sunday that later in the week, there had to be a massive lunch-time Romans 15 mug before DG that night. :-p For future reference (a few questions copyright of cldg leader):

Launch questions:
Q: What would you recommend to a new Christian for his growth?
Q: What would you recommend to a mature Christian for his growth?

Read Romans 15:7-33

Romans 15:5-6
Q: What does Paul urge the Romans to do? (15:5)
live in harmony with one another

Why does Paul urge them to do this? (15:6)
that they may with one voice glorify God

Romans 15:7-13
Q: What does Paul urge the Romans to do here? (15:7)
welcome one another

Q: Why? (15:7)
for the glory of God

Q: In so doing, who were they to imitate? (15:7)
Christ

Q: What did Christ become? (15:8)
a servant to the circumcised (could mean physical circumcision but more probably circumcision of the heart)

Q: In what way was Christ a servant?
incarnation and death in our place

Q: Why did he go through all this? (15:8)
to show God's truthfulness

Q: How is God's truthfulness shown (15:9)?
Christ's servanthood

• confirms the promises made to the patriachs; and
  
• compels the Gentiles to glorify God for his mercies

Q: Paul then quotes from Scripture to substantiate the points he has just made. How do the quotations substantiate the points?
promises, probably: adoption as God's children, covenants of land, blessing -> ultimately, salvation is, in God's plan, intricately tied in with the nations glorifying God
(sub-Q: Why would the Gentiles/nations glorify God for his mercies? What were "his mercies"?)

Q: How does God's truthfulness bring him glory?

Q: How should we react to confirmation of God's truthfulness?
believe, get joy and peace from that, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope (sub-Q: What is this hope in?)

Q: What is the common goal in all that Paul exhorts us to do and in all that Jesus has chosen to do?
the glory of God

Romans 15:14-21
Q: What does Paul say is the problem with the Romans? (15:14)
haha, trick question. nothing's wrong with them. Paul is satisfied about them, that they were full of goodness, filled with all knowledge and able to instruct one another. Paul was not a flatterer.

Q: Then why has Paul written them this letter? (15:15)
as a reminder

Q: What does this tell us about how Christian growth takes place?
not by new and exciting revelations but by being reminded of the same gospel. same for new and mature Christians. gospel not just launchpad to other things.

Q: What does Paul see as his God-given life's work? (15:15-16)
"to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles in the priestly service of the gospel of God, so that the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit"
(minister = servant)

Q: Why does Paul describe his ministry as "priestly service"? How is his ministry similar to that of a priest (OT)? How is it different?
similarity: he is seeking to present acceptable sacrifices to God
differences: not to mediate for people. presenting living Gentiles not dead animals. he will present them as acceptable sacrifices by preaching the gospel to them (see 15:18-20) so that in believing, they are sanctified by the Spirit and thus rendered acceptable to God. (cf Romans 12)

Q: What does Paul think of his work for God? (15:17)
he's proud of it

Q: What about his work does Paul take pride in? (15:18-19)
bringing the Gentiles to obedience to God

Q: To what factors does Paul attribute the success of his work? (15:17-19)
work of Christ Jesus, power of Holy Spirit

Q: How does Paul's goal in ministry challenge our own ministry?
Q: How does Paul's method in ministry challenge our own ministry?

Someone'd wanted to meet up with an old friend who'd illustrated A Illustrated Guide To Surreal Botany and was hustling for company for the book launch. "I'm gonna have enough surreal botany of my own that night," came one reply,"seeing that I'll be sharing a stage with a walking, talking Rafflesia".

(The next night, no one was particularly pleased with the purple walking, talking Rafflesia who appeared to be merely reprising her role as one of the overacting witches of the unforgettably foul Macbeth by World-In-Theatre (in this instance, foul not = fair (Macbeth 1.1.11-12)). It did not help that her accent was so odd that it was difficult to understand what she was saying.

The shadow puppets (courtesy of Candice de Rozario and Ivan Tan) were entertaining but extremely underused. Wong Chee Wai did good work on the raked stage and the use of the enormous bed as the deck of a ship. And we liked James Tan's clever use of silhouettes.

Over bowls of XO fish beehoon and claypots of frog-leg porridge later, the consensus was that Ng Yi-Sheng's script was probably more suited to a short story than a play with all that saggy pontificating dialogue, and even then, it was said, it would have lacked the tautness and bite of a good commentary. Rafflesia and untoward events as chaos vs control and civilisation? Only somewhat evident towards the end, slightly mitigated by the hint of commentary via plot device of the closing scene mirroring the opening one except that it was the white-clad, white-washed, slogan-spewing soul of Raffles ("I'm not used to blowing smoke up my own ass" Ivan Tan) who was lying on his deathbed. So much for giving OCBC Singapore Theatre Festival another go. Love the concept of supporting local plays but Christopher Nolan's Last Temptation of Harvey Dent would have been (and was in fact) far better and much cheaper.)

The book launch at BooksActually at Ann Siang Hill was fairly crowded. There were cookies and tea and questions about Two Cranes Press world domination, friendly greetings like,"Ooo, I smell a bitch!" and "Get your homophobia out of my face!", a very obnoxious 9-year old trailing Marmee crumbs, heated discussions on how destroying painting = destroying soul of artist and, despite written requests to cease and desist from such action,

tapping on the glass to tease Cake, the BooksActually "I'm not a skinny cat, I'm a kitten" cat.

So we sat around nursing cuppas and nibbling on biscuits and chatting with random strangers until it was time to pop by Drama Centre to pick the Last Temptation of Stamford Raffles people for supper. Tony Trickett, substituting for Ivan Heng on the second night we supposed (who was himself apparently substitute director in place of Christina Sergeant who'd gone off to be with her ailing mother), was hanging around front of house PR-ing and seeing the actors off and unfortunately, heard us poking fun at the improbable names of some W!ld Rice Angel sponsors. "XXX is a wonderful supporter, actually!"

