31st August marks another year for our nation to celebrate her 49th birthday. It is a celebration of independence, a celebration of national dignity and a celebration of growth from a helpless state terrorized by communism to one of the most advanced developing nations in the 21st century. Much had been achieved over the decades and today, Malaysia is the home of 25million people, of which 10% claims to be follower of Christ. From the early days of church planting and reaching the indigenous by Western missionaries, the church of Malaysia has grown to maturity with indigenous leadership, learning to be self-sufficient and self-propagating. It has gone through various challenges and changes throughout the decades, and increasingly becoming a blessing for the nation and a player in reaching the world for Jesus Christ.

After many years of being a Christian since my conversion, and living in a multiracial and multi religious society as a minority, with a new identity of being “anak Malaysia”. Born into a middle Class Chinese family, knowing little Mandarin, having English as my `first' language, deemed as one of the kafir dhimmi variety in Muslim dominated Terengganu, interacting with my fellow Malay and Indian brothers, watching MTV and Wah Loi Toi on Astro, singing hymns and sitting on pews, jumping up and down in Planet Shaker's conferences, adoring John Stott and the Pope, reading the success stories of Rick Warren and Yonggi Cho and going to mamak at the end of the church youth service. What does it mean to be a Malaysian Christian?

Who are we? Why are we here? Where are we heading to? Here are some thoughts of which I would like to put forward even as we make sense of our calling in this nation.

Firstly, it means that we are the co-heirs of this nation. The founding fathers of the nation had maintained that it is a country founded by mutual cooperation between races in the country through the Social Contract. While Islam is the religion of the constitution, the constitution guarantees equal rights as citizens to profess our religion and protection by the law. It is through power sharing that each of the different groups has a say and a choice in determining our future. We are not the underclass that exists by the mercy of others, but we are equal co-heirs of the future that is awaiting us. God has already chosen us to be His people and places us in this nation to shine His glory in this nation. Therefore as Christians, we are to contribute to the political, social and economic prosperity of our country. Living holy Christian lives within the `holy cuddle' of the church community will be like living as a hermit in the caves, acquiring divine enlightenment, but not being able to pass it on to others. Instead we are to take up the call God has said in Jeremiah 29:7 “Work for the good of the cities where I have made you go as prisoners. Pray to me on their behalf, because if they are prosperous, you will be prosperous too.” We certainly need to exercise our democratic rights and to voice out our stand for Christ in matters of national interest. We also need to be actively involved in nation-building and social services in the name of Christ. Too many Christians today shun the education system, the civil and military services, without taking consideration to penetrate into the system and transform it for Christ. The cost of transforming the nation for Christ is not cheap. It calls for more Christians are to take up the call to serve God selflessly in areas where there is no Christian witness, no matter how hostile it may be. It is the call to redefine the “Kuala Lumpur Dream”.

Secondly it means that we are to be the witness for Christ in this nation. The Bible says that we are the royal priesthood, the holy nation who is set apart to proclaim the Kingdom of God (1 Pet 2:9). As the full consummation of His kingdom is yet to be fulfilled by His second coming, we are to preach the good news of Jesus Christ wherever we are including this country. It is His will that none should perish but all to be brought into His saving knowledge. Therefore, the calling is great and we have much to do in terms of reaching this nation! We need grow in evangelism and missions, to pay up the debt of the cross from the early missionaries by passing it on to those who have never met the reality of Jesus Christ. To proclaim the Word of God to every man is not an option, instead it is a command and the central theme of the whole Gospel and the Evangelical faith. Failure to live up to this calling I believe is the failure for us to grasp the central message of Christ's mission to reconcile men with God. In the midst of our effort to dialogue with other faiths and worldviews, we need not water down the urgency for us to preach the Gospel and persuade both `the wise and the foolish' to faith (Rom 1:14). We need to feel God's sorrow for the sin of humanity, the physical and spiritual death it brings, and realize that righteousness comes from faith in Jesus Christ alone. Dr. Ng Kam Weng once proposed, for genuine interaction with pre-believers using truth, love and supernatural encounters as the reality of God.

