Today had a fantastic service at TA2. I love playing hymns with Dr. Emilia Wong: it’s just so spunky and fun! Somewhat like insane Jap pianist at IBC. Plus we had funky hymns like a contemporary Gloria that the congregation sang like a train running late (As they do for all the hymns).

A Taiwanese Theologian/Musician gave the sermon, much of which I didn’t understand. There was a lot of emphasis on global diversity in our worship. Indeed, important! Although as always I maintain diversity for the sake of diversity remains harmful. Yet if any church is uniquely placed for diversity it would be Singapore, if only we could learn to draw from our rich Asian traditions instead of imitating the shallow Western pop culture! At the same time I feel very much that we need to remember the line that the inherited Western culture we have so far in the classical tradition is Christian culture, inasmuch as  Byzantine and Russian culture are Christian culture, and should remain the prevailing culture of the church, although our new Asian cultures should be gradually grafted in, until one day Christian and Asian culture become yes, too, inseparable! But till then, no diversity for the sake of diversity please. Meanwhile I think the need for Asian liturgies and Asian music remain very much urgent and pressing. We need to adopt local customs and cultures, and to absorb them.

Also, I was pleasantly surprised by the preacher referring to God as our Mother. TA2 is such an uber-conservative church you don’t expect to hear the preacher devoting 5 minutes to why God is our Mother as well as our Father. It made me feel this tremendous swell of pride in being Methodist and this tremendous sense of hope for the Methodist Church in Singapore. The preacher seemed to think this line of thinking was a recent development however, instead of a century-old tradition. Yet we are making progress! Maybe in a few years the benediction at TA2 will be in the name of “Mother, Daughter, and Feminine Spirit” although I don’t know what that will be in Chinese. Although that would definitely be swinging too much to the other extreme. I am opposed to this trinitarian formula inasmuch as I’m opposed to the insipid “Creator, Sustainer, Redeemer” that seems to be in vogue in so many places. “Mother, Son, and Holy Spirit” is perfectly okay I think, in fact, a good departure. Or maybe “Father and Mother, Son and Holy Spirit”, or “Parent, Son and Holy Spirit”, although these too lack punch. As St. Julian would say our God is Mother as truly as he is our Father. I find attempts to paint Jesus as a woman absurd, and likewise attempts to feminise the Holy Spirit (although I think it too a welcome departure to refer to the Holy Spirit as “She” as much as “He”). Okay, enough digression, sorry to bore you with my sexual theology; but it’s really important to me and in how I relate to God.

Kyrie Eleison