Malaysian churches pray for peace after attacks

15 January 2010

Last week in Malaysia nine churches, including two Anglican churches, as well as a mission school and a Sikh temple, were attacked by extremists angry at the High Court ruling that the name 'Allah' can be used by non-Muslims for God. The ruling overturned a government ban.

The Venerable Eddie Ong (above), Archdeadon of Kuala Lumpur and Selangor, who has recently returned there after three months at Trinity, writes: 'Christians in Malaysia will not be easily intimidated by these arsonists. Three days after the first church was set on fire, Christians went to church by the thousands without fear.'

The Bishop of West Malaysia writes, 'Many negotiations are under way to defuse this situation. The political parties are doing their part and the government authorities are doing theirs. Church leaders have been meeting with the authorities to find a way forward for peace and harmony.'

Eddie Ong was our first World Church Fellow. We hope by inviting church leaders like him to our Centre for World Christiianity we can contribute to the discussion and understanding of important world church issues such as this.  'Pray for the Church in Malaysia,' he writes, 'that our fire-trial will indeed spur us to be the church on fire for the gospel of Jesus Christ - the gospel that comes with power, love and courage.' Christians form about 9 per cent of the population of the country.

Thousands of Malay-language Bibles have also been destroyed because of their use of Allah although in other Muslim countries the word is commonly used by non-Muslim religions. Alfred Tais, who heads the Malay-language section of the National Evangelical Christian Fellowship Malaysia, said, 'Our response is to pray for peace. We have mobilized all our members to pray that God will give our leaders wisdom to find a solution to this problem.'