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An Insightful Analysis To The CHC System (Part 5)

19 Thursday Sep 2013

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Kong Hee says about CHC, Phil Pringle and the C3 Church Movement,

“You can’t talk about City Harvest Church without talking about C3. Or Christian City Church. You know Pastor Phil has been there for me; praying with me; encouraging me; discipling me; telling me how to do the work of the ministry; taught me how to collect an offering; how to give an altar call; how to build a church; build a team. So Pastor Phil, from the depth of my heart, for Sun and myself, we wouldn’t be where we are today without you and Pastor Chris. Let’s give Pastor Phil and Pastor Chris a big clap.” – Kong Hee, Session 8: (00:24), Presence Conference 2010.

The above quote is something to think about while reading the below article by Marc Ronez. Before reading this fifth article, make sure you have read his earlier articles:

An Insightful Analysis To The CHC System (Part 1)
An Insightful Analysis To The CHC System (Part 2)
An Insightful Analysis To The CHC System (Part 3)
An Inisghtful Analysis To The CHC System (Part 4)

Here is Ronez’s fifth article analysing the CHC situation:

City Harvest Case part 5: CHC’s Crossover or Sun Ho’s Crossover

As explained in my previous post “City Harvest Case Part 4 – Can You Rationalize a Crime to be a Benefit to Society?“, the CHC investigations and trial have turned the spotlights on  a number of very questionable decisions and practices made by the CHC Leadership in relation to the Crossover project. While according to the CHC Crossover website, it was supposed to be an Evangelization project using secular pop music as a mean to reach out to “people who would never think of setting a foot in a church”, the Commissioner of Charities (CoC) and the Prosecution view the situation very differently. From their perspectives, the essential purpose of the CHC Crossover project was to provide the funds necessary to finance the costs associated with the launch of Sun Ho’s secular musical career in Hollywood (See links to articles about the CHC case). Looking at the facts that have been uncovered so far, it seems indeed clear, as already discussed in my post “City Harvest Case Part 2 – If there is a Fraud what would be the Motives?”, that Sun Ho has been the main “beneficiary” of the Crossover project and of the funds allocated to it. Hence in this post, the focus will be on some of the very troubling questions that Sun Ho and her role in the crossover project – has raised as follows:

  • Question 1: Why was Sun Ho chosen as the main focus and only vehicle for the Crossover project?
  • Question 2: How does Sun Ho’s U.S. music breakthrough attempt fit with the objectives of the Crossover project?
  • Question 3: How does Sun Ho’s public statements and lifestyle in the U.S. align with the objectives of the Crossover project?
  • Question 4: How does Sun Ho’s U.S. stage personae fit with the objectives of the Crossover project?

To provide a balance perspective on each of the questions stated above, we will analyze them systematically to find out the following:

  1. Ethical Dissonances: Why the decisions and behaviors of the CHC leadership can create ethical dissonance issues? What is questionable about these issues?
  2. CHC leadership’s rationale: How were these issues rationalized by the CHC leadership in order to make their decisions and behaviors acceptable by church members and even to win their support?
  3. Critical Perspective: What are the potential weaknesses in the argumentation used by the CHC leadership to rationalize their decisions and behaviors?

Question1: Why was Sun Ho chosen as the main focus and only vehicle for the Crossover project?

1. Why should this be considered an ethical dissonance issue?

From a secular perspective, there is a basic conflict of interests situation in this case. The decision to “select” Sun Ho as the only vehicle for the crossover project among all the thousands of CHC church members is questionable, considering the simple fact that she is the wife of the senior pastor who was making the decision. The conflict of interests will cast some doubts on the motivations of Pastor Kong Hee. The suspicion is reinforced when you note that City Harvest Church has no lack of spiritually minded singing talents such as Annabel Soh, Sendy Bolang and Alison Yap. Did Sun Ho have necessarily the best voice, look, creative talent and story for the “pop star” job scope?

2. What is the CHC Leadership’s Rationale on this issue?

Pastor Kong Hee repeatedly claimed during church services that the command about Sun Ho’s crossover came directly from God Himself, that he and his wife carefully confirmed it through months of prayers and the counsel from spiritual mentors. In particular, Pastor Kong stressed that they had received supporting prophetic words from Pastor Phil Pringle (currently Senior Pastor of C3 Australia and advisory pastor of CHC) as well as by other prophets, prophetess and even “signs and wonders” such as the many thousands of souls that were saved during her concerts in Taiwan in 2003. All this “proving” that it was indeed a mission that God had given to her. Pastor Kong Hee concluded that in the end, he and his wife had no choice, but to “surrender to the Will of God” and accept the mission.

3. Critical Perspective on the CHC leadership’s argumentation

Whether you are religious or not, a bit of skepticism is not just welcome, but in fact necessary to be able to ask some very simple and reasonable questions to leaders. The purpose is to ensure an appropriate level of accountability from the leadership. Ensuring accountability is indeed a very important principle in risk management. The accountability principle works for everybody’s benefits, including the leaders’ themselves by establishing check and balance mechanisms, preventing them from loosing touch with the reality of the principles that are supposed to guide their decisions and actions.

Did Pastor Kong Hee and Sun Ho loose touch with reality in the CHC case? In this regard, I have already mentioned above that it may sound quite self-serving for Pastor Kong Hee and Sun Ho to claim that God made the decision. So let’s explore this issue a bit further by asking more questions..

CHC cash Down-the-DrainAssuming that God indeed made the decision to choose Sun Ho as the vehicle for the Crossover, then how much money do you think, God would need to help her to make a breakthrough on the U.S. pop music scene? Considering that God is almighty and can do anything, He would certainly help her through signs and wonders. It does not mean that Sun Ho would not have to work hard to succeed, but God could and would open doors miraculously at critical times. However from what we can observe in Sun Ho’s case, it seems unfortunately that 7 years of trying very hard with 3 different top producers and spending at least SGD 24 millions  were NOT enough to succeed… Shouldn’t that raise some serious questions about whether God was really supporting this project?

