Seventy Seven Times

If you do not recognize the name Yip Kai Foon, he was a notorious robber from Hong Kong. He died last month while in prison. Before he went to prison for the second time, he has no regard for other human being.He once joined forced with another notorious criminal trying to kidnap one of the sons of the richest Chinese in the world, Lee Ka Shing. It was unsuccessful and he was imprisoned for his part in it. He escaped prison and got his hands on a few AK-47. He used these weapons to hit a series of Jewllery Store and sprayed bullets everywhere.Remember the North Hollywood shootout? How the LAPD was powerless with their powerful 9-mm? The police in Hong Kong were, and still, carries only .38 revolvers. They do not even have any bulletprrof vest, and do not have police cars as shield. He was eventually captured by the, then, newly formed SWAT team.He became a Christian while in prison, and after he died, he was paraded as some sort of hero. During the funeral, the banner over his coffin says 「浩氣長存」(a noble spirit that mill never perish).A lot of people have issue with the term "noble" with this notorious robber.I have been reading a lot of non-Christians posting their disgust over how he is treated as some sort of hero, and famous Christians standing up for him. I believe their biggest issue with him is that he became a Christian, and the Christians treated him as if he has done none of the notorious acts before.I think they may have an easier time with him if he apologize for his crime, especially for the women he killed in one of the heists he pulled. He did none of that, and was even disciplined in prison for fight with an inmate after he became a Christian.What do I think of him? I have absolutely no idea. What do I think of the Christians who are part of the group adorning him? They should have done a much better job discipling him, and get him to apologize to everyone in Hong Kong for terrorizing everyone while he was on the run.

A Divided Kingdom

Today, I was reading Mark Chapter 3. Verses 1-6 is about Jesus healing on Sabbath; verses 7-12 is about Jesus healing a growing crowd; verses 13-21 is about choosing the 12 Disciples among the growing followers and the growing needs for Jesus; verses 22-30 is the parables about blasphemes against the Holy Spirit; and, verses 31-35 is about Jesus' mother and brothers wanting to see him.Today, I received an email from one of the candidates for the Federal Conservatives leadership race. He's not the first one, and, while the other candidates wrote long emails explaining their position and vision for their version of the next Conservatives, this one is something else. He started his email with attacking the Ontario Provincial Conservatives leader for "Patrick Brown is no Stephen Harper". This candidate spent almost the entire email attacking a fellow politician who is not running in the same race, tried to throw dirt on the Provincial Party leader on, basically, how Brown is not a "true Conservatives" and, unlike him, is not as close to the last leader as he is (what does that have to do with anything?). He kept attacking how Brown is blocking Conservatives who are "true Conservatives" from representation of various ridings and forcing only fake Conservatives into those key positions.I have absolutely no idea where this candidate stand on any policies.He thinks it is more important for Conservatives to know how he "knows" Stephen Harper and the "fact" that he's a "real Conservatives" than for people to know where he stands in what Conservatives should stand for in the next election.He's nothing more a gossiper than a real leader material if this is the best he can do. His strategy for leadership is not to distinguish himself with a great vision of how he's going to lead the Conservatives and win over Canadians. His strategy is to attack a popular provincial leader to establish how only he is the "true Conservatives", how well he knows the last leader, and those are the only facts that matter.I'm from Hong Kong, and since 2014, it has become full-fledge chaotic. It all began with three fully grown adults who wanted to apply the "occupation" strategy to force the government into submission to their "democratic reform" demands. We were not dealing with "hey, let's talk how" but "this is what we believe democracy should be, so it exactly like we tell you or we will be trouble for you".What ended up happening is a bunch of hot headed student took over their idea and labelled themselves as "hero of democracy". What they mean is,"even we know nothing about anything, you must yield to our demands (which was never formed after 78 days of occupation).They equate themselves with the plots or characters of movies like V for Vendetta (which the real story was about the struggle between the Catholic Church and the Protestants), The Hunger Game (totally lacking in understanding of the original story vs. History of Hong Kong) and the Les Miserable (which they thought the French Revolution was an one-time event, but the correct question should be "which French Revolution" if they know History at all).

A divided Kingdom have no foot to stand on (Mark 3:25).

Okay, maybe you thought, "that's politics, the Church is not like that. Really? Think again.In Hong Kong, there are pastors and theologians who accuse anyone who is not against the government to be not Christian, as God will not allow an unjust and evil government to exist. They believe anyone who does not join this movement to be against God. I guess there must be another Gospels I didn't read where Jesus was telling His believers to rise up against the evil and unjust Roman Empire....oh wait....that Gospels doesn't exist. Yesterday, a friend of mine posted a very nice Hillsong song on his Facebook, and one of his friends immediately posted links to articles that accuse the entire Hillsong ministries as....just short of calling them the Antichrist....Hillsong is not the only target out there. There are many groups and preachers out there who love God and has been doing great works (another touchy subject) for God, and there are people who have made it their mission to "take them down" in what they believe to be "leaders who mislead God's people", but in reality to be nothing more than "theological differences".Often times these "crusaders" will take a few passages, take them out of context, turn them into theological measuring stick, and judge people based on that.Just like in Mark 3, they don't believe God will perform miracles on Sabbath because even God MUST take a vacation day. In their mind, it means anything extraordinary happens on Sabbath, it CANNOT be from God.In the early church time, unless a person become a Jews (circumcised for men), they cannot be a Christian. In the Post-anabaptist world, unless you are baptized by immersion as an adult, you are not a Christian (some even go as far as added meaning to the word baptizo to justify the immersion requirement). In certain circles today, unless you are a confessing Calvinist (whatever that mean), you are not a Christian.So, are we, with good intention, going to divide God's Kingdom just to satisfy our....psychologically based theological-correctness need?