The insensitive indiscretion of Senior Paster Rony Tan
February 10th, 2010 | 
Author: By Yoong Siew Wah
There is in fact no tenable defence for the inordinate indiscretion of Senior Pastor Rony Tan of the Lighthouse Evangelism church for his denigration of Buddhism and Taoism in his “miracle service”.
The pastor is in fact a charming and rational personality normally and exudes charisma in conducting his miracle and Sunday services at the Lighthouse Evangelism church.
Attendees at the church were invariably mesmerised by his sermons which were delivered with his inimitable splendor. His genial disposition endears him to his parishioners. He has given so much of his life to the salvation of the seriously-ill who flocked to his miracle services for miracle cures. And this is a phenomenon which has to be witnessed to be believed. Even doctors who had been invited to attend such services were amazed at the “miracles”.
Many people were stunned when they witnessed the incredible performance of Senior Pastor Rony Tan on online video clips when he ridiculed Buddhism in his disparaging comments about the religion.
There was no doubt that these were insensitive comments which horrified and outraged the Buddhists. There was extensive public clamour for drastic action to be taken against Pastor Tan including detention under the ISA.
The outburst of outrages was something to be expected considering the sensitivity of the issue. But it was up to the government security organisation, in this case the Internal Security Department (ISD), to assess the situation and take a rational view as to the type of action to be taken.
In their professional assessment, they considered it adequate just be calling up Pastor Tan for a dressing down for his insensitive comments about Buddhism and a stern advice not to run down other religions in his preaching and proselytising.
Pastor Rony Tan should thank his God to be let off so lightly. He has posted an apology on the church’s website, promising to respect other faiths and “not ridicule them in any way, shape and fashion”. But some diehard Buddhists have maintained that posting an apology on the church’s website is a lukewarm effort with its limited readership.
It transpires now that TV Singapore has given quite comprehensive news reporting in all four languages of Pastor Rony Tan’s apology and this should satisfy any lingering doubts as to the pastor’s sincerity. Even DPM Wong Kan Seng has expressed his satisfaction with the final development.
Both the Singapore Buddhist Federation and the Singapore Taoist Federation have shown magnanimity in their response to this issue. This unfortunate polemic should now be considered closed.
About the Author:
Mr Yoong is the former director of Singapore’s Internal Security Department from 1971 – 1974. He blogs here
Posted in Columnists, Opinion, Yoong Siew Wah | 
Tags: Lighthouse Evangelism, Pastor Rony Tan, Rony Tan
27 Responses to “The insensitive indiscretion of Senior Paster Rony Tan”
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Mr Yoong is obviously admirer of the Pastor. Is he a member of his congregation?
I agree the matter should be closed and we move on. But the Pastor’s future action should be monitored. Nobody wants him to change his beliefs but we should object to his anti social actions.
As for his miracles can Mr Yoong please arrange for Pastor Tan
to perform public service and cure terminal patients at our hospitals? this is not tongue in cheek but people of various religions including Christianity, Islam, Buddhism etc has been
known to be able to cure diseased patients. Its nothing to do with their religion but the intensity of their psychic powers can actually
cure people. I have witness even Qi Gong masters cure illness even though Pastor Tan genre call these people satanic. The reality is there is so much we still do not understand about the human mind and its capability and if he has this gift it should be put to good use rather than abusing other religious
beliefs.
Dear Mr Yoong, why do I get the impression that you are one of his church attendees? You do seem to know that insolent pastor’s “miracle service” very well. Is this an ISD thing or a part of it that you cannot let go?
I can forgive, but I cannot forget.
This issue can even piss off an atheist like me…
Please forgive the unforgivable. Let him face his congregation and the true believer in Christ Jesus.
After lambasting others and portraying them as an influence of the devil, he now has to bow before them to apologize. He probably thinking he is acting out of smartness as he is going through a charade to save his own personal skin hence it is wisest things to do. To the the true believer he has disown Christ Jesus just like Peter, Christ’s disciple.
Did he just bow down before GOD’s foe and the devil he so peach to his congregation?
Pastor Rony, what are you going to tell your congregation. Is it you are merely joking all this while about your take on other religion? You don’t know what you are talking about. There are no demon involved in those thoughts of idol worshipers but something you had conjured. Are you a pastor and an eloquent speaker who is best in telling us lies. If you are not lying then what are you apologizing for.
In whose name are you speaking. You may have save your skin and never martyr for God. Now you should know what you are when you are in dire streak. You disown GOD.
Miracle healing?? Then why God won’t heal amputees? If you are sick my advise to you is to seek doctors for medical advise urgently before its too late like the below case:
Girl Dies After Parents Pray for Healing Instead of Seeking Medical Help
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,341574,00.html
I understand that there is at least one comatose stroke patient in Tan Tock Seng Hospital. Is he excercising his miracle cures for such patients in exchange for not being prosecuted? Or is it because he has already redeemed himself by composing and performing this hymn to his mortal God The Father of this Paradise Island? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2O67SyJiyzY
We know that Jesus will take care of him in his afterlife as he is afterall a Christian pastor .
a piece of advice to Pastor Tan is to quit from the Church in order not to disgrace our fellow memebers and christianity. Stanley
**“If you allow [homosexuality], next time people will want to get married to monkeys. And they will want rights. They’ll want to apply for HDB. With a donkey or a monkey or a dog and so on. It’s very pathetic.”**
In actual fact, I am a person who is really apathetic, antipathy, indifferent, disinterest towards religions but, this “sainted” pastor really entices and coaxes me to “jump” into this discussion board.
