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The Federal Constitution makes it very clear that Malaysia is a secular state. But how can Malaysia be considered a secular state when Islam is the official religion? Furthermore, most of the political leaders are Muslims. And in Islam, a Muslim must be a Muslim not only in the mosque and in his home. He needs to be a Muslim in whatever occupation he is in, whether in the government or in the marketplace. Even the Bible teaches the same thing about Christians and the Christian faith.
We need to distinguish between the adjectives “secular” and “secularist”. The “secular” refers to the non-religious, not anti-religious. A Science or Geography textbook written by a devout Muslim or Christian is still a secular book. But “secularist” comes from “secularism”, the belief that only the non-religious exists or matters. That means God and eternity do not exist or matter. A secularist book is one that teaches, or is based on the assumption, that there is no God and the here-and-now is all that matters. Though we can often distinguish the secular from the religious, the two cannot be separated. When we say we have a “secular job” it means our work is non-religious in nature. We may be an engineer or a nurse. However, why we work and how we carry out our work is always influenced by whether we believe God exists and eternity matters. Hence the secular is always shaped by a belief system that has eternal consequence. If this belief system is not religious in nature, then it is secularist.
So Paul could exhort Christians that whatever they do, even something as secular as eating or drinking, they should do it to the glory of God (1 Cor. 10:31). This admonishment to live out their faith in every aspect of their life actually helps to ensure that they truly believe in the Gospel.
Therefore, though Malaysia is overall a religious nation it can still be considered a secular state, but certainly not a secularist state. We must not confuse the two terms. What then is a secular state? The meaning of a term needs to be understood in the context in which it occurs. Malaysia is a secular state according to how the term is used in the Federal Constitution itself, and not according to any other definition. The entire constitution defines and explains in what sense Malaysia is a secular state. And it provides for, and limits accordingly, the official role of Islam.
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In other words, regardless of any personal religious faith, the work of every minister of the cabinet, every member of the parliament and every judge of the civil court, is secular. Each of them can practise his religious faith, or lack of it, in his respective work in a way that does not violate anything expressed or embodied in the constitution that he has sworn to uphold. And the Federal Constitution explicitly gives room for Christians to practise as well as propagate their faith. It also implicitly gives room for Christians to practice the full extent of their faith. We are referring to the freedom to obey Christ’s command to “seek first God’s kingdom and His righteousness” (Matt. 6:33). This command is about seeking God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven (Matt. 6:10). This means the Malaysian Church is to make an impact in every aspect of Malaysian society. It is by the grace of God that in His providence the constitution allows us to do this legally in a Muslim-dominant nation. One reason Muslims consider their religion superior to all others is that they see Islam as a “complete religion”. This means Islam shapes every aspect of human life, from the spiritual, moral and even physical, to the social, economic, political as well as judicial. In this light, when Muslims look at the Christian faith as practised throughout the world, the apparent inferiority of Christianity in this regard is glaringly obvious to them.
A recent Christianity Today article laments that even when seeking “to help the church be the church” evangelicals tend to depend on means “rooted more in modern social psychology than in the Bible’s spiritual realities”. This gives the impression that Christianity lacks its own resources to address concerns even within the Church, let alone contribute to issues facing society and the nation.
But this is not the case. Paul says that because “all Scripture is inspired” God’s people “may be adequate, equipped for every good work” (2 Tim. 3:16-17). And we also have the extensive writings of the Church fathers and the Reformers to help us apply Biblical teaching to issues both within the Church and in the world.
One reason evangelicals have been “getting by” without depending on these Christian resources is the Church’s lack of involvement in the world. For otherwise we will soon recognize that we cannot be depending on the resources of the world to solve the problems in the world, which, like problems in the Church, are often spiritually rooted. We will be forced to return to what God has endowed the Church with in order to do all that He has entrusted us to do. And thanks be to God that evangelicals worldwide are awakening to the realization of how far short they have fallen in praying for, as well as seeking, God’s kingdom to come, wherever He has placed them. We also thank God that this realization is turning into action..
Because of the presence of the indwelling Spirit, who gave us the inspired Scripture, one thing that characterizes the evangelical Church is repeated renewals in the different aspects of the Christian faith. In light of the opportunities and challenges facing the Malaysian Church outlined above, we look forward to a renewal in terms of fulfilling the Church’s calling to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world. |