With that in mind, how to justify the almost EXCLUSIVE focus on Sun Ho for the most critical Evangelization project of the church? If the Pop Music reach out strategy is really as effective as claimed by CHC leaders, then why support only one singing talent and not 2 or 3 or even more in order to reach a wider audience? It should have been possible to spread the SGD 24 millions to support a lot more artists or artistic projects in the church instead of just one. Furthermore risk management best practices would usually recommend “not putting all your eggs in the same basket“. It is often both more prudent and yet effective to spread your risks so as to minimize your exposure to failure, while at the same time to maximise your chances of success. Church members should certainly question the wisdom of the decision to choose Sun Ho as the vehicle for the Crossover project from both an ethical and “business” point of views. According to the prosecution, extravagant amount of Church members’ money was invested in Sun Ho’s Crossover and the question is, was it invested appropriately?

Question 2: How does Sun Ho’s U.S. music breakthrough attempt fit with the objectives of the Crossover project?

1. Why should this be considered an ethical dissonance issue?

Pastor Kong Hee has repeatedly shared during services the vision given to him by God that with CHC, he was to lead the way for a Christian renewal in Asia. So the obvious question is why did Sun Ho ended up in the U.S. for 5 years (from 2005 to 2010), trying to make a breakthrough on the pop music scene there? Many CHC members may have questions regarding the connection between the U.S. adventure and the Asian Christian renewal mission of CHC.

2. What is the CHC Leadership Rationale on this issue?

The rationale provided by the CHC Crossover website is that breaking through the U.S. pop music scene would have turned Sun Ho into a global star (the first from Asia), thus increasing her appeal, influence and hence her ability to reach into many people’s lives in Asia and even around the whole world. As a result, Sun Ho would have been able to “shine for Jesus Christ” and achieve all the official Crossover objectives (that I have already mentioned in a previous post, “City Harvest Case Part 1: Following God or Mammon?“). Pastor Kong further claimed that the decision to go to the U.S. was also a direct command given by God to them that had been “confirmed” through months of prayers and by miraculous signs. As examples of these miraculous signs, Pastor Kong Hee claimed during church services that a famous U.S. music producer (later identified as Justin Herz) was so impressed by Sun Ho’s music video “Miss Catastrophe” that he asked her to pursue a career in the U.S., predicting that she would have a great future there. You can check the video below to make you own judgment of its Hollywood potential.

 

Pastor Kong Hee also mentioned that another company (later identified as Tonos) had also offered to Sun Ho a 5 million dollars contract to launch her career in the U.S.. He asked the congregation to pray for her to help her make the right decision about the contract (see link to a prayers list given to CHC members during service in 2005). Here again the command of God was also confirmed by anointed prophets, including strong prophetic words by by Pastor Phil Pringle and blessings by Dr A R Bernard, Senior Pastor of the Christian Cultural Center, New York and CHC advisory chairman.

Finally Pastor Kong Hee repeatedly stressed during services in front of the congregation that going to the U.S. had been a very difficult decision for them to make, as after the birth of their son, Dayan, both he and his wife really wanted to focus more on their family. But in the end, as the command of God was loud and clear, here again they “obeyed” as they had no other choice but to surrender to the Will of God.

3. Critical Perspective on the CHC leadership’s argumentation

There are a few points I would like to cover here. First Pastor Kong Hee and Sun Ho claimed that they had to “sacrifice” their family life in Singapore to obey God’s command. However when we look more closely at the facts, we can observe that Sun Ho was enjoying the “super star” lifestyle, hiring renowned producers and top choreographers, getting large advance bonuses, living in a SGD 28,000 a month luxury mansion in a plush Hollywood district, buying clothes from top fashion designers, being served  by a large entourage of helpers (primarily members from the church) and participating in A-list events with other socialites. In short, she was the main beneficiary of the Crossover project and its fundings. Furthermore Sun Ho brought her family along with her in L.A., giving them the opportunity to enjoy those benefits as well. Finally Pastor Kong Hee himself also moved to the U.S. to be with his family and enjoyed the same luxury socialites lifestyle. He even charged quietly his business class traveling expenses to the Church ($700,000 according to information revealed during the trial). So when a sacrifice comes with so many benefits, we may wonder whether it is still a sacrifice..

Second, it now appears that many of the “miraculous signs” that Pastor Kong Hee had highlighted as proofs of God’s support to the Crossover project, in fact, did not happen or were of dubious nature. For example, what to make of the views of an experienced and renowned industry expert such as Justin Herz who predicted Sun Ho’s success in the U.S.? Let’s consider the following scenario: Imagine that you are an American music producer and you need to make a lot of money to finance your expensive lifestyle, then you come across an Asian pop singer wanabe with big dreams. Unfortunately for her, your professional experience tells you that there is slim chance for her to succeed (for whatever reasons i.e. lack talent, no X factor, etc.).

But then you find out that money is not a problem for her as she is the wife of the Senior pastor of a very wealthy church who even said to you that “the sky is the limit” when it comes to funding his wife’s career (see Todayonline article). Is this going to affect your professional judgment? Considering that at least $6 millions was paid to his company, a cynical view would say that Justin Herz would probably have predicted “the moon” to somebody able to pay him that kind of money. In the many fraud cases I have investigated, I have often noted that you can almost always find a group of people who, while they are not directly involved in the fraudulent scheme, will often knowingly take advantage of the situation to extract money for themselves.