Thirdly it means that we are to embrace the prophetic vision for this nation. We are to be a prophetic community in this 21st century that defies the odds of the day of which Ravi Zacharias described as “secularization, privatization and relativistism”. Secularism has created a void, which Blaisé Pascal described as “a God-shaped hole”. Privatization at the other hand has reduced faith as something personal and subjective, which has nothing to do with public life. Relativism, at its worst asserts no absolute truth, inherently denying the supremacy and exclusivity of Jesus Christ at the only way! Therefore we are to be a community that seeks to fill the spiritual gap of which secularism cannot fill. In a world of materialism, we are to be a community that values human dignity and worth as individuals created in God's image. We are to be a community that portrays love. We are to be a community that radically engages with the culture and problems of the day in light of Biblical truths. Malaysian Christians, in my opinion should be the ones who live in simplicity in the midst of a greedy and `kiasu' society. We should be the ones who publicly oppose ungodly values of our society such as corruption, social inequality between the rich and the poor, crime and sexual immorality. Like John the Baptist, we should be the “voice calling out from the wilderness” (Lk 3:4), calling the nation back to righteousness, which ultimately comes from Christ alone.

Fourthly, we are to be the Good Samaritans in our country. We need to be the ones who cry out for the poor, for the weak, for the marginalized. (Isaiah 61). We need to take our privileges and resources that God has entrusted us with to bless those who are underprivileged. James 1:27 says that “pure and genuine religion is this: to take care of orphans and widows in their suffering…” Though we are small, we have our part to play to portray the love of Christ in concrete actions to the weak and helpless. If we are unable to do so, then all our faith and the gospel that we preach, as described by 1 Corinthians 13, will be of no value. Our witness will not be effective if our own personal and corporate life do not show compassion and love, and the willingness to dirty our hands for those who are less fortunate than us. The Bible has clearly shown that God's heart is for the poor, and if we are to be a generation “after God's own heart”, then we ought to be a generation that cares for the poor. Our concern for the poor must not be made one of the many aspects of Christian discipleship, but it is our Father's business as important as the verbal proclamation of the Word of God. If Jesus Christ is to be with us today, He will rather be playing congkak at the slums of Kampung Medan than playing golf. He will be distributing food for the hungry than having buffet meals for every Cell Group meeting. He will be at the back alleys of Chow Kit with the homeless, rather than in our air-conditioned, queen-sized bed youth camps singing endless songs which leads nowhere.

Fifthly we are to be the guardian of our culture. History has shown that Christianity is not an European religion, but an Asian one from the Middle East. The fact that today people from many tribes and tongues profess to believe in Jesus Christ proves the fact that it is universal. There was once a saying that goes “Another Christian means one less Chinese”. This statement is sad but true as many of us still live an Orang Putih version of Christianity. Many Christians today, coming from Asian background distance themselves from the culture that they come from. In the midst of globalization and erosion of traditional values which one way can be attributed to increasingly popular MTV culture, we need to be the people who are more `Asian' than non-Christian! We need to be even more passionate for our own cultural identity than any other people, because the Gospel of Jesus Christ can only be made complete when it is totally relevant and meaningful to the culture that one comes from. We need to rediscover our cultural uniqueness and express the Christian faith in our local cultural experience.

Therefore, our Christian ritual and practices need to be reevaluated and redesigned to reflect our Asian identity. One of the ways the local culture has been expressed in Asian Christianity is the beautiful usage of gamelan and traditional dances by the Church of Bali in their worship, and their beautiful Balinese architecture in church buildings. Imagine how glorious it is if the Malaysian Church can tap on the wealth of our multiracial heritage to enrich our church life. With the beautifully sounding gamelan, gong and er-hu, coupled with the elaborate kuda kepang (e.g. Jesus riding the donkey to Jerusalem) and lion dances (e.g. the Lion of Judah), plus the usage of local literary heritage of pantun and syair, without neglecting the modern acoustics and percussions, it is beyond imagination. Let us be the preservers of our cultural tradition so that in the future, Malaysian Christians will be more `Malaysian' than any other ordinary Malaysian.

