Taiwan Church News
3338 Edition
February 15 – 21, 2016
Editorial
When Our Neighbors Are In Troubles, What We Are Busy Doing?
Since the outbreak of vote-buying scandal on the election of Tainan City Council Speaker in 2015, Tainan City herself seems to become a tabloid gossip in people’s daily lives. And the bad news keep coming one by one. When the contention between Tainan City Hall and City Council began to calm down, the positive cases of denge fever climbed to an unprecedented 9,000 patients in September. The small mosquito scares off thousands of tourists and keeps the citizens in a high alert. As it seems the worst is always not yet come, in the early morning on February 6, Tainan City is devastatingly struck by a moment magnitude scale 6.4 degree earthquake causing the most serious casualties since 921 quake in 1999.
As the saying that misfortune never comes single, though, an amazing resilient capability of Tainan citizens is cultivated – i.e. people would rather endure some inconveniences in order to forge a public good. In a firm belief that all these hard challenges will be finally overcome, the unflagging public sectors attract more cooperation, accumulate more self-confidence and establish more compelling standards in rescue operations.
As to those demanding gourmands in Tainan, they also turn their criticisms on the dishes to the reports or comments of those blood-thirsty journalists and politicians. If the coverage or comments about the rescue operation are confirmed true, they would be highly saluted just like the praises from a loyal gourmand saluting his most admired chef; otherwise, if these news are covered in political tricks without evidence, strong waves of reader discontent would definitely surge to embarrass those medias.
This is why, when the Tainan City Mayor William Lai is severely criticized for the rescue operation is his one-man-show of the so-called catastrophic politics – hypocritically wearing a broken sports-shoe on rescue site or secretly slipping back home to feast with his families in the eve before the Lunar New Year, so many Tainan citizens stand up for the Mayor and condemn such malicious rumors because they know Mayor Lai is doing everything that “what he could and should” for those earthquake victims and the families.
On the sixth day after the earthquake, when a jawbreaker breaks into the encircled area, Mayor Lai makes no excuse, admits it’s a mistake and apologizes immediately. This man, William Lai, who will never surrender to any politicians with a connection to the mafia or money laundry groups, humbles down himself in everybody’s surprise to admit the trivia mistake just for the well-beings of the citizens.
Standing by the suffered and their families, such compassionate charity is what religious groups could always serve when natural disasters come unexpectedly. So, it’s not unusual that PCT General Assembly and Tainan Presbytery are both deeply involved in the rescue operation of the collapsed Weiguang Jinglong complex. Such kinds of charity support from the church are actually appreciated by Tainan City Government and the citizens.
But some eccentric remarks made by few Christians are no less superstitious than those delivered by some local leaders of folks religions in last September. Just like many folks religions’ leaders criticized Mr. Chen Tsung-yen, Director of Bureau of Civil Affairs of Tainan City Government, causing an unprecedented denge fever due to the heavenly gods were enraged by his stubborn prohibition against the ecstatic traditions of igniting firecrackers overnight among ceremonial festivals, many ultra-conservative Christians attribute the cause of this Tainan earthquake to a wrath of God against the possibility that Tainan may become an LGBT-friendly city. Certainly, these extreme expressions causes a roar of unbelievable shock and confusion in Taiwan society.
In his renown column article of <Three Virtues When Christian Hears The Catastrophic News >, Dr. Shih Yi-nuo, a psychiatric professor of Fu Jen Catholic University, gave us three very good advice: (1) “Do not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God”. Because when we criticize or condemn something or some people, by arbitrarily making use of the name of the Lord our God, our heart is usually not motivated by love to the suffered but a mind set of being luckily escaped together with a sense of Christian supremacy. (2) An irrational judgment about cause-effects should be avoided. (3) Offer our professional expertise to help.
When our neighbors are in troubles, what we are busy doing? Play blame game? Or, let’s give our concern and roll our sleeves to reach out our hands!