By the end of supper at C.NAI Macau Cafe at Siglap, there'd been reminiscing about past shows and Brian Seward, collective insistence of the iconic importance of the I Theatre chicken, typos spotted in the LTSR brochure ("if Raffles was born in 1819, he was 7 years old when he died after marrying several wives, fathering several children and catching syphilis!"), laughing at an earnest 19-year old who'd asked about the functionality of pillowy lips, detailed discussions on involuntarily ascending scrota and "cryptozoological accoutrements"...

By 2am, there'd been updates on the latest divorces and who'd been cheating on who, and someone boo-ed for still being a virgin (he said it was difficult to beat his cousin's record of losing his virginity to 2 girls at the same time but the rest of the table pointed out that technically, even if the story was to be believed, his dear cousin could only have lost his virginity to one of the girls first).

Why not support divorces that would do the currently marrieds good, freeing them so that they could go find the person out there who would bring them happiness and satisfaction? 36 girls already amassed at age 17? So what? And so what about the sleeping around that allegedly (but is probably too much of a generalisation) characterises the drama/music scene? What's wrong with you narrow-minded, legalistic, repressed, wet-blanket Christians? some one might have been thinking but was too polite to say when the conversation led to her theory that Satan was God's crony, and that they were playing at a goodcop-badcop thing. So either God's written word is a lie or it is not.

I suppose the short answer would be that Christians have the designer and manufacturer's operating manual for the world. And they trust him (first, perhaps, because of external historical authenticity, then later because of his inherent consistency and constancy through the ages, delivering on promises he made hundreds of years before) to be all truthful and all good and to work everything for the good, even evil. And they are far more concerned with living up to their full potential by bringing glory to this inventor God (the purpose for which all humans have been made) than bothering about the keeping up with the latest trend in stab-in-the-dark human-fulfilment human-satisfaction theory that will inevitably prove false with time. In any case, partaking of poorly-lit knife-ridden parties generally increases the risk of having one's eye poked out.

BooksActually
No. 5 Ann Siang Road
Singapore 069688
Tel: 6221 1170

C.NAI Macau Cafe
378 East Coast Road
Tel: 6440 3808

Singapore River Nosh Marathon, Drama-mama-ness and Christian Hypocrites

The actors and I were headed for post-gig grub, sheesha and dissection at Arab Street when the front-seat passenger, still in drama queen mode, yelped, "OMG! O...M...G...You have a Bible in your cardoor pocket. What does this mean? What does this mean, huh? Are you...no how can it be...are you...Christian?" And an interesting discussion ensued on the dirty woven mat along the five-foot way.

Relating this incident to the participants of a nosh marathon along the Singapore River (though ruining the effect later by singing Rupee's Tempted 2 Touch), it occured to me how much work the Spirit must have done that even though the outward appearance had merely seemed to have gone somewhat east, west and south-ward, there was a new person under the hood with a new way of thinking and new values. But still, quite a way to go to the image of Christ.

Later, at the last stop at Laurent's Café & Chocolate Bar, we were talking about Kee Thuan Chye's The Swordfish, then the Concubine that'd played at 2008's OCBC Singapore Theatre Festival.

Because we'd gotten there late, we'd been ushered into front row seats to the telly in the foyer. (Later, an unfortunate answerer of the call of nature found himself locked out as well and had to share the front row.) Nice apologetic ladies brought us brochures and urged us to get to the free wine before everyone swarmed out. The later half of the play was fairly entertaining: a tilted stage that gave the audience a good eyeful of the action, the gamelan orchestra, the fairly hilarious Singapura idol that demonstrated the celebration of mediocrity, the sound effects for the helicopter bearing the escaping tuanku to cowardly Malaccan exile and the little bit at the end when, when someone reached into a bag of rice and pulled out only dirt. So perhaps myths were true after all.

Entertaining as it was, there is something about Malaysian and Singaporean plays that bears the dreary small-town small-mindedness I've always associated with PoCo work, as if writers had wallowed so long in angsty post-colonialism that they are now unable to raise their eyes from the mud pool. But that's probably a personal preference.

As the W!ld Rice crew scooped the carbo-fest of mac and cheese and fried rice into cute chinese takeaway boxes, we waited for the Broth canapes to make their rounds and spoke of those unresolved issues of yesteryear: the Christian play and the Christian work of fiction. For those of us who used to write to exorcise the fiery demons of extreme emotion, what impetus is there to write now that there is a calm stability in mind and heart , and what passion is there to write about anything else except that which consumes us, that is, the Christian truth. Yet as lovers of truth, how can we bear to see the truth adapted or in some way compromised by the imprecise media that is make-believe or fiction? If one really tried, I suppose, one would end up with something like C.S. Lewis' Narnia series, a pale weeping simulacra of the truth and a poor contribution to the advancement of the genre. (Someone suggested doing a biblical theology on themes. Might be an idea.)

But what does one do with Christians who delight in their own brand of fiction, who speak the right doctrine with such moving humility but whose very essence is self-serving self-aggrandisation, who worm their way onto pedestals of power in church groups, who delight in gossiping under the veneer of helping or praying for the subject of such gossip, who use their God-given gifts for self-worship? Or, as better described by the puritan Thomas Brooks in A Cabinet of Jewels (for these things are not new):

There is never an hypocrite in the world that makes God, or Christ, or holiness, or his doing or receiving good in his station, relation, or generation his grand end, his highest end, his ultimate end of living in the world. Pleasures, profits, and honors are the hypocrite's all, [which] he aims at in this world. They are his trinity, which he adores and serves and sacrificeth himself unto (1 John 2:16). An hypocrite's ends are corrupt and selfish. God may possibly be at the higher end of his work, but self is at the further end; for he that was never truly cast out of himself, can have no higher end than himself. An hypocrite is all for his own glory: he acts for himself and from himself. "So I may have the profit, the credit, the glory, the applause, come of God's glory what will!" This is the language of an unsound heart.