Mind you, that is the same ideology and philosophy that he is being called up by the ISD for investigation and questioning!
“If Singaporeans or simply the ISD allow “pastor rony tan”, (to verbal abuse and disparage other religions as and when he wants to) next time pastor rony tan will want to verbal ABUSE monkeys. And he will want rights. He will want to apply for monopoly in religion. ##He will apply## with a donkey or a monkey or a dog and so on. (He sets up the church with his wife and both son and daughter work in the church set up by him, if I am not wrong) It is very pathetic!”
Whatever comes around will go away, whatever an action will have a reaction!
This is a real KARMA and retribution to pastor rony tan for being so disrespectful to others especially the “homosexuality”, don’t you think so?
What a shameful incident for a “self-proclaimed saint” whom being called-up and questioned by the authority due to his uncanny and insulting remarks to other “SAINTS”! He, not only disgraces himself but also his fellow church brothers and sisters! This “idiotic self proclaimed saint” ended up apologizing to other “SAINTS” personally without reserved! THIS IS VERY PATHETIC!
“Living in Harmony” and respect one another are the main issue concerned all of us in Singaporean. We don’t need someone like the Stupid rony tan to ruins the whole nation here! In the first place God never ask us to behaves in that manner, in fact love one another! His teaching is absolutely irresponsible, disgraceful and abused the power of God here.
ISD should keep the close eyes on him all the times.Put him on high alert list! Make sure he don’t repeat all the stupid acts to ruin our racial harmony, to disgrace our fellow members and the value of christianity.
“Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners.”
1 Corinthians 15:33
Cassia
To students taking up medicine why spend so much money and time when Rony Tan can help you to heal the people the easy way.
Go to Lighthouse Evangelist university and everything will be FOC.
From (at least) the legal perspective, it should NOT be closed.
Rony Tan has clearly infridged the law.
Similar past infridgments are clearly dealt with jail terms.
The law should treat Rony Tan no different.
Asking for this RonyTan episode to be closed, puts into question the impartiality of law and biased opinion of Mr Yong.
@fact
Totally agree with you. So are some of the people here.
http://groups.google.com.sg/group/soc.culture.singapore/browse_thread/thread/8daa566f54fb5d70/ff27e08761941014?lnk=raot
believe in all these healing power? he he he he go to hospital to attend to the sicks and tell our minister of health to quit as he no more required.
really?there are so many of this kind of people in singapore?
thousands of people,including non-believers of taoism and buddhism are hurt,now the anger is directed against the govt for perceived double-standard in enforcement of laws and policy!!!!who bears the consequences by closing the case in this manner?
He had apologise and the head of both the Buddhist and Toaist had accepted, even the authority is satisfy about the development. So why all the criticism. We should move on.
Don’t disgrade the pastor, afterall he is still a good leader and follower of God.
Everyone do not have the right to judge, if there is a mistake whether he is a saint or saturn, sincerely apologise and repent and move on. That is the kind of teaching spiritualy of human kind. Afterll he is still a human.
Do you guys out there feel better when he is put in Jail or detain by ISD? Well, if you guys think that way, then you guys are no better than him.
I kowtow to both Pastor Rony and the head of Buddhist and Toaist, for Pastor Rony’s courage and sincere to stand up and apologise while the head of Buddhist mentioned the teaching of Buddha that one should be passionate, commpassion and forgive to one another when one realise the mistake and sincere to repent.
That is a a real spritual teaching and even bible do teach us to always pray for our enemy. Do not prosecute them but pray for them.
So all fellow citizens, whether you are of any beliefs let move on and stay harmony and leave your own sincere heart to decide which belief you want to follows. All leaders of all belief can only do so much and it is all up to the people to belief.
There is a saying that a Good Leader does not always have Good followers but a Bad Leader does not means he does not have Good Followers.
Cheers everyone and let enjoy our happy lunar new year together what ever beliefs you are including free thinkers.
How about his congregations laughing away with him [Rony Tan] in the videos as he make “fun” and “jokes” at other peoples faiths and religions? How many of these “people” who left his church coming away with certain assumptions and enforced their belief in their actions forthwith to other peoples religions/faths.
Is he going to apologize on their behalf since they think it is a joke of other peoples beliefs/faiths…
And what is the “souls” mention in his apology…is he implying christians ONLY is it? or something “else”?
Disappointed.
This episode is a wake up call to us Singaporean to be always
mindful and sensitive towards others in multi-racial Singapore before something more damaging happen.
Nobody should run down any other religion while promoting their own..
By apologising does it mean it’s a slip of tongue and he should not have said those words or what he said is not true and baseless?
My opinion is Rony Tan should take responsibility and at least step down, let his “Assistant” take over.
