Home—Make time for our youths

These were the words that was found in the document written by the 16-year-old Protestant Christian who was recently arrested by ISD for making “detailed plans and preparations to conduct terrorist attacks” against Muslims.

This young person had apparently spent a lot of his time online and alone, which was perhaps the cause— or the result—of the little face-to-face meaningful communication he had with others.

It is important for young people to develop deep relationships with others from different racial, religious, cultural and socio-economic groups. These deliberate interactions will facilitate the reduction in the divides2 between social class, anxiety3 and bias4 . Furthermore, Jesus has never taught His followers to use violence to bring about peace and in His ministry; He practised what He preached. In fact, Jesus said, “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:31).5 When He was about to be forcefully captured, He said, “Put your sword back in its place… For all who draw the sword will die by the sword” (Matt 26:52). To a representative of one of the most powerful empire in history, He said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight… My kingdom is from another place” (Jn 18:36). Finally, He demonstrated how to respond to those that sinned against Him: “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8).

A few years ago, I had the opportunity to meet and interact with an Ustaz from a mosque, to learn about his work among the youths attending the mosque and since then we have gone on to become friends.

We were able to meet and to develop our friendship with weekly meetings because the leadership in our religious groups encouraged us to continue in the relationship.

Our leaders themselves also invited each other to attend specially organised outreach community-building events and even religious events (e.g. for iftar during Ramadan, Holy Communion/baptism during church services). We even facilitated the youths under our care to organise outdoor events so that they could spend time with each other, getting to know each other and even sharing our faiths.

I would like for our youths to do this themselves, but these conversations and relationships are difficult for many to even start. In my 12 years of serving in the church youth ministry, I have noticed that, in every cohort, youths expressed their desire to connect deeply with peers and mentors, and the desire to be helpful to others. They wanted to engage others in meaningful ways—not just within their homogenous social groups, but also in groups comprising of people from different racial, religious, cultural and age groups.

However, not many have the skills, experience, emotional resilience and motivation—and perhaps opportunity and personality—needed to take the first step, to interact deeply and then continue the conversation.

They require elders, leaders and parents who are willing to model how that can happen, as well as people who will accept them, spend time with them, journey with them, help them to create those opportunities, and even to walk them through it. I believe that, this way, we will be able to by God’s grace, reduce—and perhaps even eliminate—the possibility for self-radicalising among our own youths and, in an indirect way, help the youths in our society. “Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it.” (Prov 22:6)

“And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry” (Eph 4:12)

“Violence should never be solved with peace”. But violence will never be solved with violence either. We need to help our youths to embody what it means to be the ekklesia—the “the called-out ones”—to be a living testimony of Jesus’ gospel to the all the world. It is only when selfless love, like that of Christ, is lived out in the lives of all, that there will truly be peace.

1 https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/16-year-oldsingaporean-detained-isa-planned-attack-2-mosques-14052400 2 https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/cnainsider/regardless-classrace-religion-survey-singapore-income-divide-10774682 3 https://stanford.app.box.com/s/1iupcxgs89yf74fc3nmugoxup6wm19aa 4 Manisha Aggarwal-Schifellite, “Unlearning Racial Bias,” The Harvard Gazette, 6 Jan 2020, https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/01/ tools-to-reverse-implicit-negative-prejudice-in-children 5 All Scripture referred to in this article are from the NIV.