Another example of the “miraculous signs” that did not materialize is Tonos, the company that had supposedly offered to Sun Ho a $5 millions contract to finance the launch of her career in the U.S. had actually stopped operations (see picture on the left) one year before Pastor Kong Hee made the contract offering claim in front of his congregation in 2005 . To put it simply, there was no $5 millions contract. The question is, how could Pastor Kong Hee make knowingly that claim in front of his congregation.

Finally the rationale given to justify the whole U.S. adventure is that 1) the way to influence Asia was through the Sun Ho’s U.S. success and that 2) at the same time, God had extended Pastor Kong Hee’s Christian renewal mission to cover the American continent as well. Pastor Kong Hee just listened and obeyed. There are a simple observations and reasonable questions we should we ask as follows:

We should ask why did they need to take the U.S. detour when it had been claimed in church that Sun Ho was already a very successful (multi-platinum) singer in Singapore, Taiwan and was breaking through in China (she was featured specially on a First-Day Cover Stamp-series in June 2004 and was invited to sing the anthem at the 2007 Special Olympic game in Shanghai among other things)?

  • God of course can extend the mission He has given to Pastor Kong Hee to include the U.S. as well. Pastor Kong Hee continuously claims that God talk to him and that as a faithful servant, he listens and obeys. This is of course very good for a Christian but we can observe an interesting trend ever since the Crossover project started.  It is interesting to observe that God seems to very conveniently agree to whatever Pastor Kong Hee wants to do and will bring him and his wife tremendous benefits. Did God ask Pator Kong Hee to move to the U.S. to spent a lot of money in order to enjoy the lifestyle of the “rich and famous”? Did God ask Pastor Kong Hee to fly Business Class to go home to the U.S.? Did He also asked him to quietly charge $700, 000 of his personal traveling expenses to the church? Or is Pastor Kong Hee extrapolating widely when interpreting the will of God?

Question 3: How does Sun Ho’s public statements and lifestyle in the U.S. align with the objectives of the Crossover project?

1. Why should this be considered an ethical dissonance issue?

While the Crossover project was almost exclusively – in terms of resources allocation – focussing on Sun Ho, her public statements in the U.S. is problematic as she appeared to quite clearly dissociate herself from the Crossover project as well as from City Harvest Church. During media interviews, when probed about her music and connection to CHC, she repeatedly declared that, “I don’t want to think of it as a crossover album” (example: South China Morning post Article “here comes the Sun”) also playing down her connection to City harvest Church as “just the church I’m affiliated to” (read the PR.com Article “Sun Rising“).

2. What is the CHC Leadership Rationale on this issue?

The rationale given by the church leadership is that Sun Ho had to go “undercover” because if  the secular world knew that her breakthrough attempt on the U.S. pop music scene was a Christian Evangelization project, she would have faced tremendous opposition. Pastor Kong Hee often referred to the bible and more precisely the book of Daniel to explain how Christians engaged in the marketplace like Sun Ho should behave. He stressed that Christians are in the world, but not of the world! Like Daniel, you have to engage society to be able to reach positions of influence where you can be a positive force for changes.  Daniel became a high ranking official in the court of the Babylonian king, exerting a strong influence to protect his fellow countrymen.  In order to achieve all these, Daniel had to be “in the world” from the outside looking and behaving like a Babylonian. But he was “not of the world” as he remained true to his faith to God and love for his jewish countrymen. So in summary like Daniel, Sun Ho was just playing a role. The role of a superstar in order to breakthrough on the U.S. pop music scene and achieve a position of influence where she would have been able to “shine for Jesus Christ” and reach into the lives of many people.

3. Critical Perspective on the CHC leadership’s argumentation

The CHC leadership came up with a very effective rationalization as when you buy into the explanation provided, it can justify almost anything. Whatever Sun Ho did that could look like “out of range” can and will be categorized as some kind of necessary “role-playing” for the sake of the Crossover project success. But does the end really justify the means? The question is: Where do you draw the line to make sure that you do not fall too deep and too far to avoid falling into the evil, depravity, and corruption of this world? In other words, how can we be in the world without becoming tainted by the world? Referring again to the Book of Daniel, I would like to point out that although he was indeed on the surface in many ways looking and behaving like a Babylonian, he did have very strict red lines. The most important of them was that he never denied or even played down his faith in God and his loyalty to his community. Even the threat of death did not make him waver. However when it comes to Sun Ho, one may wonder what were the red lines. We will discuss the issue of her U.S. stage personae in Question 4, but I would like to refer to some of the statements she made during media interviews. In those media interviews, when she was asked direct questions about her connection with CHC and her Christian faith, she either eluded the questions or made outright incorrect statements, for example denying that she was a pastor and claiming she was just a counselor in a church she is affiliated to (read the PR.com Article “Sun Rising” for more examples). It seems that Sun Ho was no Daniel after all.

Question  4: How does Sun Ho’s U.S. stage personae fit with the objectives of the Crossover project?

1. Why should this be considered an Ethical Dissonance issue?

The stage personae that Sun Ho adopted to try to breakthrough on the pop music scene in the US is another sticky point that we need to cover with regard to the U.S. road strategy. While the demure nice romantic girl personae that Sun Ho cultivated for the Singapore and Taiwan markets was easily connected to Christian values (even as she was singing secular songs), the much edgier ‘lady GAGA’ type of personae that Sun Ho morphed into for her U.S. adventure was understandably much more difficult to relate to the same Christian values that Sun Ho was supposed to promote. A Geisha dancer in China Wine, who end up with murderous thoughts in Mr Bill and a Gothic ringleader of outcasts in Fancy free may NOT be the kind of role models you would like to offer to your children, even when you are not Christian parents. You can follow the above links to see the videos for yourself. While we may appreciate (or not) the videos from an esthetic or musical point of view, you cannot blame many people – especially Christians – to wonder how this kind of personae and videos will help promote the Gospel values.

