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Malaysia wants ‘Christians only’ on Bibles
Baptist Press & Compass Direct News
April 07, 2011
5 MIN READ TIME

Malaysia wants ‘Christians only’ on Bibles

Malaysia wants ‘Christians only’ on Bibles
Baptist Press & Compass Direct News
April 07, 2011

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia

— Christian importers of Bibles that Malaysian officials detained are balking

at conditions the government has imposed for their release, such as defacement

of the sacred books with official stamps.

The Home Ministry stamped the words, “This Good News (Malay) Bible is for use

by Christians only” on 5,100 Bibles without consulting the importer, the Bible

Society of Malaysia (BSM), which initially refused to collect them as it had

neither accepted nor agreed to the conditions. The Home Ministry applied the

stamp a day after the government on March 15 issued a release order for the

Bibles, which had been detained since March 20, 2009.

Another 30,000 Bibles detained since Jan. 12 on the island of Borneo remain in

port after the Sarawak state Home Ministry told the local chapter of Gideons

International that it could collect them if the organization would put the

stamp on them. Gideons has thus far declined to do so, and a spokesman said

April 5 that officials had already defaced the books with the stamp.

The government issued letters of release to both organizations on March 15

under the condition that the books bear the stamp, “Reminder: This Good News (Malay)

Bible is for use by Christians only. By order of the Home Minister,” and that

the covers must carry a serial number, the official seal of the department and

a date.

The Home Ministry’s stamping of the BSM Bibles without the organization’s

permission came under fire from the Christian community. In a statement issued

March 17, Bishop Ng Moon Hing, chairman of the Christian Federation of Malaysia

(CFM), described the Home Ministry’s action as desecration.

“(The) new conditions imposed on the release of the impounded Bibles … is

wholly unacceptable to us,” he added.

Ng described the conditions imposed by the Home Ministry as tantamount to

treating the Malay Bible as a “restricted item” and subjecting the word of God

to the control of man. In response, Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein has said

the act of stamping and serialization was standard protocol.

Government overtures

In the weeks following the March 15 release order, the government made several

attempts to try to appease the Christian community through Idris Jala, a

Christian from Sarawak state and a minister in the Prime Minister’s department.

Idris issued the government’s first statement March 22, explaining that

officials had reduced earlier conditions imposed by the Home Ministry to

require only the words, “For Christianity” to be stamped on the covers of the

Bible in font type Arial, size 16, in bold.

Idris informed BSM that the Bibles could be collected in their present state or

arrangements could be made to have stickers with the words “For Christianity”

pasted over the imprint of the stamps made by the Home Ministry officials. In

the event that this was not acceptable, the minister pointed out that BSM had

the option of having the whole consignment replaced, since the government had

received an offer from Christian donors who were prepared to bear the full cost

of purchasing new Bibles.

In response, the CFM issued a statement on March 30 saying, “The offer made

does address the substantive issues,” and called on the government “to remove

every impediment, whether legal or administrative, to the importation,

publication, distribution and use of the (Malay Bible) and indeed to protect

and defend our right to use the (Malay Bible).”

Bishop Ng, however, left it to the two importers to decide whether to collect

the Bibles based on their specific circumstances.

On March 31, BSM collected the mishandled Bibles “to prevent the possibility of

further acts of desecration or disrespect.” In a press statement, BSM officials

explained that the copies cannot be sold but “will be respectfully preserved as

museum pieces and as a heritage for the Christian Church in Malaysia.” The

organization also made it clear that it will only accept compensation from the

Home Ministry and not from “Christian donors,” a term it viewed suspiciously.

On April 2, Idris issued a 10-point statement to try to resolve the impasse.

Significantly, this latest overture by the government included the lifting of

present restrictions to allow for the local printing and importation of Malay

and other indigenous-language Bibles into the country.

In Sarawak and Sabah, there would be no conditions attached to Bibles printed

locally or imported. There also would be no prohibitions and restrictions on

residents of these two states carrying such Bibles to other states. A

significant 64 percent of Malaysian Christians are indigenous people from Sabah

and Sarawak states who use the Malay language in their daily life, and having

the Bible in the Malay language is considered critical to the practice of their

Christian faith.

In the case of West Malaysia, however, in view of its larger Muslim population,

the government imposed the condition that the Bibles must have the words “Christian

publication” and the sign of the cross printed on the front covers.

The issue with the Malay Bibles is closely tied to the dispute over use of the

word “Allah” by non-Muslims.

In a controversial court ruling on Dec.

31, 2009, judge Lau Bee Lan had allowed The Herald, a Catholic newspaper, to use “Allah” for God in the

Malay section of its multilingual newspaper.

The Home Ministry filed an appeal against this decision on Jan. 4, 2010. To

date, there is no indication as to when the case will be heard.

Christians make up more than 9 percent of Malaysia’s nearly 28 million people,

according to Operation World.

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