An hypocrite will seem to be very godly when he can make a gain of godliness. He will seem to be very holy when holiness is the way to outward greatness and happiness. But his religious wickedness will double-damn the hypocrite at last. Self-ends are the operative ingredients in all an hypocrite does….When hypocrites take up religion, it is only to serve their own turns, to bring about their own carnal ends. They serve not the Lord, but their own bellies (Romans 16:18; Philippians 3:19)….An hypocrite always makes himself the end of all his service; but let such hypocrites know, that though their profession be never so glorious and their duties never so abundant, yet their ends being selfish and carnal, all their pretensions and performances are but beautiful abominations in the sight of God.

continued...

It is a right and good thing to feel revulsion for such things and to seek to set them right. Yet, this disgust and our social action must be overseen by our understanding of God:

• if God is God overall, do we think that God is blind to these things done in secret?
  
• if God is just, do we think that God will not bother to judge such things?
  
• if God has spoken of a Last Day, do we actually think that this world is all there is so that justice and justification must happen now as if there were not a Judgement to come?

And if we do think these things, do we not ourselves dishonour God? And are we not ourselves hypocrites?

The rationale in Romans 14:10b - 12, I think, works in this sort of situation as well because it is afterall a truth statement:

For we will all stand before the judgement seat of God; for it is written,

As I live, says the Lord, every
knee shall how to me,
and every tongue shall
confess to God.

So then each of us will give an account of himself to God.

and also

...never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written,"Vengence is mine, I will repay, says the Lord." (Romans 12:19)

In fact,

To the contrary, "if your enemy is hungry feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head." Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. (Romans 12:20 - 21)

This is our rational, reasonable, spiritual (and rather painful) act of worship (Romans 12:1b).

______________________________

(Sometimes, being fed is quite conducive to thinking the right things.

Epicurious
60 Robertson Quay
#01-02 The Quayside
Singapore 238252
Tel: +65 67347720
Not fancy or complicated. Decent grub: unwilted salad leaves, tasty leek and potato soup with chicken shreds and cheesy garlic bread on the side. But not the sort of place to return to, unless the doggies need a bit of a stretch.


Brewerkz
30 Merchant Road
#01-05/06 Riverside Point
Singapore 058282
Tel: +65 6438 7438
Micro-brewed beers and bistro burgers. Not refined nosh but what's not to like? I love you blue cheese, sautéed mushroom, grilled onions and juicy patty. But not you, pouncey FruitBrewz. You make me feel like I've walked into a Hell Angels' dive wearing a flowery shirt.

Laurent's Café & Chocolate Bar
The Pier at Robertson Quay
80 Mohammad Sultan Road #01-11
Singapore(239013)
Telephone: +65 6235 9007
Laurent Bernard uses Amedei couveture apparently, which as far as I know is only sold retail in Singapore at Couduroy Candy. But the hot chocolate was not the main source of warmth for the cockles of the heart. A whole night of listening to the stories of various lives, of ordinary people - people one wouldn't think of going to for an exegesis of a passage or a goodly discussions on the finer points of doctrine or glib entertainment - living their quiet lives being changed from being lovers of self to lovers of God and of other people, who make the hard decisions that would get them secretly laughed at even by other Christians, but who cannot help but be beacons of light in the world, because there is no other way to explain such rational foolishness but their love for, and faith and hope, in God. Living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God (Romans 12:1). To the glory of God. Good stuff.

Broth
21 Duxton Hill
Singapore 089604
Tel: +65 6323 3353)

God as God Leads Us to Live with Integrity and Prayerfulness

A blur of a fortnight:

the entire backrow walking out on World-In-Theatre's Macbeth with someone muttering,"Perhaps before experimenting with process-oriented approaches one should start with enunciation? Projection? Blocking? Iambic pentameter?" as we headed to drown sorrows in roti prata and maggi mee goreng next door, before returning to collect sweaty actors for supper, over which too much information was proffered on the follicular-distribution in one-half of a husband-husband couple,

meltingly good skewers of pork belly and watermelon, equally good Kurobuta pork chop, and tasty whole roasted pink snapper at Wine Garage, while being encouraged by the perseverence of saints in very frustrating and uncertain circumstances,

ending the virgin foray in a street soccer cage with a loose bigtoe-nail and a U CRAZY WHAT?! Botak Jones burger. Behold the pound of beef in its manly chesthair-inducing patty glory!

a birthday dinner with the lush lambs at Hue Restobar, Amara Hotel, where things here today and gone tomorrow were the subject of loud cheers and applause from the entire restaurant but the bland simulacra of Vietnamese food was far less well-received,

ending another birthday celebration with a midnight 五月天 (wuyuetian, May Day) medley at a karaoke joint complete with ecstatic use of tambourines,

saying goodbye at the last ARPC service at the Kuo Chuan Secondary School building in Bishan and hullo to the newARPC building back at 25 Adam Road.

The remaining time not spent eating was for listening to Mike Raiter speak on living with integrity on Wednesday and Thursday evening, prayer on Saturday morning and Romans 9 on Sunday morning. There is something about this sort of immersion in the word of God that causes dim eyes to make out, a little clearer than usual, for a little while, a little more of the flesh to the outline of the person of God.

Living the Christian life is not a matter of following rules, being "good" or having a strict morality; neither is it primarily about squabbling over the teachings of gurus - you follow John Calvin of the TULIP, I follow the free-form theology of Dance Praise 2 with extension packs. It is what being Christian is in the first place: having a relationship with God.