 

2. What is the CHC Leadership Rationale on this issue?

You can find on the CHC Crossover website the claim that the “US music market is much edgier and louder than the Asian music market” and therefore a demure nice romantic girl personae would NOT work there. It goes on to further explain that a personae is just an imaginary character, a role used in videos and performances obviously different from the real personality of the artist. And it conclude by declaring that using a personae is “just part and parcel of the music industry”.

3. Critical Perspective on the CHC leadership’s argumentation

So what was the CHC Crossover strategic breakthrough plan then? Was it to make edgier videos until Sun Ho could finally have a breakthrough on the U.S. pop music scene? And then once she had finally become a superstar, she would suddenly shine for Jesus Christ by strongly promoting her Christian faith and encouraging her fans to go to church? If that was the idea, CHC members may wish to question the wisdom of it.

Furthermore CHC members could also question the wisdom of the choices of artistic collaborations made to produce Sun Ho’s singles and albums. For example, the collaboration with renowned rapper Wyclef Jean is potentially questionable for a project of the nature of the Crossover. Why? Simply because besides the probably extravagant cost of hiring him, you could also be puzzled, as a CHC member, about this choice from an artistic and spiritual point of view considering that Wyclef has a track record of music that usually seem to glorify alcohol, sex and careless fun. It may seem a bit difficult to fit that “package” into a Christian evangelization project. Finally, do you really need to be “edgier” to succeed in the U.S. as claimed by the CHC Crossover website? If so, how then would you explain the phenomenal success of Celine Dion, Adele, U2, Coldplay, Justin Bieber and many more artists who did not have to overplay the supposedly edgier side of the U.S. music industry to succeed?

CHC Crossover or Sun Ho’s Crossover?

With all the above in mind, is it inappropriate to ask whether the U.S. stardom quest was really centered on God (except of course to provide the funds to finance it)? Or could it just have been the journey of a woman wanting to realize her own personal stardom dreams?

Sun Ho’s vs the 6 prosecuted CHC Leaders

Considering the findings of the risk analysis that I have developed over my series of posts on the CHC case, many readers might be puzzled as to why Sun Ho, being the main beneficiary of the Crossover project, is not part of the group of the 6 CHC leaders being prosecuted in this case. While she was initially suspended from executive duties in CHC together with other leaders, the CoC has recently dropped their case against her and allowed her to resume leadership roles in CHC. Sun Ho was quick to claim victory and stressed that she had been totally vindicated by the decision made.

This very strange situation where the main beneficiary of suspected fraudulent activities can walk away free, while some other leaders who did not benefit from it (at least not directly) end up being prosecuted for it may seem to challenge common sense. But it can actually be explained quite easily when you consider that there is an important legal principle that applies here as follows:

Everyone charged with a penal offence should be presumed innocent until proven guilty in accordance to the law in a public trial at which he or she has had all the guarantees necessary for a fair defense.

This presumption of innocence means that it is the responsibility of the prosecution to prove the guilt of a criminal defendant and that he (or she) also has the right to a fair defence.

So contrarily to what Sun Ho claims, she has not been vindicated by the CoC decision to allow her to resume her leadership role in CHC and by the fact that she has not been prosecuted in the ongoing case. It simply means that both the CoC and the prosecution obviously felt that they did not have enough material factual evidences to link her directly to the suspected wrongdoings.

What does this actually means?  It could be interpreted in 2 ways:

  1. First, we could postulate that Sun Ho had no ideas of what was happening. That she really thought as she declared during interviews with various media that the crossover, her luxury lifestyle and her charitable activities were financed primarily by her royalties, recording contract, business venture revenues and some friendly businessmen (read the PR.com Article “Sun Rising“). She just sacrificially focussed on playing as convincingly as possible the title role of the “global super star to be” scripted for the Crossover project without asking questions.
  2. Second, we could on the contrary postulate that she was closely associated with many of the questionable decisions made. However, the fact that she had resigned from her Church position in order to Crossover to the secular side and hence was no longer officially directly involved in the management and decision-making in CHC,  may have helped to keep her away from the reach of the prosecution for now. Furthermore she could have only given face to face verbal instructions without leaving any written traces of them. In such a case, it may indeed be difficult to find hard material evidences to link her to the suspected wrongdoings.

Who paid for the Crossover?

The extravagant amounts paid to finance her pop music career, and her carefree,  luxury lifestyle in the U.S. have shocked many church members, the christians community and even the wider public who may have wondered what has it got to do with Christian evangelization works.  The important question here, is who paid for the “party”? This will be the subject of my next post entitled: City Harvest Case Part 6 – The Smog of the Crossover Financing (coming soon). So keep on the lookout for it.

Source: Marc Ronez, City Harvest Case part 5: CHC’s Crossover or Sun Ho’s Crossover, http://marcronez.wordpress.com/2013/09/13/city-harvest-case-part-5-chcs-crossover-or-sun-hos-crossover/, 13/09/2013. (Accessed 19/09/2013.)

An Insightful Analysis To The CHC System (Part 1)

11 Sunday Aug 2013

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Kong Hee says about CHC, Phil Pringle and the C3 Church Movement,

“You can’t talk about City Harvest Church without talking about C3. Or Christian City Church. You know Pastor Phil has been there for me; praying with me; encouraging me; discipling me; telling me how to do the work of the ministry; taught me how to collect an offering; how to give an altar call; how to build a church; build a team. So Pastor Phil, from the depth of my heart, for Sun and myself, we wouldn’t be where we are today without you and Pastor Chris. Let’s give Pastor Phil and Pastor Chris a big clap.” – Kong Hee, Kong Hee, Session 8: (00:24), Presence Conference 2010.

The above quote is something to think about while reading the below article.

