More about Church Torching in Malaysia

Response from Rev. Ong Sek Leang, Senior Pastor of Metro Tabernacle Church. The administrative office of Metro Tabernacle in Desa Melawati was completely gutted.




HT: Sivin Kit's Garden

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) -

Sat Jan 9, 2010 11:57pm EST

Arsonists in Malaysia struck at a convent school and a fifth church on Sunday amid rising tensions between majority Muslims and Christians over the use of the word "Allah" to describe the Christian God.

Police in the sleepy city of Taiping, around 300 km (185 miles) from the capital Kuala Lumpur, said a petrol bomb had been thrown at the guard house of a Catholic convent school but had failed to go off.

They also said they had found several broken bottles including paint thinners outside one of the country's oldest Anglican churches, All Saints, Taiping, and said one of the building's walls had been blackened.

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Washington Post

By EILEEN NG

The Associated Press
Sunday, January 10, 2010; 12:37 AM

On Sunday, men, women and children from the Metro Tabernacle parish assembled in the cavernous, 1,800-seat meeting hall of the Malaysian Chinese Association party for the service. They lifted their hands and sang "We put all our faith in you," and "You are the God of love and peace" during the Sunday service.

"My wife was worried, but we want to be here to support the church," said Michael Chew, 40, who came to the service with two children, aged 1 and 6.

The service was in English, as are most Christian services in mainland Malaysia though some are in Chinese and Tamil languages. Such services do not use the word "Allah." Only the Malay-language prayers for indigenous tribespeople in the remote states of Sabah and Sarawak use "Allah," as they have for decades.

The Allah ban is unusual in the Muslim world. The Arabic word is commonly used by Christians to describe God in such countries as Egypt, Syria and Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim nation.

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Mr. Zam who’s the president of the Parent Teacher Association of an Islamic School next to the Metro Tabernacle Church was very kind to share some of his thoughts in relation to church arson on Friday, January 8, 2010.

HT: Sivin Kit's Garden