‘Calloused stupidity,’ ‘distasteful & hurtful’: Church called out for response to RVHS killing

Singapore — A now-deleted social media post of a Christian church about the killing of a student of River Valley High School did not go over well with many Singaporeans, some of whom called it “unconscionable” and “calloused stupidity,” as well as “distasteful and hurtful” to the parents of the boy.

The post, which appeared on the Instagram account of Gospel Light Christian Church, showed a text chat between a congregant named Inez and Pastor Jason.

In it, Inez asks the pastor how he “makes sense” of the tragedy, especially for the family of the slain boy.

While he answers that “it’s not easy” and that the family should be given privacy to grieve, he goes on to say “the problem is sin in a broken world.”

Further in the post he says, “The problem is that of sin foremostly, not lack of student mental health awareness or better safety protocols.”

The post has since been taken down, although it’s uncertain whether the church took it down themselves or the post was reported enough times for Instagram itself to take it down.

On Twitter, a netizen named Wali Khan drew attention to the post on Monday (Jul 26), writing, “Gospel Light Christian Church posted this in response to the River Valley murder. It’s unconscionable that they’re capitalizing on this to reveal some sort of innate ‘wisdom’ their pastors possess,” and posting screenshots of the post, which at that point had been liked over a hundred times.

Gospel Light Christian Church posted this in response to the River Valley murder. It’s unconscionable that they’re capitalizing on this to reveal some sort of innate “wisdom” their pastors possess. pic.twitter.com/X1E5f8d3h9

— Wali Khan (@wali_talks) July 26, 2021

Wali Khan went on to tweet, “Them implying that god allowed this murder for a reason is equally perverse.”

One netizen responded to this by asking, “do they not realise how insensitive this is?”

Another netizen called the church out for what he termed to be “calloused stupidity.”

Calloused stupidity is what this is. Nothing more.

— Ben Thambiah 🏳️‍🌈🇸🇬 He/Him/His #Repeal377A (@benedictjt) July 26, 2021

Over on Reddit, a thread with the heading “Found this instagram post talking about the RVHS incident saying that mental healthcare is not as important as finding god in your life” has also garnered numerous strong reactions.

One Redditor wrote, “This is so distasteful and hurtful to the parents of the deceased. Absolutely no room to get all evangelical at this and yet the church somehow found a way to exploit the situation. The devil works hard, but this guy obviously works harder.”

Even those who identify as Christians regarded the post as problematic.

A netizen lamented the lack of EQ the pastor seemed to have and commented, “how ridiculous is it that the entire post is framed around a person asking a religious leader how to feel about a child being killed at school?”

The Independent Singapore has reached out to Gospel Light Christian Church for a response.

/TISG

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The series of events at River Valley High School: Sec 4 boy with axe asks other students to call the police