Marc Ronez, an expert in Risk Management, wrote a series of articles analysing the CHC case on his blog ‘The Risk Paradox’. His blog states that,

“Marc has an MBA from the University of Chicago GSB, an MSc in Insurance and a LLM from the University of La Sorbonne. He is also a Fellow in Applied Risk Management (FARM) from the CARM Institute.” – About Marc, http://marcronez.wordpress.com/about/, (Accessed 12/08/2013.)

Here is Ronez’s first article analysing the CHC situation:

City Harvest Case part 1: Following God or Mammon?

The start of the City Harvest Church (CHC in short) trial on the 15th of May after 2 years of investigations which saw the church senior pastor and founder, Kong Hee and 5 other leaders of the church being prosecuted for allegedly misusing church’s funds, has brought back under the spotlight the issue of the sensitive relationship between Religion and Money.

One of the ways worshippers show their love and commitment to their faith is by giving their hard earned money to support the religious causes that matter to them. As a result, temples and churches collect and manage very large amounts of money.

According the Commissioner of Charities (COC) report available on the charity portal, religious charities in Singapore received $1.6 billion out $10.7 billion for the whole charitable sector in 2011. In order to ensure that the funds are used for godly charitable purposes that will provide benefits to the society, it is in the donors’ and general public’s interests that both the way the money is raised and how it is used, have to follow certain commonly accepted moral principles and rules.

A Risk Management Perspective on the CHC Case

Exploring this issue of the management & uses of money in religious charities from a risk management’s perspective, it seems that the CHC case may have potentially exposed some serious Governance problems in this prominent mega-church. The information that have been made available in the news so far seem to point to a wide possible range of unethical and even fraudulent practices such as pervasive conflict of interests, abuse of power, weak control systems, lack of leadership accountability and little information transparency. Given the high profile of CHC and the sensitivity of the issue, this case has attracted a lot of media attention and generated heated debates on social media among both Christians and non-Christians. This has led to a lot of tensions between the parties involved and deep confusion as to what and who to believe in this case.

Being a Christian myself and having been attending regularly the services at CHC for the past few years, I have a direct interest to see this cloud of confusion being lifted. Like many other CHC members, I would like to be able to figure out what to make of the accusations that have been brought against the 6 Church leaders. This is very important as these men and women are leading the Church and are considered to be role models for all members in the Church to follow. While understanding, respect and support should naturally be provided by Church members to the prosecuted leaders who have earned their trust, this natural support should not tun into blind loyalty. Indeed, loyalty to a leader does NOT dispense the same members from keeping an open mind and actively seeking the truth whatever it may reveal – good or possibly bad things – in order to to be able to make properly grounded decisions about what to do. This should be the same in any organization as Trust must be build on solid foundations.

As a risk management professional, I have had to investigate a wide range of fraud cases over the years in the organizations I worked for and hence it would be just fitting and appropriate to apply the same principles and investigative methodologies to the CHC case to find out whether there could be any real substance (or not) in the allegations made against the CHC leaders.

Therefore, in an attempt to bring more clarity into this case, I will explore it using a Fraud Risk Management Analytical Framework to analyze systematically the facts that have been made available. The key objective is to try to understand and explain what could have gone wrong (if anything) in CHC.

In order to ensure that we all have a clear common understanding of the meaning of some of the key words used in this analysis, I will clarify the meaning of Ethics and Fraud by providing the following definitions:

Ethics refer to the moral values and norms such as honesty, integrity, accountability that explain and guide an individual’s behavior in society. Ethics form a moral code of conduct, a sort of compass that helps people in differentiating what is right or wrong, what is good or bad.

Fraud is about deception, it is acting dishonestly in order to gain or give an advantage. It usually consist of a false representation of a material fact or of a person—whether by words or by conduct, by false or misleading statements, or by concealment of what should have been disclosed—that is intended to deceive another into parting with something of value or to surrendering a legal right. (it include acts of bribery, cronyism, sleaze, nepotism, corruption, favoritism, etc).

What do psychologists, criminologists and social scientists say about human behavior in relation to ethics and fraud?

You might find the answer to that question quite disheartening as most experts agree that pretty much anybody could potentially engage into unethical and even fraudulent behaviors provided that certain set of circumstances or factors are present in a given situation. Understanding what are those particular circumstances or factors would obviously help guide our exploration of the CHC case. Hence, we will use a recognized fraud risk assessment model that explicitly structure the analysis around those key circumstances or factors.

A Risk Assessment and Management Model: The Fraud Triangle

The Fraud Triangle, developed by American Criminologist Donald Cressey, is one of the models that can help us understand what are the circumstances or factors mentioned in the previous section. In short, the Fraud Triangle model postulates that unethical and fraudulent behaviors are very likely to occur if the following 3 factors are present in a given situation:

1. The first Factor is PRESSURES: The person is under very strong financial or work related pressures (needing money, achieve targets) or it is in his self-interest to break the rules (hiding mistakes, gaining something).

2. The second factor is OPPORTUNITIES: The person has by himself (or with accomplices) the authority and the means to to take whatever actions needed to make the cheating possible. The person must also believe that he can conceal his actions to avoid being caught, for example, due to a weak management control system and a permissive organizational culture.

3. The third factor is ETHICAL RATIONALIZATION: Finally, because practically nobody likes to think about himself as a fraudster, he therefore must be able to rationalize his unethical or fraudulent behavior to be somewhat congruent with commonly accepted moral principles.
The Fraud Triangle has seen countless applications in practical cases and works well to explain the WHY & HOW people can be tempted to act unethically or even to commit a fraud. It also provides a framework on how to prevent, detect and manage unethical or fraudulent behaviors in organizations (from a CEO making fraudulent statements down to a clerical staff stealing company equipments). Hence, based on the findings of a Fraud Triangle assessment, we are able to develop a pretty comprehensive and effective Ethical Compliance and Fraud Risk Management programs.

