Anglican Church and AWARE

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On Thursday, Dr John Chew, president of the National Council of Churches of Singapore or NCCS (the umbrella Christian group), issued a statement to selected media calling for churches to "all step back and give AWARE space to settle its own matters".

The NCCS’s statement said among other things, that it did not condone the use of the pulpit to get involved in the controversy.

Senior pastor of the Church Of Our Saviour Derek Hong has issued a public apology for using the pulpit to give backing to the Association of Women for Action and Research's (AWARE) executive committee in their dispute with the group's previous leadership. Incidentally, Dr John Chew is also the archbishop of the Anglican church and pastor Hong’s Church Of Our Saviour is in Dr John’s diocese.

You can read about it at "Pastor apologises for misusing pulpit".

A little information and latest update on AWARE.

Ms Josie Lau and her exco have stepped down from Association of Women for Action and Research or AWARE in short. Ms Lau and some other exco came into power at AWRE in a hostile manner less than 2 months ago.

6 members of the exco are later revealed to be from an Anglican Church Of Our Saviour. This also spark concerns from some as AWARE is a secular NGO and religion should not be allowed to encroach it.

These are some of the concerns that people at the recent AGM said :

1. One Malay Muslim woman said she was not comfortable with an-all Christian and all-Chinese group representing a secular group like AWARE. And members of the Christian faith stood up and said the action of the new Exco set back constructive dialogue between Christians and secularists in Singapore.
2. "We are here because we were deeply troubled by how this executive committee came to power. We are here because we are deeply troubled by the usurpation of civic space, and the lack of respect for the values of pluralism, democracy that this new executive committee has demonstrated," said one member of the audience.
3. "AWARE is about inclusiveness, AWARE in helping women, helps everybody, male and female. And whatever their sexual orientation can be, it does not matter, because they are first and foremost a person. A human being and that's what AWARE is about," said another.

Although former AWARE president Lau said that : “Race, religion were never an issue. We welcome women of all races, culture, religion and come and serve on the subcommittee," clearly, the crowd was not won over.

Another sticking point that was revealed was the fact that under Ms Lau, AWARE spend $90,000 in the last month since they took power some two months ago while under the constitution, the exco is not allowed to spend more than S$20,000 and if they do, they must consult members.