Can a Christian political party possibly exist in Singapore?

Can a Christian political party possibly exist in Singapore?

SINGAPORE - In the wake of the AWARE saga, several permutations went through my mind, one of those centered on hypothetical scenarios in Singapore politics. This led to an interesting question - can a Christian political party exist in Singapore? This piece is by no means an academic dissertation, and is never meant to be exhuastive, but rather an articulation of my thoughts on the subject.

Christianity in Singapore
Christianity in Singapore comprises Catholicism and Protestantism, in addition to Eastern and Oriental Orthodoxy, and finally the Charismatic movement. The breakdown of the percentage of Singaporeans adhering to the various religions/non-religions is as follows - Buddhism (42.5%), Christianity (14.6%), Islam (13.9%), Taoism (8.5%), Hinduism (4%), Other religions (1.6%) and No religion (14.8%).

Christianity has a prolific presence within the education scene, with a substantial number of missionary schools belonging to four major denominations - anglicans, methodist, presbyterian and catholicism.

A Christian political party and its formation
A Christian political party generally seeks to apply Christian principles to public policy, and this is the raison d’etre for most Christian political parties. The latter may be aligned to the left, right or center.

It is interesting to postulate how a Christian political party can arise in Singapore’s context. The most ostensible cause for the set up of such a party could be attributed to a reaction against prevailing policies by the government. A hypothetical Christian political party can be set up to address public policies on the intergrated resorts, hiring of gays into the civil service and stem cell research.

The set up of the intergrated resorts will be of concern to the Christian community because of its association with the gambling vice. And as far as homosexuality is concerned, it is not uncommon for Christians to hold an antagonistic view on the subject due to their scripture-inspired convictions. Lastly, the government has placed fewer restrictions in the conducting of stem cell research in the hope that this will give Singapore a comparative advantage over other countries who enforce tough restrictions. Pro-life advocators within the Christian community would not be supportive of this less restrictive approach due to belief that life begins at the embryo, and its destruction leads to the denial of its right to life.

Barriers within the Christian community
The first obvious barrier is obviously a matter within the Christian community itself - dealing with the differences within. Despite my earlier said point that a hypothetical party might be established to address the homosexuality issue, signals from the Christian community on the subject could be said to be mixed at best. Notwithstanding Mr Derek Hong’s of the Church of Our Saviour anti-homosexuality stance, Dr Tan Kim Huat, a dean of the Trinity Theological College has came out in support of the repeal of the anti-gay law, section 377A of the penal code. Dr Yap Kim Hao, the first Asian Bishop of the The Methodist Church in Singapore has supported the government’s stance on employing gays within the civil service.

Another source of differences that the community must grapple with is inter-denominational in nature. If, for example, AWARE was a political party, they could face this barrier in garnering support from fellow Christians. Majority of Aware’s exco committee members hailed from the Church of Our Saviour, an Anglican cum Charismatic church. The source of disagreement could potentially come from Christians of traditional denominations (Presbyterian, Methodists) who are against the practices of Charismatic churches, and consider them contrary to the traditions of Christianity.

Barriers from the electorate
A Christian political party would obviously face barriers from the electorate who are largely non-Christian, going by the aforesaid percentage figures of adherents to the various religions. It will be interesting to predict the response of the Muslim voters to a Christian political party. Islam is an Abrahamic religion just like Christianity, and both are also exclusive. There is no doubt that such voters can swing the result either way during an electoral contest.

Judging from the public response to the pursuit of a Christian agenda, the hypothetical Christian political party has a big mountain to climb. When DBS (Development Bank of Singapore) supported Focus on the Family (FOTF), a Christian organization with an anti-gay stance, there was a public outcry resulting in a PR disaster for the bank. There were threats to boycott the bank, and this triggered a response to remove any form of reference to FOTF. This means that the bank has in effect distanced itself from FOTF. A Christian political party that is based on similar values as FOTF would be taken apart by the public. And if the party adopts a conciliatory stand towards gays, they may risk facing barriers within the Christianity community, especially amongst those who are against such an approach.

Political barriers
The Singapore Internal Security Department has adopted draconian measures during Operation Spectrum, which saw the arrest of 22 Roman Catholic professionals and social activists. As it turned out, some of them have assisted the Worker’s Party. The official accusations against the arrested was that they were members of a Marxist conspiracy bent on subverting the PAP government’s rule. It wasn’t shown how the accused could be proven to be a Marxist agitator because their profile didn’t fit the description of one.

This hypothetical Christian political party would be considered an opposition to the ruling secular PAP. If AWARE was a political party and its exco was taken over by a group of Christians bent on turning AWARE into a Christian political party, it would be interesting to ponder on the PAP government’s likely response in such a scenario. However, going by its track record during Operation Spectrum, one would not be surprised to see barriers erected to stymie the progress of this Christian political party.

Pragmatism
The fact remains that a pragmatic approach that can reap economic benefits would be pursued by the government, even if it meant going against the grain of values imparted by certain religions. This occurred in the case of the integrated resorts and stem cell research. If the application of Christian principles in policy debates go against pragmatism, it would be hard for the Christian political party to convince the pragmatic voters. Coming up with public policies that is acceptable from the Christian viewpoint and pragmatic at the same time may be a huge challenge.

Conclusion
The motivation behind the set up of a Christian political party can be a reactionary one in response to the prevailing polices of the PAP government, especially those deemed unacceptable from the Christian perspective. This hypothetical party will challenge the PAP on such policies. However, it will face challenges from its own community, the electorate and finally, the political establishment.

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