基督教會白色恐怖疑雲

Dear Sir,

Re: Queries on the Announcement on 29th March 2006

At the beginning of this year, Rev. Wong Kwok Yiu, ex-chief pastor of Kwun Tong Alliance Church (KTAC) announced his resign on his personal weblog. The news received media attention, as Rev. Wong criticized The Society of Truth and Light (STL), a para-church organization widely considered as close partner of Christian and Missionary Alliance (C&MA), during the debate on Sexual Orientation Discrimination Ordinance. This fact was alarming for the public, as they worried that Rev. Wong was forced to resign as a result of his speech.

Your organization published an announcement on the organizational website at the end of March. In the announcement, it was mentioned that Rev. Wong was advised to resign by the Committee of KTAC. Such an advice was accepted by your organization, and your chairman helped in the persuasion. The announcement emphasized that the decision was the result of co-operative problem between Rev. Wong and KTAC, while C&MA had never stopped Rev. Wong from criticizing STL. The latter was only advised to communicate with STL before criticisms.
The case was not closed, however. The letter written by KTAC Committee to Rev. Wong was publicized on InMedia (http://www.inmediahk.net/public/article?item_id=109102&group_id=11 ) by Hoi Hoi. In point 4.2 of the letter, Rev. Wong's criticism on STL was mentioned as a reason for the failure of co-operation. Some moralistic comments was given in the letter, while Rev. Wong's criticisms was blamed for stirring up conflicts between Christians, and paved the way for devil's work.

Based on this section of the letter, we doubted the integrity of the announcement while it claimed Rev. Wong's resign was unrelated with his criticisms on STL. It could be argued that it was the lack of communication before criticisms, rather than the criticisms themselves, resulted in Rev. Wong's resign. However, merely the mentioning of those criticisms could create reasonable doubts on your statements.

It was unclear that whether there are any regulations by C&MA on the speeches and criticisms of its employees. If they, as your announcement claimed, enjoyed freedom to criticize, under what circumstances would they enjoyed these freedom? As in the case of Rev. Wong, he criticized STL on personal basis without mentioning his post in C&MA. What was your regulations on the private and personal speech of your fellow employees?

Another point that enhanced our doubt is that many of the other points mentioned in the letter was, in fact, without grounds. We could not understand how the number of movies Rev. Wong seen, and the usage of Cantonese in his weblog, could be considered as an evidence of his unholiness? Despite of the importance of being holistic in spiritual services, it would not be a sin if a pastor request for some personal time: a devoted servant of God still need some personal time. He is still a human and he would die without rest. He needed some time for quiet, to face God personally, and to fulfill his duties as a family member. These are not only his rights, but his obligations. I would afraid there was a serious misunderstanding on the duties of a spiritual leader.

If all these reasons are not valid, then we would like to ask a question: What is the real reason behind Rev. Wong's resign? Would the mentioned invalid explanations were just cover-ups, as the real reason is not something acceptable to the public: that is, Rev. Wong's resign was caused by his speeches? As details of Rev. Wong's previous speeches was listed in the letter, one by one, to construct evidences for Rev. Wong's incompetence, we could not stop worrying that his speeches are actually the real reasons behind his misfortune.

There are so many mysteries in the incident. We have faith in God, but not in human organizations which claimed themselves as followers of God. It would be your obligations to explain the issue clearly, and to defend and justify your decisions. A spiritual organization without integrity is nothing, and it would be meaningless for followers of God to hide anything.

May God be the Glory.

Yours Sincerely,
Miu Cze Wai