The Unashamedly Ethical Conference held on 1st and 2nd May in Kuala Lumpur and on 5th and 6th May in Penang has successfully impacted the participants and Christians who came for the event. The 1200, pledges collected from the Unashamedly Ethical Conference (UEC) and a businessmen banquet on May 3, in Kuala Lumpur and Penang. And the addition of 1850 similar pledges made by participants of a Methodist Churches Conference in Sibu, Sarawak on May 1, where Graham Power also spoke. It reaped a total of more than 3000 signatories.
Graham Power was one of the three main speakers at the conference in Kuala Lumpur. Dr. Dion Foster, a market-place minister and academic, and Steve Johnstone, International Coordinator of Unashamedly Ethical were the speakers in Kuala Lumpur and Penang.
During the workshop sessions, Graham Power commented how Malaysia and South Africa was just a 0.1-point score apart from each other on the Transparency International Corruption Perception Index for 2010. Malaysia is ranked 56th and South Africa 54th out of 178 countries.
“Corruption is one of the social ills preventing nation building,” said Eugene Yap, National Evangelical Christian Fellowship (NECF)’s executive secretary for research. “UE’s anti-corruption campaign deals with this."
Among the local speakers invited to conduct the workshops were Transparency International Malaysia President, Datuk Paul Low, Director of Marketplace Ministries Studies at Malaysia Bible Seminary, Dr Mark Lovatt, Associate Director of Training at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, (Asia-Pacific) I’Ching Thomas, Senior Pastor of Skyline SIB (Kota Kinabalu), Dr Phillip Lyn.
The workshops taught how Malaysians could make an impact in their own communities by standing against the currents of unethical practices.
UE has three stages of implementation. The first is a challenge to sign a pledge, committing to “good values, ethics and clean living” and is called the UE Commitment Campaign.
“A UE Committee was set up as soon as the Conference in Penang ended with some enthusiastic marketplace Christians and pastors who have caught the vision,” said Josephine, the organizer of the UEC in Penang. “They are on ‘fire’ to campaign for more Christians signatories."
While the UE signatories campaigns continue to gallop, the GDOP Malaysia, chairman Rev, Looi will also temporarily coordinate the UE movement until a suitable Christian leader and the committee is formed. A definite UE movement will spiral in this nation and will spread to the other surrounding nations in times to come.
For future projections, the process of forming a UE Committee will take onto the end of the year. The next stage is forming UE communities of people who sign in the UE Commitment and compiling a UE yellow pages directory of UE Commitment of companies and individuals can have a network to draw from.
Accountability is also a necessary discipline of the campaign. Thus, the discrepancy of people who violated the UE commitment will lodge complaints to a ombudsperson who will adjudicate and is empowered to take disciplinary action.
Rev. Looi Kok Kim,
GDOP Malaysia Chairman and Coordinator of UEC Malaysia
About the controversy in Malaysia
On the eveing of the 5th May, we were invited to attend a dinner together with a local politician (not from the ruling party) and several influential local Christian leaders. During the evening we spoke about the Unashamedly Ethical commitment and we prayed for the minister:
This photograph then appeared on a blog the next morning, with the blogger maliciously claiming that "there had been a gathering of Christian pastors and opposition political figures who had together vowed to make Malaysia a Christian state and to install a Christian prime minister."
Although this accusation was totally false, over the next 3 days the press picked it up and the story moved from page 6 to page 2 to the front page of the national newspaper, with the Prime minister telling everyone involved to "Cool it" and instructing the police to investigate further:
Subsequent to that, the editor of the newspaper who first ran the article (Utusan Malaysia) was rebuked by the Prime Minister for publishing these baseless accusations: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/utusan-let-off-with-ministry-warning/
Yesterday the head of Transparency International, Malaysia (out friend Datuk Paul Low), made a public statement also refuting the claims of the newspapers and blogs. Datuk Paul was with us at the dinner, also just a guest. Read his bold statement here: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/ti-m-chief-confirms-no-christian-malaysia-pact/
Finally, this morning saw Unashamedly Ethical on the front page of The Sun newspaper in Malaysia, with all 10 Individual Commitments listed (on the front page of this national newspaper!). See the article here: http://203.115.192.117/thursday/index.html . The publicity that this whole controversy has given us has been simply miraculous. If you had said to me that we as an openly Christian movement would go to Malaysia, a Muslim nation, and within 3 weeks of our visit the 10 Unashamedly Ethical Individual Commitments would be printed on the front page of their national newspaper... well I would not have believed it! But here you see it:
Follow things as they unfold on our Facebook Page
We are posting daily updates on the Malaysian controversy on our Facebook Page. To follow, please go HERE and LIKE the page.
Many thanks to Ps Looi for putting this report together for us, and while we thank God for all of the exposure the campaign has created, we do not underestimate the stress and pressure this has caused to our local UE committees in Malaysia. All seven of our committee members in Penang were brought into police custody for questioning and interrogation. We want to assure Ps Looi, Annie, Jo, William and the rest of the team in Malaysia of our ongoing support and prayers.
Steve Johnstone
Unashamedly Ethical - International Coordinator
Related article:
Church And Corruption: Soliciting A Christian Response
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