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1 Feb, 24 tweets, 10 min read
Let's talk about Bethel Church, what it has to do with Singapore, and what it means to import "culture wars".

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bethel_Ch…
Bethel Church is a megachurch in Redding, California. It has its own music label for worship music. It was launched in 2001, but grew rapidly 2009 - 2014...

(which incidentally reflect a similar timeline as City Harvest Church & Sun Ho's Crossover Project.)
Bethel Church first came to my attention in Dec 2019 when, I kid you not, they were praying to revive a dead 2 year old child. #WakeUpOlive was trending on twt for a week.
To me, it seemed kinda sick and grotesque but hey, people are allowed to practice their religion however they want, right?

(They also took the opportunity to start a gofundme... what financial concerns are there in raising the dead??? got 78k anyway)

slate.com/human-interest…
More recently, the church has been up to spreading G̵o̵d̵'̵s̵ ̵l̵o̵v̵e̵ covid in their hometown...

latimes.com/california/sto…
and elsewhere, as one of their worship leaders Sean Feucht insists on travelling to other states to hold ~superspreader~ prayer rallies, or "worship protests" when he's denied a permit.

He also ran for Congress as a Republican last year (abortion, anti-vax, sex ed, etc)
Another church leader, Kris Vallotton, who'd prophesied a Trump win, apologized soon after the election, then took down his apology when people called him a coward, before reposting his apology again in January.

he also did this once 😠
The head of Bethel Church, Bill Johnson, co-wrote "Invading Babylon: The Seven Mountain Mandate" in 2013, which is when that movement really kinda took off (though it existed long before that).

friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2020/03/25/pow…
after a while, I noticed that I kept running into the same names over and over again. no one seems to identify as being part of the New Apostolic Reformation movement, it just seems to be something someone else calls you ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

many links here:
piratechristian.com/berean-examine…
Al Jaazera once called it "America's Own Taliban" aljazeera.com/opinions/2011/…
what 👏 does 👏 this 👏 have 👏 to 👏 do 👏 with 👏 singapore 👏

Good question! Here's a list of speakers invited to Singapore for church conferences in the past five years. See any familiar names here?
I've always been curious about what happened in '18. When Rice reported on Lou Engle's Islamophobic remarks,did MHA follow up on the other speakers? Are foreign speakers only responsible for what they say here? Are churches responsible for who they feature?
Bethel Church is also closely linked with the Changed movement and its #oncegay hashtag.

A coincidence that Singapore's truelove.is was launched around the same time? 🤔

washingtonpost.com/religion/2019/…
The anti-abortion Unplanned movie, presented by The Heartbeat Project, screened at Joanna Theng's daddy's "values-based" Christian-content-only cinema?

Music by Bethel and featured Kris Vallotton
There are many criticisms of NAR/dominionism/seven mountains mandate, from Christians, theologians, religious studies profs, political researchers and even the local Ethos Institute for Public Christianity.

ethosinstitute.sg/paganising-chr…
ethosinstitute.sg/seven-mountain…
ethosinstitute.sg/distortions-of…
Now here's what I think.

There are 6-700 churches in Singapore, most of them small and happy to mind their business.

We have a handful of megachurches, who've accumulated an outsized reach, power and money. FCBC, CHC, NCC, COOS, CSCC... they've all seen some drama.
The National Council of Churches of Singapore (NCCS) only represents about 2-300 of churches.

Recently, a separate alliance was formed, the Alliance of Pentacostal-Charismatic Churches of Singapore (APCCS).

i thought their FAQ page was kinda funny.
This is one of the reasons why I was surprised by this quote. It was the first thing I've seen that confirmed I wasn't loco 🤯

Churches? Churches in Singapore have known ties? Known ties to FAR-RIGHT COUNTERPARTS and you're... urging? That's it???

So churches in Singapore can disagree on a lot of things, but they won't call each other out publicly because they remain united on the issue of... Teh Gays?

sure, that makes sense, Ingroup-Outgroup 101
But pretending that Singapore's racial minorities or queer folk asking to be treated with respect are responsible for "importing culture wars" is BS, especially when this kind of right-wing extremism has been slowly stewing.
I appreciate the difficult task of maintaining harmony among groups with differing values, but the right to exist (and thrive!) shouldn't be up for debate.