Sixthly, we are to be the sons of the soil. We are to embrace the Promised Land that God has given to us, the `tanah tumpahnya darahku'. Like the Israelites who were promised the land of Canaan, we are the heirs, the future `bumiputra' of the land that God has given to us. Our pilgrim identity as Chinese and Indian immigrating from one country to another, with no motherland should end. As Wong Chun Wai, columnist of the Star boldly stressed, “This is our country, there is no other country”, it is my prayer that Christians of Malaysia can weep for God's glory to fall on this nation. The rebuke of Joshua in 18:3 rings clear, “How long shall you wait for you to take the land God has given you?” It is not a coincidence that God has placed us in this country for “such as time like this” (Est. 4:14). Thus this calling to be Malaysians should be embraced with eagerness to sing the glorious chorus of “Malaysia bagi Kemuliaan-Mu”. It may not be an easy for some, but it was not an easy experience for the Israelites in Canaan either. But they persevere with hope in their God Jehovah who made a covenant with them, and anticipate for the future glory that comes through the Messiah. Let us then set our eyes on Jesus, the Lord of Malaysia. Let us be known for our patriotism, our dedication to our leaders and our love for peace and prosperity. Let us embrace the history of our country as our own, to weep over the wounds of the past and the present, such the May 13 incident and the ever pressing socioeconomic inequalities. Let us be the loyal ones who will stand together with our fellow Malaysians through thick and thin. Let us put our loyalty on God who entrusts us to be intercessors for this land. It is a God-given honor to be called “anak Malaysia”.

Lastly, we are to be a united community in the midst of diversity. Our nation's diverse character should be reflected in our churches. We can no longer afford to live within the comfort zone of our racial, cultural and language boundaries, but to actively seek to integrate with other sub-communities within our Christian brotherhood. Although the dismantling of denominational lines is progressing well within the Malaysian Church, there is so much more to do in terms of addressing other unseen differences. We need to rediscover the uniqueness of Bahasa Malaysia as the language of unity and national identity, and should not overemphasize English just for the sake of convenience. Urban middle-class English speaking churches need to be humble to understand the struggles of rural Chinese-speaking churches and East Malaysian BM churches to conform to the over dominance of the English language. By ignoring the unseen lines of linguistic, cultural, or even socioeconomic differences, we are fooling ourselves with a superficial sense of unity. An East Malaysian Christian should not at any point feel that he is a second-class Christian just because he is unable to assimilate well into an English-dominated West Malaysian Christianity. Neither should Mandarin-speaking or Tamil-speaking Christians feel the same. Instead, we need to affirm each other of our partnership in Christ. The English language, that gives economic and educational advantage to many should not be made a stumbling block for some of our `weaker' brothers and sisters to grow in faith. Therefore, as lamented by David Boler, the founding chairman of NECF, Malaysian Christians need to seriously reconsider the status of Bahasa Malaysia in our churches, I believe the national language is the best tool to bridge our differences and to reflect our national identity, despite of how inconvenient it may be. “Read the Bible in Bahasa, sing in Bahasa, pray in Bahasa,” he suggested. Unless and until we do so, we will never face the reality of our own disintegration.

In conclusion, our identity as Malaysian Christians is a unique one as it encompasses various facets of our faith, the culture and the society that we are placed in, in light of the changing world. We are a minority in the Muslim-dominated multireligious society; we are the on-going prophetic community that traces our heritage back to the Judeo-Christian tradition, and also a community which is deeply rooted in our Asian culture and Malaysian society. The social position and cultural richness that we have should be nurtured and celebrated, as it shows off God's creativity and glory in human society. Even as we remember our 49th year of independence, let us remember that Malaysia is created by God, and we are chosen to part of God's story to reveal His glory, until He comes again. While we anxiously wait for the new Jerusalem, let us live faithfully to the calling that God has placed upon our “anak Malaysia” generation; to be the salt and light of the nation, and to proclaim the glorious revelation of the resurrected Christ. Maranatha!

Malaysia bagi Kemuliaan-Mu

Wee Choon Wei
University of Auckland
Ex-UiTM Shah Alam