So I will now, step by step, undertake an exploration process on HOW each of these factors COULD apply in the context of the CHC case. But before I start this analysis, I would like to stress that at this point of time, the court case against the CHC leaders is still on-going and could even stretch well into 2014 as reported in The Straits Times. This is obviously a complex and difficult case with an outcome which is at this stage uncertain. So please keep in mind while reading this post that there is an important legal principle that says:

Everyone charged with a penal offence should be presumed innocent until proven guilty in accordance to the law in a public trial at which he or she has had all the guarantees necessary for a fair defense.

This presumption of innocence means that it is the responsibility of the prosecution to prove the guilt of a criminal defendant and that he (or she) also has the right to a fair defence. Therefore, the purpose of this analysis is NOT to take position on whether the accused leaders are guilty or innocent in the eyes of the Law as this will be determined by the court proceedings. The purpose is to use the Fraud Triangle model to undertake an ethical & fraud risk profile assessment of CHC to try to make sense of the information that have already been made available and assess the POSSIBILITY of “breaking the rules” behaviors taking place in CHC. My expectation is that by using an analytical approach that essentially “let the FACTS speak for themselves”, the results of this assessment will be more objective and help readers get much needed clarity about this case.

Setting the Context of the Analysis: Background Information about CHC Crossover project

When reviewing the information available, it is clear that the key question marks of this case revolve around the CHC Crossover Project. As there are conflicting perspectives about the Crossover project, in particular from CHC’s side and from the prosecution’s side, it is important to first clarify them as follows:

CHC perspective: An Evangelization Project – In 2002, City Harvest embarked on the “Crossover Project”. In essence, it was supposed to be an Evangelization project. Thus, the stated intention (as indicated on CHC Crossover website) was first to use secular pop music to reach out to “people who would never think of setting a foot in a church” and because of that would otherwise be out of reach from church more traditional activities. Second, to support & encourage “Christians in the pop industry to shine for Jesus”. It is important to understand that Evangelization is (or should be) a core mission for any churches as Jesus Christ himself, before he ascended to the heavens, instructed his disciples and followers to bring the Gospel to all the nations of the world (Matthew 28:19-20). And using pop music to reach out to the unchurched like in the CHC case is just an application of what many Christians know as the “Cultural Mandate”. The Cultural Mandate is the belief that Christians are not to stay within the 4 walls of their churches waiting for people to come in but on the contrary, they must bring God’s Word to the unchurched by engaging proactively in every area of human society, as organized by pastor Kong Hee into 7 Pillars: Family, Religion, Business, Education, Government, Arts and Media. The objective is to reach positions of influence to be “witnesses for Christ” and create the maximum opportunities for people to hear about and come to Jesus Christ.

COC & Prosecution perspective: A “cover up” for a Fraud – The prosecution claims that, whatever were the stated intentions, the CHC Crossover project ended up to be (for a large part at least) nothing more than what could be characterized as a “cover-up”! That its essential purpose was, in fact, to provide the funds necessary to finance the costs associated with the launch of Sun Ho (wife of Pastor Kong Hee) secular musical career in Hollywood. The COC and prosecution claim that at least SGD 24 millions were illegally diverted from the church building fund and channelled to support Sun Ho’s attempt to breakthrough on the Hollywood music scene. The COC and prosecution further claim that the use of a complex bonds structure and of other transfer techniques to funnel indirectly the funds to the Crossover demonstrate the deception because they were “part of a concerted effort to conceal this movement of funds from stakeholders”. The reason was to hide the fact the money used to finance Sun Ho career was actually coming from the church in contradiction to Pastor Kong repeated claims that no church money was used to finance his wife’s secular career (See links to articles about the CHC case).

Application of the Fraud triangle to CHC case: Exploring the 3 factors

So we have 2 very different and conflicting perspectives, then let’s now use the Fraud Triangle to bring some clarity into this case. Please note that a Fraud Triangle Assessment will require to question the motivations and actions of the accused CHC leaders. I can understand that some readers, especially CHC members, might feel uncomfortable that I will question the moral integrity of well-respected leaders and would feel the need to jump to their defense. So before you may be tempted to react in that way, I would like you to keep in mind that I am merely asking what should be considered as reasonable questions about this case and looking ONLY at the facts publicly available, avoiding any rumors and using a well-tested, credible Risk Management model. The objective of this analysis is only to stimulate healthy questioning and help readers to clear the cloud of confusion about this case through an open and analytical process that allow a more balanced assessment.

As this Risk Assessment analysis is quite detailed, it will be split into 7 posts that I will release gradually as and when ready. My next post on this case entitled “CHC Case – If there is a Fraud what would be the Motives?”, will focus on the first question of the the Fraud Triangle i.e. the PRESSURES Factor. We will assess from the facts what could be the possible motives of the accused leaders that could explain their behaviors in this case.

So keep looking at my blog for the developing analysis.

Source: Marc Ronez, http://marcronez.wordpress.com/2013/07/11/city-harvest-case-following-god-or-mammon/, 11/07/2013. (Accessed 07/08/2013.)

 

An Analysis Of Kong Hee’s Money-Scheming ‘Church’

10 Friday May 2013

Posted by in C3 & Pringles Associations

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When people critique Kong Hee’s Church they are also critiquing Phil Pringle and his church. We know personally that Kong Hee sees Phil Pringle in an infallible light as a personal master, mentor, pope and Prophet of God.