Who is this Father whom we are sons of and have a relationship with? It is interesting how fans hang on every act, every change in hair style, and every word of pseudo-wisdom that falls from the lips of their idols but we Christians who claim to worship God are far more concerned about what God can do for us than about knowing anything about him. Like meetings of obsessive fans and rabid stalkers, the focus of our sermons and Bible studies should be on God and his manifold and mightily admirable characteristics. No one who asks "How will knowing Master Chou 周大侠 help me get rich?" will last very long in a real Jay Chou 周杰倫 fan forum.

So we know that God the Father is the creator of the universe, it sustainer and its ultimate judge. He is all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good. But our minds are so befuddled by sin that we are hard put to make good use of this knowledge.

God as Judge
If God (or rather, his delegated authority Jesus) is all-knowing and the ultimate judge, then we live not to be judged by others; neither by our proud/disappointed parents, nor admiring/sneering peers, nor to make a mark in human history that generations might remember us. We live for an audience of one, with judgement day integrity.

Matthew 6:1 - 18 warns us not to practice our righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then we will have no reward from our Father who is in heaven. There should be a oneness and unity within ourselves so that we are the same person at work, at church and at home. Our profession and expression must be the same. Why do we aspire to preach or lead the singing or a bible study or to go out to missions? It ought not be to be seen by others. If it is, then we will get what we deserve - a good reputation and the esteem of people...for now...and judgement of God on the Last Day.

God as Sustainer and Creator, God as God
Again, if God is our all-powerful and all-good sustainer, then we are dependent on God and not God on us. He does not need our time or money (although a church might need them to do its work for his glory) but we need him for our very life breath. Because we are dependent on God, we ask him for things: this is prayer.

If it is God we are asking for things, then praying for the purpose of impressing other people is absurd and bile-inducing. (Matthew 6:5 – 6)

And if it is an all-good God whom we are asking, then we do not have to spam him with empty phrases, manipulative 24 hour prayer marathons that go on and on all day long. As if God were deaf or unwilling to help. (Matthew 6:7 – 8)

And if this God is the ultimate of ultimates who should be our first love and object of worship, then we should feel strongly for his reputation and his name. We get angry when a righteous man is maligned, how much more indignant should we be when a good God is deprived of his rightful glory by people bowing down and glorifying idols made with their own 2 hands? In this way, the salvation of people is secondary to the glory of God. So we ought to pray first and foremost that God’s name be hallowed. (Matthew 6:9 – 10)

If this God is our creator, then he does not exist for us, a heavenly vending machine, but us for him to do his work and to give him glory. And if he is also sustainer and preserver, then we ask him for our daily bread: food and water and air to sustain our life, and also whatever we need to do his will and make his name known in this world. We ask for just enough to do his work, for he will not grant us perfect skill or perfect health because we can still do our jobs in our fallen incompetence as jars of clay, and through our cancers and migraines and amputations. (Matthew 6:11)

And if this God is all-powerful, then nothing in this world happens without his permission. Remember how Satan in the Book of Job had accused Job of loving God not for whom God was but for what God had given Job and asked permission to test Job to prove that once all these goodies were taken away, Job would throw a tantrum and curse God (Job 1:6 – 12). Remember also how Jesus had told Simon Peter that Satan had sought permission to sift him like wheat – oh sure it was cool to follow the all-curing, all-pontificating Jesus while he was free to roam and people adored him. But wait till Jesus was captured by the authorities and strung out to dry on a cross and see which rock the trusty disciples would be found cowering under. (Luke 22:31 - 34 for prediction of chicken-ness at rooster crow) We pray that in his mercy, God will not put us through these trials, but if it must be done, then we ask that he deliver us from the Accuser.

The things in the Lord's Prayer are hardly prayed for, possibly because of our terribly and unconscionably erroneous idea of the person of God in the first place.

Wine Garage
30 Merchant Road, #01-07
Riverside Point Singapore 058282
Tel: 6533 3188

March Wrapup: Pies, Taxi Drivers, Titoudao and Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

Pie on Pi Day: huge!

Newton Circus: black-pepper crabs, barbecued chicken wings, satay, stir-fried kailan and true-life accounts of public-spirited taxi-driver uncles, attempting to boost the morale of physically unattractive girls by asking them out on dates, being mistaken for cheekopeks by the freaked-out.

Toy Factory Ensemble's Titoudao: a blend of Hokkien, Mandarin, Cantonese and English ("can you spek Engrish proprry?"); the backstage of the wayang (street opera) as stage; Pam Oei jibbing a latecomer - "Ah see, yan dao sit right in front. Yan dao, I look very young, right?"; interplay between the stories of (1) Titoudao - servant of a decidedly unmacho scholarly master Ti Boon Long betrothed to a Chua Enlai-ugly boo-worthy un-PC rich girl, and (2) Madam Oon Ah Chiam - once a farmgirl who ate chicken defecation who became a nanny in Johor Bahru, who became a wayang star, who became a housewife bullied by the evil preggers Beatrice Chia-Richmond mother-in-law, who became a getai cabaret singer (whose backup dancer Karen Tan looked like a drag queen), who became, err, a 60 year old; Aidli 'Alin' Mosbit looking like Andre the Giant from Princess Bride; a passable pickup line:"DO YOU WANT TO GO TO HELL?"; errant audience meowing at a particularly poignant scene.

Later at supper: an angsty frog leg porridge uncle with a killer glare; the future hit song:I'm Looking At You Through The Bones of My Chicken Wing; claypots with the Star of David; Pam Oei in many incarnations; theatre awards to appease the unhappy parents of theatre practitioners.

Copious amounts of homemade chendol with extra gula meleka: Romanticism in art being shocking rebelliousness in its time but utter tameness in ours; Romanticism spawning the goth movement and black eyeliner; Eugene Delacroix's Death of Sardanapalus recalling the emasculated bochap men in Titoudao; Ludwig (the Scowl) van Beethoven being of the same era; Vladimir Ashkenazy's dramatic pauses playing Chopin's Polonaise making him sound like a terrible sightreader; concert piano-ing as a profession not only making one look like a performing monkey in a tux, but also giving one the distinctive air of perpetual constipation (which some mistake for angsty romanticism).

