Law Christian Student's Conference - Consider Christ - Campus, Career, Community

I just attended this year’s Law Christian Students’ Conference titled Consider Christ – Campus, Career, Community. It is nice to hear from people from the legal fraternity talk about their Christian experience in their lives. I shall write about some of the stuff spoken by the various speakers at the event, and some of my own thoughts and feelings.

A lawyer in practice came up to talk about his walk and learning as a Christian in the working world. He was going through the passage in Philippians 2 and speaking about his life as an Executive Director and regional head of legal and compliance of a Swiss private bank. He talked about some of the struggles that he faces as a Christian in the working world, as well as in his ministry in his own church. One of which is surrendering his ambitions to God. Even though he has done quite well in the working world, and has contributed much to his church ministry, he says that he sometimes loses perspective of the meaning of these activities. They simply become another measure of self-edification, even though it may seem like he is doing it for the good of God’s kingdom.

Another point that he touched on was the status consciousness of Singapore society. He described his experience in a Chinese new year reunion dinner, a gathering with families and relatives. And relatives would be quipping with one another how their children would be doing. “Where is your daughter studying now?” asks one relative to another. “Oh, she is studying law at NUS”, replies the other relative, beaming with pride. Then she hears that the child of the relative who had asked her is studying law at Oxford, and she feels that she has loss face at the dinner table because her child did not do as well as the relative’s.

I sometimes wonder whether the esteem given to the two common vocation of doctor and lawyer has been extended beyond its proper bounds, and whether this esteem is a perception originating from social mores that perpetuates without too much reason for it. What exactly is it of a doctor or a lawyer that merits so much esteem in society? Are they esteemed because they do good for society? Or is it because of their association with money or power? I would agree though that the top figures in the law profession do have a lot of influence in shaping society.

I don’t think I am that status conscious, or at least, I hope not to be. It’s a very stressful mentality to live by. It seems to fit the bill of what we Christians call the pride of life. I really don’t want to play the social status consciousness game. But I am conscious of the status-consciousness of the people around me, and it does affect me somewhat. For example, most Singaporean girls are status conscious and materialistic, or at least that is the impression I get from what I hear from my guy friends and from reading online (I wish I could ask my Singaporean female friends about what they look for in a guy and whether this conception of them being materialistic and status hungry is justified, but I am much too shy and I don't want to come off as weird), and if I do wish to get married, I would have to contend with the fact that girls would be evaluating my suitability based on my status in the community and my financial sustainability. And even if she were not status conscious or materialistic, I would have to contend that she would have parents who would evaluate me based on their criteria of suitability based on my status. I am not sure whether this mentality is particular to Singapore or Asian countries in general. How about the western countries? Do they find themselves bridled by the status conscious mentality? Is there the same rat chase to make it into law school or med school? Personally, I don’t really like to receive the sort of wide eye treatment of awe from a person when I tell him or her that I am studying law. I don’t think any profession should merit such perception of respect than any others. A doctor, or a lawyer, in my opinion, serve their respective functions in society, which should not be overly venerated beyond the functions provided by others in society as well. And I dislike also having to play by expectations of what others perceive as respectable in society. So, for example, whilst I don’t want to be a lawyer simply for the reason that it is ego boosting, I also don’t want to have to fear not practicing law because I don’t want to lose that respect from others. But the fact is, I am actually affected by what people think, even though I don't wish to be.

I think that a materialistic culture is very poisonous to the individual, and is in a way self-perpetuating. The perceptions of the community influences the lives of the individuals, and this in turns influences the individual’s perceptions. So because of a materialistic ideology perpetuating in society, the individual, even if he wants to live by a more Christian counter-cultural rule, finds himself having to play to the ideology of the majority in order to find some fulfillment in society.

The status conscious culture with a value-orientation towards success, creates a brimming ego in those who have succeeded, and their condescension of those who fail. And similarly, creates a reciprocal inferiority complex in those with relative less success, and causes them to envy. It is a culture of strife and unhappiness.

One of the questions put forward in a later programme involving a panelist of current and former undergraduates of law school was “How do you see failure?” I thought this was a very pertinent one to me. I would say that I have been failing in life because of my struggle and bad results in law school, and I have been reading lately on how Christians should view failure. Is there a purpose for everything in a Christian’s life? Do failures happen for a reason, or are they essentially meaningless, events which pass by in the schemes of humanity and the universe? I do like what the Christian apologist, Dr William Lane Craig has to say about this. He distinguishes between two types of failures – failure in the Christian life and failure in the life of a Christian. The former, a failure in the believer’s relationship and walk with God, which according to Craig, is essentially a spiritual problem, a matter of moral and spiritual failure.

