Pastor A.R. Bernard (pictured, top left) is the founder of the 30,000-member Christian Cultural Center in Brooklyn, New York.

He is also a staunch supporter of City Harvest Church founder, Kong Hee, so much so that he is the advisory chairman of the church.

Bernard was here in Singapore recently on Jan. 31 and Feb. 1, 2015, to speak to the CHC congregation before returning home abruptly due to an untimely death in his family.

In a Feb. 8 Washington Times article, "Singapore megachurch founder Kong Hee on trial in religious freedom test case", which framed the ongoing trial of CHC leaders as a matter of exercising freedom -- a preoccupation of Americans -- the 61-year-old pastor made a few eye-popping comments about Kong Hee and City Harvest Church's method of proselytising in Singapore's context.

Here he is waxing lyrical about Kong's perceived grandiose stature:

“Change is taking place in the nation [of Singapore] that is part of a bigger picture,” Mr. Bernard, founder of the 30,000 member-plus Christian Cultural Center in Brooklyn, said of Singapore’s charges against Pastor Kong Hee.

“We don’t pick and choose history. History happens when social, political, economic and even spiritual forces come together and effect change,” said Mr. Bernard, a staunch supporter of Mr. Kong.

And explaining why Singapore does not understand the "crossover" concept is because it is a cultural thing:

“I talked to them about looking at the big picture — that essentially we are part of something much greater than ourselves.”

The bigger picture, he said, is that Singapore’s religious freedoms are not identical to those in the U.S. Accepted practices here (referring to the U.S.), such as churches and charities using their own films and “crossover artists” who perform religious and secular music for evangelism, are “strange” in Singapore, he said.

Bernard also said the City Harvest Church leaders' actions were misinterpreted when they chose to use Sun Ho’s music for evangelism and took steps to promote her.

The America-based pastor also said Kong “made a few mistakes in judgment, but did not elaborate, adding that he “never did anything illegal, never did anything to the inurement of his own pockets or that of his wife.”

However, the cultural difference Bernard alluded to earlier really did show, when the article/ he/ both made the inference that churches in Singapore are some sort of "special interest groups" -- a concept that doesn't exist here:

“His case is really setting precedent. It’s a test case” about government controls, Mr. Bernard said, noting that recent news articles have discussed the emerging influence of Christian churches in Singapore — where a third of the people are Buddhist — and have called for the government to restructure itself to be “sensitive” to special interest groups.

You can read the full Washington Times piece here.

Top photo via here and here

If you like what you read, follow us on Facebook and Twitter to get the latest updates.