14: September 28 - Kuching

Flying over the South China Sea from Singapore to Kuching. 'The temperature in Kuching is 26degrees and the weather is good. Thank you for flying SilkAir’.

I meet up with the Bishop of Kuching who makes me very welcome and shows me a front page article in the Borneo Post, ‘Insult on Islam: ‘Government will not keep quiet’, says deputy minister Putrajaya. Several video clips filmed in Kuching churches are on Youtube showing a priest called Benjamin Stephen making comments which have been interpreted as insulting Islam. Bishop Bolly is needing to be ready to respond to further enquiries. It seems although the man was known he functioned as a free agent and his preaching was independent and in no way sanctioned by the Anglican church. So one more demanding task for the Bishop to deal with.


In fact Christians are in the majority in Sarawak – amounting to some 40% of the population. However although there feels to be greater freedom for Christians than in West Malaysia where the Malay Government is essentially Muslim led and dominated, nonetheless great care has to be taken to avoid this charge of insulting Islam. At St Faith’s Church in Kuching, Philip who runs a travel agency, asked me what my response to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s recommendation that Sheriah law be implemented. It was quite clear that he was appalled and in the Malaysian context felt Rowan Williams was seriously out of touch with the serious implications of what he was proposing.

In general I found that Christians had little to do with Muslims. However in Kuala Lumpur I found that Helina, a former St Chads volunteer, included Muslims and Buddhists in her friendship group. The pressure faced by Christians, especially in West Malaysia, preventing them from any form of direct evangelising is considerable. Many people still referred to the ‘Allah affair’ which blew up in January when Christians were forbidden from using the term Allah for God – something they have been doing since before the rise of Islam. In Surubaya, Indonesia, using Bahasi Indonesian, we prayed to ‘Allah yang mahakuasa, Bapa surgasi’, Almighty God, our Heavenly Father’.

Moses Alegesan works in Holy Trinity, Medan with Hindu converts. For two years he experienced the pressure of being under the charge of insulting Hinduism. Eventually the case was dropped much to the surprise of many people. The three judges were all Muslims, two of them Hajjis who had been on pilgrimage to Mecca. So, Moses reflects, although at first he had despaired over this, the outcome meant that no one could come back and accuse them of a pro Christian stitch up.

I don’t see much future here for my idea of a mixed Christian Muslim group visiting from Wolverhampton or Walsall. Better to start that on a more local level, following Richard Sudworth’s ,the CMS Mission Partner in Springfield, Birmingham, model and approach.