Kong Hee To Phil Pringle: “You created this mess! You’ve Got To Come And Help Us Fix It”

Not only is Kong Hee a disciple of Phil Pringle, he imitates Phil Pringle in many ways in teachings, conferences, service layouts, financial events and advertising, etc. As Kong Hee said,

“Many people come to City Harvest Church and they look at our church. Look at our pulpit. Our Rise and Build. And they say, “Hey! Why is it that in Australia they kinda copy after you?”

Well actually we came here and copied everything from Christian City Church. So we have our own Rise and Build and I just thought I show you this latest installment where we anounced to our church, SunTec City Convention Center.” – Kong hee, C3 Presence Conference, Session 4, Sydney, 2010.

‘Thinking Free And Fair’ offers their analysis of Kong Hee’s City Harvest Church,

An analysis into the wealth of City Harvest Church

Update: I have updated this analysis with a new article in the aftermath of the Pastor’s arrest.  

Although I am aware that City Harvest is one of the richest churches in Singapore, I am still shocked that it is rich enough to pay SGD310 million for a stake in Suntec City. Nevertheless, an entity which is able to amass such wealth is certainly worth studying. I was determined to understand the secrets to the church’s wealth.

I apologize upfront if the points raised give offense to loyal followers of City Harvest Church. Please regard this article as a business analysis of the factors that contribute to the wealth of City Harvest Church, not as an insinuation that the Church got rich through questionable means. The fact is that CHC is very rich and this makes for a fascinating academic exercise to examine its sources of wealth. Just treat it as a business case study. I have tried my best to stick to the facts. Please correct me if there are factual mistakes. However, if there are differences in opinions, please disagree with courtesy.

1. Clever packaging of Sunday services

The income of a church is dependent on the tithes collected (10% of income from church-members). Therefore, the earning power of a church is highly dependent on its ability to retain its existing church members and attract new ones. The larger the church membership, the greater its earnings.

I watched a sample of CHC weekend service on its website.  Compared to the boring Sunday classes I attended as a kid, CHC church service was most refreshing (Watch “The 10 Laws Of The Harvest”). The beginning part resembles a rock concert with good singing and enthusiastic audience. It is an entertaining way to enjoy your Sunday mornings. Going to church becomes a weekly event to look forward to rather than a chore to attend to.

With church services so well packaged for its customers, its customer retention rate and new customer acquisition figures should look good.

2. Extra revenue in the form of advertisements, sales of CDs

This church is unlike the other churches I know. It generates extra revenue through advertisements during its Sunday service(watch the videos). It sells audio CDs on its website. There is an online shopping cart for convenience to those who want to buy online.

3. Efficient collection of tithes

Church-members can pay their tithe online via credit card, eNets or even Giro!! Once members started donating using Giro, the earnings quality of the church improves. Donation collected via Giro tend to be more stable.

With a globalised economy, people travel round the world a lot and may miss Sunday services. In the past, the churches will lose income when these members fail to turn up to pay their tithe. Now, with online payment, they can continue collecting the tithe even when the church-member is working overseas for an extended period of time. With Giro, the church can continue collecting tithes for a few more months even when the member leaves the church as people have a habit of forgetting what they pay on Giro.

4. 30-fold, 60-fold, 100-fold returns on your church donations

This is where the genius of CHC lies and the secret to its superior earning power. In fact, I have yet to encounter any public-listed company on SGX, HKSE, NYSE, Nasdaq that demonstrates better potential.

The pastor preaches that God will give 30-fold, 60-fold, 100-fold returns on your tithe. But, you have to be generous in your donations first so that you will receive in harvest proportions. I guess that is the origin of the name City Harvest. Please watch the video “The 10 Laws Of The Harvest” yourself in its entirety and interpret for yourself.

It is a message that cleverly uses an astute understanding of human nature to maximize profits. If I were a CHC member, I will be tempted to increase my tithe as much as possible. Not mincing my words, I am doing it out of pure greed. I do not think I will be alone. It is perfectly fine if members of CHC strongly disagree and thinks that I am not representative for most of them. After all, I can only speak for myself.

5. Quality of customers

With the 100-fold return message, the kind of church members attracted will be most conducive to profit-making. Money-minded people will be attracted to the church. These money-minded people tend to be ambitious and have a great desire to make lots of money. Millionaire minds have a higher chance to become rich. Hence, the quality of customers that CHC attracts are of the highest quality. The richer the church-member, the higher is the church’s tithe per member.

Customer quality will be enhanced through the passage of time due to survivor bias. Suppose out of this pool of Millionaire-Mind Christians, 50% become satisfactorily rich and the remaining 50% still unsatisfactorily middle-class. The 50% who got rich will donate even more because they think their source of wealth comes from their donations. It is most unlikely they will cut back on their tithes  because they will be afraid God will punish them by cutting back the returns. If they are not afraid, the church will be there to warn them not to do so. The remaining 50% who did not get rich will be disillusioned and probably leave the church. The loss is of little significance to the church. These people are not rich and their tithes will not amount to much.

Many Christians will be disgusted with the concept of using tithes to get rich. These people will probably leave the church after attending a few Sunday services. Again, the loss is of little significance to CHC. These people will not be highly profitable to the church even if they are rich because they are not going to tithe as much as the others who believe their tithes is the way to wealth.

To the credit of the Pastor, I think he has devised a wonderful process of filtering out non-profitable customers and sucking in the lucrative ones. There is only so much physical space that a church can have to service its church-members. To maximize profits, the church has to ensure that each unit of space is used for servicing lucrative customers.