Sunday brunch at Brown Sugar: not quite as worth eating as hoped, smudgeons from Canelé Pâtisserie saving the day, discussions about the Myers-Briggs type indicator.

A perhaps celebratory dinner at Valentino's: a stew of the folks that'd strayed into Mr. McGregor's juicy veggie patch and didn't quite get away, more chatter on the use of MBTI in a community of Christians, dessert and fairy lights outside Da Paolo Gastronomia.

There are some questions, imh(probably not too well-informed)o, that should be asked of MBTI:
Q: How effective is MBTI in its description of human beings?
Q: How empirical is MBTI in its analysis of human beings?
Q: How useful is MBTI in its prediction of future behaviour?

Effectiveness of MBTI in Description of Humans
Which Star Wars character are you? Which Evil Super Villain? What ice-cream flavour?

Ok, perhaps MBTI isn't some back-of-a-women's-magazine pop psychology quizilla forerunner. But still, our Father's world is really far more magnificently intricate than we could possibly observe or describe.

Hey, even quantum physics is reductionist. Freeman Dyson (no, astrochickens don't suck) described such reductionism as the attempt "to reduce the world of physical phenomena to a finite set of fundamental equations": the works of Erwin Schrödinger (and the messy business with that cat) and Paul Dirac being "triumphs of reductionism. Bewildering complexities of chemistry and physics were reduced to two lines of algebraic symbols".

And that's just the material universe. What more human beings, made in the very image of God himself. Imago Dei suggests, even if just limited to the characteristics of rule and relationship (reductionism!), that humans are gloriously fascinating daedalian beings that cannot be pigeonholed into one of 100 types (much less 16), no matter how updated and sophisticated the explanations of the interactions are or how much they have improved on Carl Jung's Psychological Types. Apparent accuracies in description ("Oh, that is sooo me!") could well be the Forer Effect flashing flesh.

Empiricism of MBTI in Analysis of Humans
MBTI scores rest on some very shaky foundations: they are dependent on a single temporal event - the administration of the test, the input of the subject on whom the test is being administered - input which not only presumes some form of self-observation on the part of the subject, but also input which varies according to time, environment and state of mind at the time of the test. Alas the dangers of introspection and anecdote.

Even amongst a jury of peers, the verdict is still out on the validity of MBTI.

Usefulness of MBTI in Prediction of Future Behaviour
The old debate: nature or nurture? Neither actually.

It is incontrovertible that people are different. MBTI merely reminds us of this. However, given the intricate nature of people and the doubtful total accuracy of the test, it is unclear what utility can be derived from propagation or prolonged discussion on MBTI.

MBTI Worldview
Utility aside, popular use of psychometrics inevitably promotes the cult of personality, the self-centred worshipping of ourselves at our own feet. In Christian circles, pagan (and out-dated) horoscopes, dredging up hithero unknown childhood trauma/abuse and the rattling of pretty little bottles of happy pills make way for spiritual gift inventories and assessments, this season's fashion accessory for the saved. But we are not to spend time trying to find out or having found them, polishing, our shiny gifts. Gifts are handed to us for the good of the church and we are to use them for that goal.

And if God's power is in the Word rather than the whimperings of human wisdom, then:

• how dependent should we be on personality tests for our identity?
• how reliant are we on personality tests to tell us our strengths and weaknesses, and how much does the doctrine of our own sinfulness impact our perception of self?
  
• how much does our alleged extroversion/introversion energy orientation matter and how much should we be deriving our energy from God?
• how are we to make decisions and judgements?
  
• who is in control of our lives - the luck of the genetics/parental/environmental draw or God?
  

Should we allow broadbrush descriptions to be self-fulfilling prophesies or definitive excuses for our sinful fallen-ness and our rampant disobedience of God's laws?

Should we perceive our siblings-in-Christ stereotypically or dismissively ("Oh, he'll never be able to do that, he's a P.")? Should we remember that they too are complex beings made in the image of God?

Our underlying problem is not a clash of personality types nor a terrible childhood; it is sinners sinning. And what transforms our lives and our relationships with fellow brothers and sisters in Christ ultimately is not deeper self-knowledge nor more information on what makes other people tick but deeper knowledge of Christ who died for us, God who first loved us, and knowing the power of the Spirit who changes our hearts of stone to hearts of flesh.

God's word is working in the minds and hearts of God's children even as the Spirit is working in their lives to transform them not to be the best of all MBTI types (for their chosen ministry), but to repent and be more like Christ. The very best type to be.

Interfacing with the world and its wisdom, there is the freedom of the Christian but there are things that promote an erroneous view of the world and of people and things that are helpful and unhelpful to oneself and to one's family in Christ.

*************
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Singapore 588908
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A Long Week, "Everything But The Brain" and Christian Friendship

This post makes sense to, maybe, 5 8 an unknown number of people? Thanks guys for your friendship in Christ. Am glad to have gotten by With A Little Help From My Friends (even though the assistance may well have been unintentional).

It was a long (time being relative, see) week at work, where dinner meant Superdog and early dinner that meant at 10pm we mosey-ed up to the nearest food-source, a gilded Chinese restaurant of the sort that only does good business at reunion dinners and business lo heis, and ordered takeaway in the kind of earnest Cantonese (despite not being Cantonese) that has never failed to so warm the cockles of the MSG-ladden heart of many a Chinese restaurant manager that he cannot help but put extra ("I give you extra. Enjoy, enjoy.") in the takeaway. Despite such generosity, was grateful for short timelets away from food in plastic boxes, tedious negotiations, flickering computer screens and dreary bits of paper.

