Exercise due diligence when inviting foreign preachers: NCCS

SINGAPORE — The National Council of Churches (NCCS) is reminding the pastors of its member churches to exercise “due diligence and careful discernment” when inviting foreign preachers to address their congregations. 

The note comes after the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) said last week that it had barred two foreign Christian preachers from entering Singapore because they had made inflammatory remarks about other religions.

In a letter published on its website on Monday (Sept 11), the council said that there is a need to “preserve the harmonious religious environment that currently exists in our nation” and “the language of discourse when relating to other faiths must always be respectful and winsome”. 

The council, which acts as an association of churches and other Christian organisations, added: “We are not to denigrate another religion or act in ways that jeopardise the religious harmony in our society.”

It also stressed that Christians should foster mutual respect across different faiths in order to counteract religious polarisation and strengthen the good relations between different communities. 

“Religious polarisation can so easily be exacerbated by sweeping and insensitive statements, more so by leaders and preachers who are not familiar with or appreciative of the fabric of inter-faith relations we have built up in Singapore over the years,” Right Reverend Rennis Ponniah, who is council president, said.

Last Friday, Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam said at a forum organised by the Institute of Policy Studies that laws enacted to maintain religious harmony will be tightened next year, including those forbidding religious leaders from promoting hatred and ill will among different faith groups or furthering political causes.

He also revealed then that the two foreign Christian preachers had been denied entry into Singapore due to their Islamophobic teachings. 

In a statement, the MHA said that the two had made “denigrating and inflammatory comments of other religions” in the past. 

One preacher had described Allah as a “false god” and referred to Buddhists as “Tohuw people”, a Hebrew word for lost, lifeless, confused and spiritually barren individuals. 

The other preacher had described Islam as, among other things, “an incredibly confused religion” that is interested in “world domination”.

The Manpower Ministry, in consultation with the MHA, had rejected recent Miscellaneous Work Pass applications for the two.

On revisions to the Maintenance of Religious Harmony Act, the MHA said that it is “reviewing the need to enhance our legislative provisions to safeguard racial and religious harmony in Singapore” and details will be announced when the review is done.