@Harvester Soul
Flood detection ate my rather finely crafted post, so I’ll keep it simple.
1) You are making an appeal to authority. This is a logical fallacy, and renders your argument suspect.
2) You appeal to the religious principles of the parties involved. This is not the issue – it is an issue of the law and its application.
3) As extension to 2), the disparaging of faith healing in this comments thread, justified though it may be, is not relevant to the subject at hand.
“The outburst of outrages was something to be expected considering the sensitivity of the issue. But it was up to the government security organisation, in this case the Internal Security Department (ISD), to assess the situation and take a rational view as to the type of action to be taken.”
“Pastor Rony Tan should thank his God to be let off so lightly.”
Who is this writer Yoong Siew Wah????
他/她竟然為神父説話，還竟然借此大講耶穌在此佈道？？？？
TR 不是一個宗教網站，請他/她別在此胡鬧！
Regardless of his background,it must have taken Rony Tan a long while to get to what he is today — Senior Pastor.So it is odd and not a little disturbing that,instead of promtoing his own faith,he chooses to denigrate other religions.Why?
Is this man getting too big for his shoes? Even if he is sincere in his apology;I believe,many of us would still like to hear from him,why he did what he did.Only then can we have a clearer opinion of him and his deeds.
Oftentimes,it is all too easy to just say “I’m sorry”
The questions asked by the pastor were intentionally crafted to lead the 2 ignorant and naive pair to provide answers that will demean their ex-religion. This sly questioning technique could be used by any of the major religions to make another religion look silly too. Fortunately, they are above that. To imagine this happening behind the closed doors of mosques/synagogues/temples makes one shudder at the type of religious ‘education’ the masses are receiving. No wonder, our government wants our young to learn higher order thinking. Hopefully with better reasoning skills, young Singaporeans (even young working adults can be very naive) will be able to think objectively and be discerning enough to distinguish facts from anecdotal evidences.
Whether this attempt to show that another religion is lesser that one’s own, was done behind closed doors or on National TV make no difference. When a bad seed is planted, the smallest fruit that grows from it will scatter a dozen bad seeds and so it multiplies. Don’t allow your earthly selfishness and ego poison the green air of the island we are all so proud of. Even though I am an atheist, I believe ‘Jesus’ would not approve of such a disharmonious action especially from a clergyman so advanced in age. Jesus taught his disciples to offer the ‘foe’ their other cheek which is so very different from this episode of blatantly slapping both cheeks of a defenceless ‘foe’ while he/she was asleep.
I think as a buddhist we are too lenient to those hardcore christian that keeps trying to convert us and making fun of buddhist belief. I attended a seminar workshop invited by my chrisitian friend somewhere in toa payoh, the topic is “How to convince a buddhist to convert to a christian”
When i attended their church service out of courtesy from my chrisitian’s friends, i always notices that the pastor will sometimes make fun of buddhists followers and this really piss me off.
Why can’t chrisitian respect our belief and stop converting us?
@Walking Question Mark on Fri, 12th Feb 2010 12:00 am
True, I wonder what the Taleban are telling their followers about other religions? do they use the same tatic as Rony?
Rony Tan was obviously ignorant about other religions and being a leading voice in his own religion, he went ahead to preach his ignorant beliefs (relating to other religions) to his masses of followers.
Another question we should ask is that should someone like Rony Tan be allowed to continue to preach?
Inorder to preserve the racial and religious harmony in Singapore, should the authorities keep a close tab on preachings of these leading voices of religions who has strong influence over thousands of their supporters?
Think Internal Security Department (ISD) should observes all the churches preaches and teachings and make sure all of them don’t take other racial issues and religions as “fun” and “jokes” in their sharing. Hope rony tan and his fellowers can be more mature and sensitive about issue in Singapore.
Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners.
1 Corinthians 15:33
Cassia
Yoong Siew Wah said:
“And this is a phenomenon which has to be witnessed to be believed. Even doctors who had been invited to attend such services were amazed at the “miracles”.
Pastor Rony Tan should thank his God to be let off so lightly. He has posted an apology on the church’s website, promising to respect other faiths and “not ridicule them in any way, shape and fashion”. But some diehard Buddhists have maintained that posting an apology on the church’s website is a lukewarm effort with its limited readership.”
First of all, many religions have claimed miracle healing or faith healing including African voodooism. Is there any medical or scientific proof that a final stage terminal-ill can be cured? If so, why are not doctors trained in this ‘cost-free’ method?
There is indeed an apology. This came about only after the ISD call. He was lucky only because he is in Singapore and his ridicule was directed at Buddhism and Taoism. I don’t think he would thank God otherwise.
As a “Senior Pastor”, I think this Rony Tan has a mind which is not enlightened as Lord Buddha. Perhaps when he was ‘pastoring’, he might have been possessed by Demons. Beware of what u preach, u little piece of s**t!
Rony should consider committing suicide. It is no more a religious issue, religious harmony SINGAPORE is terribly harmed. The 2 religious leaders may accept Rony apology. Being a Singaporean, Chinese and a free thinker I cannot accept the fact that the fabric of our nation is torn.