(Must also add that thanks to sympathetic calls, sms-es and gchats, there was nadda a peep of Keane's "Somewhere Only We Know", misheard.
Props also to the I for furry comic relief contained in an Avenue Q CD:

*images from Avenue Q

Princeton - at a loss about what to do with a BA in English, Gary Coleman (yes, that Gary Coleman), an orientalAsian-American called Christmas Eve, Rod the self-denying closet homo-whatever, the B-side to mix-tape messages, Brian who made it known that he wasn't wearing underwear, Trekkie Monster the millionaire internet porn addict, and life outside one's apartment - a squished cat.)

At frisbee pick-up, there was a wide field of green grass under a wide sky and gusts of wind (surely, for the office dust), and laughing and shouting, and good sportsmanship, and lurking pools of mud to trap wayward soles. Time for new shoes, though not quite of the goody-two variety.

At Bible study on Luke 10:24-37, the Good Samaritan wasn't a goody-two-shoes to be emulated but a slap in the face for the expert-in-the-law who could not honestly hold to the conceit of having attained such perfection in loving God and neighbour.

At pool, amazing misses, brilliant longshots, accidental snooking and situational karaoke.

Macham "Community Spirit in Face of Terrorist Attack"

At Action Theatre and Jean Tay's "Everything But The Brain" where Gerald Chew was a young father with promise and a debilitated old man and swept the dust from our feet, and Pam Oei was a tantrum-throwing child and a menopausal princess and winked: Albert Einstein's theory of relativity, collapse-able/expand-able time explained by 3 bears with colourful pantaloons, travelling close to the speed of light to slow down time, a baby bear with slits for eyes at a grin and gravity-defying hair, a train to Malacca, an unmarried 36-year old physics teacher, a 66-year old scientist who suffered 2 strokes, Timothy Nga's unexpectedly young 27-year old doctor who doubled as an evil blood clot, a creaking swing, a ladder that was an upright hospital bed and also a ladder, a tupperware container fetish to contain leftovers and memories, a white sheet that could have been just a bedsheet, travelling the world with a brain in a tupperware, faint sounds of heart beats and tinkling and general ambient stuff (thanks Sonicbrat). There were absolutes around which all things relative fell into place. There was unconditional love pursued yet unpursued. There was conditional love that was a limp kiss and, as someone tried to explain, grotesque.

After: physicists trying to explain to lawyers and accountants how light is measured and relativity on quantum levels appearing as magnetism, black holes, dreaming of time travel and portals, a huge heap of hokkien noodles and oyster omelette and barbecued chicken wings at Glutton's Bay, a good recommendation of banana tempura (no mere goreng pisang, this) to be dipped in vanilla kaya, and laughing at Crazy Horse (Eng Wah promptly announced its closure that very night. But somehow, Channel Newsasia just isn't the sort of thing one admits to channelling).

And at no point did anyone hum Stephen Bishop's "All of My Life (It Might Be You)" from Tootsie.

(But speaking of lying on the sand watching seabirds fly...[cue: lengthy paranthesis]

One day, it was sunny!

Hearts fairly bursting with the freedom of dry ground and lack of precipitation, we grabbed swim stuff and towels and sunnies and hats and sunscreen and ran to the beach.

The joy of frisbees gloriously winging through the air, deliriously dizzy in bright blues and yellows. And in reds and whites, to lie on the soft sand when we were done, happy and hot, sun on faces, sun on necks, sun on limbs, raising heads now and then to drink from a pitcher of ice lemon tea. All around, the greenery imbibing their fill of the sunshine, chlorophyllicly ecstatically ecstatic.

It was a time for languid plans. Plans for a cupcakery in a bookshop. Plans for a cupcakery with white walls and a line of Kitchenaids of eggshell-blue and cotton-candy pink. Plans for a cupcakery with glass domes for a heap of thick dark chocolate buttercream ganache on dark chocolate cupcakes piled high, for a crowd of snickerdoodle ones rich with chunks of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and Mars bars and slathered with peanut butter cream, for a huddle of lemon meringue ones like little browned puffs of clouds on solid summer. No red velvet with rainbow sprinkles please. Plans also for a bookshop with deep-chestnut shelves and cosy enclaves for long browses and rooms for Bible studies and talks. We will have a music compile: "Music To Scarf Cupcakes And Browse Books By", frosted with Under Byen, Jane Herships and her song for Clementine, and Kelly de Martino and Bumblebees, all fresh minimalist delicateness and floatiness for the sunshine outside. Perhaps we will also sprinkle on Mathieu Boogaerts for poppish sweetness. And if Sam Beam of Iron & Wine wanted to play less breathy stuff on Friday nights, I suppose we wouldn't protest too stridently.)

Ah, but too many people, not enough meal-slots. Still, thankful for the fraction met before they sped through the clouds back to whence they'd come. At a meal with holidaying theology students, at first, it was all,"Woah, to spend all your days just reading the Scripture, talking about God's Word and listening to the Bible being taught! Always having someone at hand to discuss things with! To pray with! Studying the things of eternity! Without having to hide in your room or to exercise self-censorship! Shiok or what?!" And the reply was that sin is a real and stubborn thing and actually, actually, it required a great effort to get any Bible-reading done.

Late into the night, over bottles of China Apple (not a Mac) to maintain cheena-ness, looking into the eternity of forever, good heart-to-hearts, tearing over unsaved relatives and friends, the terrible offensiveness of the gospel to non-believers, the encouragement of God's lessons through different sorts of adversity, nonchalance over singleness, excitement over ministry plans and backup plans and backup backup plans and God's sovereignty, accountability partnerships, teasing out the hard work of friendship and loving one's brothers and sisters in face of universal sinfulness, fallen-ness and Babel-hood.

Thank God for the very good goodness of soul-mates: the friendship and mateship of fellow souls, with the same Father and same Lord, travelling the same road, towards the same goal.

Thank God for the very very good goodness of the one who is not a soul-mate, but better: for he has gone before us on the same road and so we follow in his footsteps. For when we walk in the shadow of the valley of death, when we join the black parade, where mates cannot accompany us, still we shall not fear, for there our Shepherd is beside us (Psalm 23).