It is the second type of failure which I am referring to, a failure in the life of a Christian which is unrelated to spiritual considerations. It is not due to sin in the life of a believer. It is just some defeat a person who happens to be a Christian experiences in his day-to-day life. For example, A Christian businessman going bankrupt, or a Christian student flunking out of school despite his best efforts to succeed, or a Christian workingman finding himself unemployed and unable to find a job. In Criag’s article, he concluded ultimately that failure in the life of a Christian is God’s way of teaching us important things that we might not learn from success.

I could identify with the experience of a girl in the panelist who replied to the question. She admits about how she is not a smart person and does not do well in law school, and could remember being so depressed and crying over her law grades. At first, she did not want to admit that she was not smart enough for law school, but that she had simply placed too many commitments on her church activities. But she came to the reluctant conclusion that she was not smart enough after trying so hard for the following semester and doing badly as well. According to her, she feels that this is the way God is breaking her pride and building up character and trust in God. Perhaps, this might be the same for me as well. But I get angry at God for my bad result, or for not giving me enough smarts to do well in it. And these are the times when I would doubt God’s existence, because I wonder why he doesn’t help me to do well in my studies. In some sense, I have a sort of self-entitlement mentality when it comes to doing well in school, and one thing I expect of myself is to have the trait of intelligence. This is because I feel that I have been shortchanged in life with my poor social skills due to Asperger’s Syndrome, and the least that God could do is to give me more traits of intelligence so as to compensate for the social deficit. Anyway, it is struggle for me in my faith to find myself struggling so much in law school. I do get angry at God for not answering my prayers to help me do well in law school, to the point that I would doubt his divine providence in my life, or even his existence.

I do appreciate the empathy and help of caring schoolmates in law school. But there is only so much that they can do sometimes to help me out with my law school work. At some point, I do have to be able to be competent to stand upon my own two feet and be independent in my law school work. Otherwise, I should really consider doing something else other than law.

It was nice hearing from lawyers in the corporate line in a workshop, about their experiences so far in life in their job as corporate lawyers. They talked about things like challenges to their Christian walk and integrity that they face in their career. One of the speaker was talking about how he has transacted around 6 jobs in his working life, from being a pupil in a firm, quitting after making it to the bar, becoming a relief teacher, and now, an in-house counsel. I found his story about his experience dealing with corporate legal compliance in a bank particularly interesting. I can’t exactly remember the details, but it was something about Russians crooks and their 40 plus bank accounts dealing with dubious transactions running up to 8 digits figures. There is so much twist and turns in his life, and he is where he is today, a thing that is not exactly planned for by him, but he is surviving and doing well.

Professor Ho Peng Kee gave a talk later on in the programme. It’s cool to see my former member of parliament of the district where I stay in talking about his own Christian walk in life. I have heard a story about how his Christian beliefs had come into conflict with politics from a friend who participates in grassroot. He had incurred the ire of the Chinese temple community because of his reluctance to attend their temple functions because of his Christian beliefs. They threatened to vote for the opposition in the next election, and this was really a concern for the PAP to the extent that then Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew had to step in to pacify the temple community. Sometimes, it is the little things that can really affect an election. I am always inspired to be a fervent Christian if I hear of Christians out there in society who are intelligent, accomplished and active in their careers, who are similarly devout in their Christian beliefs. It shows that the two are not mutually exclusive. Sometimes, I have the apprehension that I may not be smart enough, and that being Christian perpetuates a passivity in me in being spiritual and dependent on God when I should use the intelligence I have to find solutions to various issues in my life. I do like Christianity because it seems good and simple to understand, and it seems to provide wholesome principles for people to live by - to do good in society, and to care for one another. But I always fear that I might be too dependent in my spirituality rather than taking positive steps in the way I deal with things in society and in my approach to solving problems. There are many complicated operations which governs how society work that individuals’ require to learn in order to make society function. There are things that an individual has got to learn, very technical things, in order to sustain himself in society. Society can’t run if everybody would just reflect on spiritual matters, and I fear that I am much too spiritual in the way I view everything in life, missing out the technicalities that I am required to understand in order to play a part in society.

I suppose the verse mentioned by Professor Ho is an apt one. “Be shrewd as snakes, and innocent as doves”. Professor Ho says that this is one of his favourite verses that he keeps at heart. I am not exactly sure how to practice this. I don’t think I am as shrewd or wise as I would like to be, and I might fall into deception for my lack of wisdom. I guess for a start, it would be good to follow what God says in the bible. But I do pray for wisdom in my practical affairs, to not fall into traps or deceptions, to be able to stay away from sins and temptations, and to be loving and caring to those around me.

[PS: I like a song used for the worship session. It's called How He Loves Us. Thought it was a very passionate song with beautiful metaphors describing the love of God. And the worship team delivered it very well!]