6. Kill off competition

CHC has tremendous economic moat that kills off competition. In the video “The 10 Laws of The Harvest”, the Pastor cited Law #5 “Your Seed must be planted in Good Ground” which is an effective weapon in killing off his competition – the smaller churches. Many Christians feel that they ought to donate to the needy, smaller churches rather than rich mega-churches like CHC. The Pastor’s argument is that you do not get good returns like 100-fold in the small churches. You have to donate to mega-churches to maximize returns on your tithe because they have a track record (rich church members). In other words, the seed is not planted in good ground when you donate to the small churches. In his own words, “I don’t always give to the neediest but to the ground that will give the greatest yield”. To illustrate his point, he used an analogy on weak banks and strong banks. You do not deposit your money in a weak bank because it desperately needs fresh funds to survive. You deposit your money in a strong bank which invests your money wisely and yields good returns.

The church has an iron-grip on its members who believe its message. As illustrated previously, its customer base is of the highest quality. This is its track record. Existing church-members will definitely not move to another smaller, needier church with poorer track record.

It has a very strong economic moat as it is very hard for its competitors to get its customers to switch over.

7. Providing a place where the rich can network

As the Pastor said, his church provides a good ground on which you can grow your riches. Rightly so, indeed. For property agents or insurance agents trying to hit their sales quota, City Harvest Church will be an ideal place to hunt for lucrative clients. This church concentrates several rich and money-minded people into a single location. The church offers a unique advantage to sell things. In a religious setting, people tend less to be on their guard and can be more easily persuaded to part with their money. 

Businessmen also like to network in places where there are rich and powerful people who will come in handy in future. The Pastor has done a good job in gathering such people in his church and it makes good sense to make use of this advantage by joining the church.

The rich will attract more rich and the gathering moss snowballs to provide an ever-rising pool of donation to the church. 

8. Preach what people like to hear. 

As a teenager, I was discouraged when I read Bible verses like Matthew 19:23-24 “I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” and Matthew 6:24 “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.”

It seems like if I become rich, I will be condemned to hell.

In the video “Rich God? Poor God?”, the Pastor preaches that it is absolutely ok to be rich. Some prophets of God were very rich. (Abraham, David, Solomon)

There is nothing more musical to a money-minded person than to hear that God is on your side in your pursuit of money. The church-members who are more money-minded will love this and donate even more.

9. God pays for the returns, not the church. 

The church collects the money, but God pays for the returns. The church does not need to pay a single cent for the 30-fold, 60-fold, 100-fold returns on the donations.

This is as good as you do the work for me, but not only do I not pay you, I shall also collect your salary. You toil and sweat, but I shall eat your bread. God must surely be a miracle worker and people will pay handsomely for his service. I cannot think of a more advantageous economic position to be in to be able to collect money rendered by a miracle worker.

10. Social pressure to conform in church settings and ease of influence

If everyone around you donates, it is hard not to. When everyone else makes sacrifice, the one who does not will look like an outcast. There is tremendous pressure to conform in such a herd setting.

11. Tremendous future earning power

Take a look at the congregation and you will notice the large number of young people. The income growth of young people is the fastest in the population. In the Pastor’s words, “You may be poor today, but you will not be poor all your life”. That is a long-term business plan in cultivating its customers.

Therefore, if CHC can be viewed as a growth stock, its prospects are very bright as its young customers will accelerate its earnings.

12. Stable earnings in times of depression

Besides being a growth stock, CHC can also be viewed as a defensive and safe stock. People pray hardest when they fall in hard times. Strangely, some people have an urge to tithe when they are in financial troubles.

In fact, in the video (The 10 Laws Of The Harvest), a couple came on stage. They talked about the dire straits they were in when they started out. Things change when God challenged them to GIVE themselves out of poverty (exact words from the speaker). Despite not having any money, they still pledged $250 to the building fund. In his own words again, “we often emptied our savings to give to the House of God knowing that this will be the answer to our financial problems”. Hence, not only will the church earnings be stable in times of depression, it may even grow.

13. Using Prosperity as a theme to appeal to customers

The Pastor preaches Prosperity Gospel which revolves around money. His business genius lies in choosing this theme for his church. Money has universal appeal. Everyone worships money regardless of race, culture, age, gender, sexual orientation. In one fell swoop, he has enlarged his market to cover the entire world. It is much easier to convert people to your belief by dangling money and promising great prosperity. After all, who does not love money?

By enlarging his potential market catchment with a greater chance of increasing membership, more donations will flow in.

14. Tax benefits as church is registered as a charity

This creates a huge, unfair advantage compared to all other businesses. This is what landed CHC in controversy. Enough has been said.

If one day the Pastor switches to become a businessman, I will definitely consider investing in the company that he heads and founds.

If City Harvest Church is listed on the Singapore Stock Exchange, I will certainly buy it. It will be one stock that I am confident of hitting a return of 30-fold, 60-fold, 100-fold returns.

PS: People tend not to question critically when it comes to religion. A charming smooth talker can easily sway minds with his interpretation of the Bible. In the final analysis, Faith is about simply believing. You cannot approach it scientifically because there is no way to test religious theories using the scientific method. We will only know the real truth when judgment day comes. 

The danger is that there is no accountability on the part of the preacher on whether his teachings are true or not. Even he himself cannot be sure that his interpretations is 100% correct. Given human nature, the interpretations will tend to be self-serving. In fact, it is not only dangerous to the students but to the teacher as well. People will believe their own lies if it yields tempting benefits. That was how Wall Street drank its own Kool-Aid.

While I respect the Pastor for his business savvy, I cannot agree with his interpretations of the Bible. I pray for good health, peace and harmony for my family. Money-minded as I am, I am not comfortable with commercializing my relationship with God by asking for money. The Christian God that I know from my own reading of the Bible is not 财神爷. Of course, if God wants to drop money from heaven on me, I will be more than happy to embrace it.

Source: By think-free-and-fair, An analysis into the wealth of City Harvest Church, http://thinking-free-and-fair.blogspot.sg/2010/03/analysis-into-wealth-of-city-harvest.html, 29/03/2010. (Accessed 09/05/2013.)