Dick Lee's "Forbidden City", History and Identity

Inside, there were the rows and rows of red plush chairs and red velvet hangings and there was an exciting subterranean orchestral pit from which the conductor's head and baton protruded and there were box seats where you could lean your elbows on varnished wood and survey the onstage proceedings coolly through your little set of opera glasses. Outside, there were crewcut girls from the Singapore Repertory Theatre singing out,"Get your Forbidden City souvenirs right here!" and "Programmes for S$2!" and "CDs for S$20! Cheaper than HMV!" and then cunningly teasing,"Get a CD, I know you wanna, you know you wanna!". After which NotAFanofKit not only got a CD, but also scored Kit Chan's autograph while FanofKit stayed behind the stage door and giggled.

The musical covered about 50 years of Chinese history through the Hundred Days of Reform of 1898 and the Boxer Rebellion of 1900. There were bits about the love of the young concubine Yehenara for the fickle Emperor, the parallel mistaken love/trust of American painter Kate Carl (Leigh McDonald) for/in the conniving British journalist George "Trust me, I'm a journalist" Harrison (Hal Fowler). There was the suggestion that our understanding of current affairs, which later passes off as history, could, in fact, be nothing more than fictitious tales concocted by whoever has control of the mass media. The possible paucity of the storyline and the lack of character development've already been much discussed during the last two runs of Steven Clark/Dick Lee's "Forbidden City: Potrait of an Empress" in Singapore.

On the penultimate night during this third run, the voice of Kit Chan, reprising her role as the younger Empress Dowager Cixi/Yehenara, was beautiful and clear but not quite muscular enough for the stage. Filipino veteran Sheila Francisco's mature Empress Dowager alto was more nicely velvety than Blossom Lam's upsized vibrato on the CD (interestingly enough, Francisco was Lam's understudy for the last run). But the chorus, alas, was muffled and weak. Lack of volume compounded by poor enunciation meant that at times, they were lost to the orchestra and the audience had to rely on the Chinese subtitles to keep them in the loop. Not cool for a work that is through-sung, or mostly anyway. Later, when we saw the ensemble fagging away outside the stage door and then buying packets of fried kway teow from Gluttons Bay around midnight, we knew why.

Dick Lee's chord progressions, apparently, were pleasant and ordinary. But the same leitmotifs were repeated more often than necessary (yes, we know it's meant to be a leitmotif, let's move on!) and some melodic bits sounded like they got themselves recycled from popular Broadway musicals or Dick's older songs. The orchestration with Western and Chinese (erhu, Chinese flute, Chinese gong) instruments was just on the right side of the kitsch line although he appeared to delight in crossing the line for the cheeky Record Keepers (Hossan Leong and Sebestian Tan). The use of minor chords, played loudly, as musical exclamation marks, was unfortunate and clumsy.

The minimalist set, however, was brill: the suggestion of the interior of a train in the opening scene; the use of simple white Chinese screens to great effect to create the impression, variously, of a cold imposing palace hall, a summer palace courtyard of children flying kites and catching butterflies, a burnt brutalised ruin, boxing in, keeping out, delineating the boundaries of the environment. Yay, Francis O'Connor! In addition to the usual use of spotlights, the central character of a scene was made to stand out from his surroundings by the contrast of colours, a vivid imperial yellowness or a rich redness of against a monochromatic background. Nice.

From Francis O' Connor's website

There has been some debate if "Forbidden City: Portrait of an Empress" is a true and accurate account of the life of the much-feared Dragon Lady. I must admit that I first heard of her, belatedly, in the musical. Chinese language teachers in Singapore government schools would have inculcated their students with a sense of shame to accompany this sort of confession. An ethnic Chinese unable to speak Chinese?! A yellow-skinned person woolly-minded about the history of the country of his/her forefathers?! The disgrace! Without knowledge of this history, a Chinese person is surely without identity.

So if we order food in Chinese restaurants by pointing at pictures or trying to figure out dodgy English translations or if we rely on people like Peter Hessler (who wrote "River Town" and "Oracle Bones". Sample his work here, here and here) to tell us about contemporary China, or if Chinese hiphop sounds to us as foreign as Franco-pop or Ibiza dance, should the colour of our skin make us apologetic?
Chinese history has no bearing on my life: neither emperors nor eunuchs nor innumerable court intrigues nor effeminate scholars of generations past. To the mainland Chinese, it is obvious I am not one of them. Unlike Cassia, 中国不是我的母国. I do not look back to China as my homeland. Singapore is my *ahem* home, truly, where I grew up and whose accent I bear.

But yet again, my identity is less Singaporean than it is Christian, and my home is less Singapore than it is heaven. And if I should be apologetic, I should be apologetic about this: neither knowing the history of my Father working in human history nor knowing the history of my forefathers, the generations of men and women, regardless of citizenship, race or culture, who've gone before us in faith and obedience, and with whom we will one day share a home for all eternity.

The Arts and the Christian

Most people who've been living in Singapore for the past few months would not have been able to miss the excitement surrounding the inaugural Singapore Theatre Festival, yet another installment of WOMAD, the Singapore Biennale and perhaps even the upcoming ArtSingapore, da:ns Festival and Sotheby's biannual (not biennale!) auction of Southeast-Asian art.

Some artists are disillusioned with the art world, victims, perhaps, of bad experiences with critics who were convinced that interpretation of any piece of art is inherently subjective, that meaning is assigned not by the artist but by the viewer and so felt free to ascribe their own, sometimes diametrically opposite, meaning to their artwork. But for all their/our mistrust, there is something that still draws us to see the great masters and inspires us to sculpt and mould raw material with our hands; that reels us into listening to wonderful music; that makes us itch to feel the intimate tremble of a good violin under our chins; that incites us to bop to a mean bassline and admire a beautiful pas de deux; that hushes an entire theatre audience; that gives actors a stage high, feeding off the energy from a crowd that understands and enjoys our craft.

