City Harvest's founder Kong Hee & 4 others arrested/charged

[WeiHan]

The attendance at CHC actually dropped for the first year in 2010 since 2000. I have a feeling that the trend continues in 2011 and 2012. Anybody has some estimate figure to confirm?

[Nebbermind]

phtthp:

how about New Creation church ?

also close to 200, 000 membership or more than City Harvest ?

No, it's not 200k at CHC...more like 20k.
Believe it's also about there for NCC, 20k-ish.

But it's not so important, ya? Not like there's some Billboard chart for attendance, ya?

[kwcllf]

WeiHan:

The attendance at CHC actually dropped for the first year in 2010 since 2000. I have a feeling that the trend continues in 2011 and 2012. Anybody has some estimate figure to confirm?

Maybe someone can also feedback on their sermons the next few days?

[Karenjj]

Dreamaurora:

shinri:

[quote=\"Dreamaurora\"]
I also wish it this way. But the last C in CHC stands for Church. Even if we other non-CHC Protestants would like to believe that CHC's practice is atypical of other Protestant churches, it is still a Protestant Church. And unfortunately, religion will come into discussion here because the funds collected here supposedly to further the cause of the Christian God.

CHC is protestant church?
I always thought it was one of those new denominations of Christianity..
what they call it... Charismatic?

LOL, yes it is considered as a Protestant Church. Charismatic is not technically a denomination, though if I am not wrong CHC is considered as a denomination by itself by NCCS (someone help me out here?)[/quote]According to Wikipedia...
City Harvest Church is a non-denominational megachurch in Singapore. In Christianity, non-denominational institutions or churches are those not formally aligned with an established denomination, or that remain otherwise officially autonomous. Non-denominational is generally used to refer to one of two forms of independence: political or theological. Members of non-denominational churches often consider themselves simply \"Christians\".

I don't think it is a Protestant Church.

[Dreamaurora]

Karenjj:

According to Wikipedia...
City Harvest Church is a non-denominational megachurch in Singapore. In Christianity, non-denominational institutions or churches are those not formally aligned with an established denomination, or that remain otherwise officially autonomous. Non-denominational is generally used to refer to one of two forms of independence: political or theological. Members of non-denominational churches often consider themselves simply \"Christians\".

I don't think it is a Protestant Church.

Thanks. Hmm, but CHC is in fact a member of NCCS which only admit Protestant churches. But i guess whether CHC fits the mold of what people perceive as a 'normal' Protestant Church is very debatable, hence I understand where you are coming from.

[Dreamaurora]

I’ve just seen the cover of today’s WanBao. Seems like more people are going to get charged and one of them plans to be a prosecution witness.

[SilentHermit]

Innocent until proven guilty:

The 5 are charged, but not convicted yet, as such, they are still considered innocent. We can say anything we want now, but the end result shall not be finalized till the entire episode go through its due processes. The next important news to look out for is whether the 5 are going to plead guilty or are they going to contest the charges.

Charges so far:
1) Conspiracy to misappropriate the charity’s funds
2) Criminal breach of trust as agent
3) Falsifying accounts
These charges are all very serious and carry very heavy penalties. People faced with such charges, whether guilty or not, will definitely fear for their own future. In this respect, we can imagine the hell the 5 and their love ones are going through now. If we there is a way to make their lives easier, I think now is truly a time we can all show our grace towards another fellow human being.

Two camps:
Camp A believes the charges hold truth, all the statements issued by the authorities cannot be wrong. They already started their own "trials" online and elsewhere, despite not having the full facts of the case(s). In these trials, KH, the other pastors from CHC, the members and anyone close to CHC came under serious attacks. Some of these attacks seem well substantiated, some are just hot air.

Camp B however believe that nothing was wrong. The crossover project is right as such, any money used to finance it is right. This group believe that the funds are provided voluntarily and the donors obviously allow the church to use it as they think fit. Thus if the management chooses to use it on the crossover project, which they think benefit the church’s movement, what is wrong with that? It is not like KH transferred the money to his personal bank account and buy 20 properties for himself to get richer.

Main fact of the case:
One fact however, seem to be confirmed both from the charge sheets and the church itself is that the church’s money has been used to finance the "crossover" project, which involve using Sun Ho’s music to reach out to certain communities in the world. The prosecution said this has happened and the church’s own statement suggests that this has been done. So central to this case now is, (a) is it wrong for the church to use the funds they have collected for the crossover project which seem to benefit only Sun Ho’s personal career and (b) are the procedures used to transfer such money out of the church wrong?