And "letting (conservative) society take the lead" is doing exactly that.
in conclusion,,,
thread from last year:

long thread on Christian fundamentalism within America - i'm posting a ss of the bits about Wagner and Lou Engle.

FCBC's Lawrence Khong was commissioned as an apostle by Wagner in 2000.

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More from @sharanvkaur

🍍 __ 🙀 Profile picture
5 Dec 20
earlier this year, we met a friend who does neuroscience research overseas. we talked about their work for a while, and also abt ~drugs~

specifically NS research on drugs like ketamine and LSD being used to treat mental illnesses

couple of days later, both V and I got this ad
it's a Very Expensive (SGD 120,000 per week!) drug rehab facility in switzerland. i'm gonna skip discussing the creepiness of our phones listening in on us 🥴

i didn't realise the significance of the ad until a few months later, when i saw this tweet

so if you're struggling with addiction, and you're filthy fucking rich, hop on a plane out of here and deal with it in a fancy rehab centre somewhere.

but if you're poor, you struggle alone or accept that you'll be punished before you get help.
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🍍 __ 🙀 Profile picture
4 Sep 20
&^*(#@&%)@#($&

LOOK AT THIS 🤬🤬🤬

"He found that there was collusion by the family, who had "improper motives" and wanted to stop her from going to the authorities."

straitstimes.com/singapore/cour…
here, the photos that should actually be in the news.

Liew Mun Leong is also Chairman of Surbana Jurong btw!!

His son though... In another case, a judge found Karl Liew to be “a dishonest and evasive witness, whose evidence was riddled with inconsistencies.”
like, what kind of faith must you have in the country's justice system and worker protection laws to be literally one degree from the Minister for Manpower and still try to frame your employee?
Read 14 tweets
🍍 __ 🙀 Profile picture
5 Jul 20
i don't know who made the police reports or these images but they were both shared on the Singapore Matters FB page, a pro-PAP page that's willing to play fast and loose with facts.
she wasn't the only one to ask about perceived differences in sentencing and/or enforcement. the police statement is misrepresenting her questions as comments or statements of fact.

straitstimes.com/singapore/covi…
about the city harvest post. this 2yo post was made on 2 Feb, three days before Law Minister Shanmugam addressed this in Parliament. again, it reflected widespread public sentiment that church leaders got off lightly, and that legislation against corruption was weak.
Read 9 tweets
🍍 __ 🙀 Profile picture
18 Apr 20
Internally wrestled with making this thread all day because it seems petty. But I also think it's important, so here goes.

I know lots of big things are happening right now, but we're also watching the erasure of Preeti and Subhas Nair's work happen in real time.
This thought was prompted by @Jenlky's question following discussion of the racist, xenophobic letter published by Zaobao.
On April 8, Preeti released this video on her youtube channel. She explains some issues faced by migrant workers and appeals for funds to help 2 NGOs working with them.

This campaign met its goal of $100,000 in just 12 hours, and is currently at $300k

Read 18 tweets
🍍 __ 🙀 Profile picture
8 Nov 19
Thread: hostile architecture in Singapore
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🍍 __ 🙀 Profile picture
10 Aug 19
There's been a lot written about 'brownface' in Singapore in the last week. Conversations mostly seem to go like this:

"Hey that shit is offensive."
"No, it's funny."
"But it's like blackface."
"Blackface is from America, stop bringing up stupid liberal talk."
On 5 Aug, Indranee Rajah (Member of Parliament and a Minister) published a piece, mentioning how the Black and White Minstrel Show was 'quite acceptable' in the 60s and 70s.
Margaret Chan, a "cultural anthropologist" and retired prof writes another article 2 days later titled "'Brownface' is not Singaporean."

She says "It's the cosmopolitan Singaporean who has imported concepts like "brownface" and appropriation."
Read 24 tweets

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