At the National Library Building branch of Hans, we were talking about the Christian's interaction with the arts. Assuming Rand Miller's (yes, the Myst guy) generalist definition of "art" as a "work (something produced through effort) created by a craftsman with the intent to communicate truth", what should the relationship between the arts and the Christian look like?

Should Christians be involved in and even enjoy art?
It could be possible, though I am not entirely sure about this, to see the creative process of doing art is part of our God-ordained creational nature: just as God created the universe out of nothing, so we reflect that creational nature by taking the raw materials that the Lord has created and moulding it into a work of art (or what we hope will have some aesthetic value (if that can be measured objectively)!). Just as God brought order to the chaos that was before this world, so we, on a much more human level, through art, bring some order to our fallen chaotic world (then again, so does the periodic table).

It is also possible that art reminds us of God's beauty: creative works that we find beautiful recall the beauty of God's creative power and cause us to reflect on the glory of God. In fact, we also marvel at the goodness of God for putting in us the ability to appreciate and even find enjoyment in literature, poetry, painting, sculpture and dance.

However, the eagerness to avoid the charge of idolatry has made many Christians suspicious of art. Ever since icons and statues in churches were destroyed in the name of God during the Reformation, Protestants have had an uneasy relationship with the visual arts. There is no space here for discussion of those iconoclastic practices but the warnings against the making of idols from Leviticus and Deuteronomy onwards seemed to be less a complete ban on drawing, painting or sculpture per se, for elsewhere within Scripture, such creative work was expressly instructed by God in relation to the building of physical tabernacles or temples. God also tells his people to sing, dance, and play instruments as ways of expressing their relationship with him. Rather, the warning was against idolatry, specifically expressed in such forms.

In Exodus 31, God tells Moses that he has given a chap named Bezalel the Spirit of God, with ability and intelligence, with knowledge and all craftsmanship, to devise artistic designs, to work in gold, silver and bronze, in cutting stones for setting and in carving wood, for work in every craft. If God is the creator of the entire universe, then all craftsmanship and artistic ability is a gift of God just as our lifebreath is.

However, we live in a fallen world as sinful beings, and we must be aware that there are proper and improper ways of exercising our God-given gifts; we must remember that the terrible incident of the Golden Calf came far too soon after God gifted workmen for the building of his tabernacle.

Some emerging church leaders claim that they, being far more enlightened than the Reformers ever were, will work to reverse centuries senseless repression of talent by the Reformers by encouraging Christian artists to fill the walls of church buildings with their works and promoting the performance arts.

But it is profoundly atheistic to encourage art for arts' sake. A Christian knows that all art, and indeed everything in life, must be done for God's sake, for that is the purpose of all creation. "Whatever you do, do all to the glory of God," says Paul in 1 Corinthians 10:31. And there is no such thing as a solitary Christian, for when a Christian is saved, he is welcomed into a community, a church, the body of Christ. Therefore, all creative work, and in fact, all things must also be done for edification and building up of the body (1 Corinthians 14:26 in the specific context of communal worship). All that a member of the body does must be done in love for the whole.

In any case, it is virtually impossible to be part of a community and not be confronted by the art of that culture. A Christian must not ignore secular culture but think and evaluate it according to God's word.

What should a Christian's artwork look like?
Does this mean that all Christian artistic endeavour must necessarily be evangelistic or pietistic?

Heavens! No, if that means kitschy figurines, plastic flowers and gaudy (not Gaudí, although some would think Gaudí as gaudy) depictions of Bible stories!

Inevitable Evangelism I
Yet, behind every work of art a worldview, is a commitment to either the truth or to a lie. Every art piece, every performance represents the inner thoughts and beliefs of the artist, and it either breathes a spirit of commitment to the true God revealed in the Scriptures, or attests an allegiance to an idol. In any artwork, the Christian inevitably presents his uniquely counterculturally Christian interpretation of the world.

Inevitable Evangelism II
Besides, as Christians, that which underlies our interest and involvement in the arts is not, after all, secular. Neither is that which underlies our interest and involvement in anything else in our lives (our work, our hobbies, our family or friends). As God's people, we are committed to using our lives to work for the redemption of all things in Christ. So we are purposeful in our involvements.

Egads, one might say. That's all a bit utilitarian innit?

But we remember that there will come a time when Christ will return to judge the world and he will punish those who do not know the true and living God or trust in the gospel of his Son (2 Thessalonians 1:6-10). Says C.S. Lewis:

It is hardly possible for [us] to think too often or too deeply about [the glory] of our neighbour. . . It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilization — these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit — immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. ("The Weight of Glory")

When we think about those who will encounter our works, the audiences at our performances, we must keep before our eyes the fate of those who are perishing; the eternal destinations of unsaved sinners.

Importance of the Arts in Evangelism
Powerful Evangelism
The arts are potentially powerful vehicles for influencing entire cultures for good or for evil. There is something about the arts that reach out and break through to the hearts and minds of some people who might otherwise be unmoved, and that is where skilled Christian artists ought to be speaking the truth about the ultimate reality.

Dispensible Method of Evangelism
Yet, we know that in his sovereignty, God will work in any way that he wishes. Ultimately, it is not our skills in our chosen field of art that must be cultivated and nurtured but our passion for the lost, knowing that those whom we encounter are not mere mortals but will be immortal. And unless they repent and turn back to God, that immortality will be lived out in eternal hell and the terrible gnashing of teeth.

So C.S. Lewis makes the point about his own specialisation:

The Christian will take literature a little less seriously than the cultured Pagan...The Christian knows from the outset that the salvation of a single soul is more important than the production or preservation of all the epics and tragedies in the world. ("Christian Reflections")