Infiltrate churches to see what is said of you, Ridhuan Tee urges Muslims
(Malaysian Digest) – Controversial columnist Ridhuan Tee Abdullah today suggested for Muslims to infiltrate churches in Malaysia to witness what he alleged to be Christian condemnation against them.
Writing in support today of a seminar at a Shah Alam university that questioned the divinity of Jesus Christ and the authenticity of the Christian Gospels, Tee also claimed this was held as a response to the alleged spread of Christianity in Malaysia.
He then urged Muslims to visit churches undercover to witness for themselves the condemnation he alleged was being aimed at them.
“I hope there are Muslims who can go enter churches in disguise to hear what is discussed,” Tee wrote in his Sinar Harian column today.
Earlier in his opinion piece, the senior lecturer with the National Defence University defended a May 6 event held at the Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) that has antagonised Christian and other faith groups with the claims made by speakers, arguing that it was academic in nature.
Tee claimed that the criticism against the seminar was disproportionate to that which followed his allegation of a priest’s alleged attack against Islam in a church, which he claimed was made months prior.
“Unfortunately Muslims do not go to churches to see how they condemn Muslims. We are accused of oppression and cruelty towards Christians, with examples from ‘Malay cruelty in the ethnic cleansing of the Chinese during the Japanese Occupation of 1942-1945’. The fact is far from the point,” he wrote.
“Why were there no police reports made? Because we do not know what happens in churches.”
Multiple reports were lodged against the organisers of a closed-door seminar on the use of the word “Allah” and Christology at Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) on May 6.
At the day-long seminar in its Shah Alam campus last week, UiTM had invited several Indonesian Muslims, academics and converts, to lecture on the use of the Arabic word for God, “Allah”, in the Malay archipelago and their interpretation on the life of Jesus Christ, whom Christians revere as God manifest on earth.
A speaker told the thousand-strong audience — which included former prime minister Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi — that the New Testament gospels, which recount the life of Jesus, were hearsay and falsehoods as the prophet was only “a human slave to Allah” and not a divine being.
Another said that Christians should convert to Islam as they would be “betraying Jesus” and his principles otherwise.
The seminar also takes place against the backdrop of strained ties between Muslims and Christians over the use of the Arabic word “Allah”.
Last year, the Court of Appeal overturned a lower court’s decision to allow a Catholic newspaper to use the word. The appellate court ruled that “Allah” was not an integral part of Christianity.
The Catholic church is looking to appeal the decision at the country’s highest court.