[As to those arguments about how effective her music actually does the work, is not a matter to be easily answered. The fact remained that even if her music really touch a few persons’ lives, that is also considered success. Price of the action and result of what have been achieved are irrelevant for discussion. Logically, we have to assume that her music did touch some people, however small that population is. And if the population her music touches is small, then we can only say the church made some bad plans, bad investment, that’s all.]


Not a straight forward case I think:
I suppose COC have a set of rules that say how things are supposed to be done. They should also have a set of guidelines that say collected money can be used for certain purposes and not for others. However, I suspect this is going to meet some obstacles at some point because when it comes to the issue of religion, it become a bit more difficult to gauge what is right or wrong. I say, as part of our practice, we must burn 3 tons of hell money on 7th month. Can COC comes in and say, come on, 1.5 tons is enough, you should not waste charity money. I say the crossover project is very important for us to reach certain groups of people, can COC show proof to say that the crossover project achieve nothing or the church should not use the crossover project to reach out, instead use other type of projects?

It seems like it is more likely that the authorities can pin these people down based on circumstantial evident. Why do you need to put up these few paper work to show you have done this and that when in reality you did not? That proves bad intention, so I charge you for what i think you are intending to do or have done. You took out 25 mil and used it. Now you draw another 26 mil, send it out in a circle and come back to the bank account and try to say that the 25 mil has been returned with interest? So now I charge you for cheating the charity of 51 mil in total.

But then the 5 can still argue their way out by saying first, the crossover project is impt, then they have decided the way to finance it is by taking some money from here and there to make up the figures. KL suppose to pay 3 mil, now they dont have the money, so we donate to them first. Maybe when they have enough they can return us later. What is wrong with that? Further speculation seems impossible as most of the facts are not out yet. The way I look at it, if they claim trial, then more details will come out. If they dont, which I doubt so, we will hear little less and left to wonder about the entire truth. As to why I suspect they wont plead guilty is because if they do, they are admitting that they have done wrong. This will damage the faith so many people have in them, not to mention, the punishment could be very harsh. Judging by the statements, tweets and FB so far, it seems like the 5, backed by the church are bracing themselves for a big showdown with the authorities. Expect many witnesses being called and a long long trial.

[ponyo]

CHC is an independent church but going by its statement of faith, it should be a Protestant Church (since if we use the definition of Protestantism in Wiki : "the 3 fundamental principles are 1)Bible as source of authority for the church, 2) grace through faith and not works and 3) universal priesthood of believers (implies the right and duty of the Christian laity not only to read the Bible in the vernacular, but also to take part in the government and all the public affairs of the Church."


Also according to wiki," The term Protestant was not initially applied to the Reformers, but later was used to describe all groups protesting Roman Catholic orthodoxy. Since that time, the term Protestant has been used in many different senses, often as a general term merely to signify Christians who belong to neither the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodoxy, or Oriental Orthodoxy Churches."

But that is not really important in this "City-gate" affair.

I really hope CHC does not see itself as a victim of persecution and that fellow Christians will take this opportunity to heed the call of the President of NCCS that the case is against individuals’ breach of trust and not against the church or religion, and most importantly not to speculate or prejudge before the conclusion of the case and to pray for wisdom (Church and government) in times such as this…

[kwcllf]

SilentHermit:

Camp B however believe that nothing was wrong. The crossover project is right as such, any money used to finance it is right. This group believe that the funds are provided voluntarily and the donors obviously allow the church to use it as they think fit. Thus if the management chooses to use it on the crossover project, which they think benefit the church's movement, what is wrong with that? It is not like KH transferred the money to his personal bank account and buy 20 properties for himself to get richer.

They are a registeted organisation. So must abide by the rules governing them. It is ridiculous if anyone think that becos people give willingly, they can anyhow use the donations. As a matter of fact, did everyone know how the money is used exactly? If everything is above board, why create the web of transaction. It is not difficult to see that something is fishy!

[phankao]

Dreamaurora:

Karenjj:

According to Wikipedia...
City Harvest Church is a non-denominational megachurch in Singapore. In Christianity, non-denominational institutions or churches are those not formally aligned with an established denomination, or that remain otherwise officially autonomous. Non-denominational is generally used to refer to one of two forms of independence: political or theological. Members of non-denominational churches often consider themselves simply \"Christians\".

I don't think it is a Protestant Church.

Thanks. Hmm, but CHC is in fact a member of NCCS which only admit Protestant churches. But i guess whether CHC fits the mold of what people perceive as a 'normal' Protestant Church is very debatable, hence I understand where you are coming from.

As long as it's not a Catholic church, then it's \"Protestant\", wat ... isn't it? Whether of one of the traditional denominations or non-denominational