Taking God’s name in vain

God is perhaps the most abused and misquoted person. Since the beginning of time when the universe was created by him, Satan has been misusing God’s name to justify his own demonic opinions and actions. In the Garden of Eden, Satan in the guise of a friendly serpent tempted and misled Adam and Eve by casting doubt on God’s word to the first couple — “Did God say you cannot eat?”.

The latest demonic deception the Devil is promoting is through a Malaysian “Christian” politician who has declared that God has commanded Christians to fight what he called “Islamic theocracy state”.

Former Subang Jaya state assembly member Lee Hwa Beng of the MCA has suggested on a Twitter posting on Monday that “as Christians, we should fear Islamic theocracy nation more than anything.”

Lee had even claimed that it is “God’s command” to Christians to fight an “Islamic theocracy state”.

“One of God’s commands is to fight against Islamic theocracy state,” he was quoted by several news portals as saying in his Twitter posting.

Lee also blames the DAP with helping PAS in the establishment of the so-called Islamic theocratic state, as if the DAP has endorsed the Islamic state idealogy and scheme.

It certainly is shocking, scandalous, and stupid of Lee to make such an outrageous statement, misusing the divine name of God, to elicit and extract political mileage for himself and his much discredited, disreputed and disgraced party.

Religion has always been a hot sensitive and delicate issue, and in recent years, fundamentalist religious extremism, accompanied by excessive racial overtone, has had a busy press, especially after the 11 September 2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre in New York.

Inter-faith relationship has never been the same since the 11 September 2001 attack, and religious paranoid schizophrenia seems to have gripped people everywhere, causing obsessively anxious, suspicious, and mistrustful feelings. Muslims everywhere have been targets of unwarranted suspicion and unjust treatment, particularly in the nervous and leery West, since that ominous day. They are subjected to unreasonable extensive checks at airports, and given unwelcome questionable looks when entering a restaurant in the West.

The grossly immature and irresponsible comment by Lee Hwa Beng cannot simply be dismissed as trivial, inconsequent and insignificant, as such an austere expression can give rise to ferociously hostile conflicts and could cause a rigorous collision of some misguided zealous followers of Christianity and Islam.

We have seen how a dispute over the use of the word “Allah” by the Roman Catholic newspaper Herald has, for the first time in Malaysia, caused arson attacks on several churches in various parts of the country early this year.

There is also the case of the fundamentalist Pastor Terry Jones, of the obscure Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida, who had in August this year threatened to burn copies of the Quran on the anniversary of the 11 September attack. News of the demonic plan outraged Muslims around the world and triggered violent protests in many Muslim countries, including Afghanistan where one protester was shot dead.

It is obvious that there are wicked people who are out to incorporate and exploit religious differences and conflicts to achieve their evil desire for sinister political power, without due regards for the well-being of the nation and its people.

I am no apologist for PAS or its theocratic theology and idealogy, but I want to say that what the Islamic party set out to achieve is fundamentally a right to be respected and accepted. All political parties everywhere in the world, even the so-called avowedly secular-based parties, are defined and grounded to certain extend by ideologies founded upon and shaped by some sort of religious conviction, ethics, and practices, even though they may not recognise or admit it. Socialism and its offshoot Communism, for example, is founded upon the early church practice of sharing everything in common as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles in the Bible.

Religious traditions, on which the social cultures of people are based, define, shape, and symbolize the essential identity and character of the political culture of a nation. It is, hence, to be expected that PAS, which was founded upon its belief in Islamic doctrines and practices, should seek to accomplish and attain what it has been established to achieve — a state run and operated on Islamic principles and practices. Nothing rakish or nefarious, is there?

The problem with our Malaysian politicians is that most are simply shallow in their thinking, narrow in their worldview, and hollow in their intellect.

Hence, many resort to using Islamophobia and Sinophobia as a fear-mongering tool to intimidate and browbeat the people, especially the uneducated, gullible and superstitious ones, into submitting to their perverse political schemes.

In Malaysia, Islam, whether we like it or not, inevitably has a major role in the lifestyle and culture of the nation, given the fact that it is the dominant faith of the majority of the population.

However, Malaysia is currently NOT an Islamic state, contrary to what Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and other Muslim leaders have declared. It is simply a Muslim-majority nation, with a multi-racial, multi-religious, multi-cultural, multi-lingual, and multi-class population, and a secular constitution as the supreme law of the country.

The likes of Lee Hwa Beng, who are playing the racial and religious political card, must be stopped and shut up, before they inflame the nation with their intensive senditious provocation.

P.S.
And, by the way, Hwa Beng, where in the Bible did you find that “command” to fight the Islamic theocracy state? I have been a Bible teacher for over 40 years and have several theological degrees, but I have never come across or heard of such a “command”. Where and from whom or which church did you learn about such a command?