Lawrence Khong Kin Hoong is a Singaporean Christian religious leader and magician. He is the Apostolic Overseer of Faith Community Baptist Church in Singapore and the chairman of LoveSingapore, a network of about 100 socially conservative Singaporean churches. Khong is also the founder and chairman of TOUCH Community Services, a non-profit, non-religious welfare organisation.
Early life
Khong is the son of a businessman and a housewife. His father, a general commodities wholesaler who came from Guangdong province in China, had another family in Hong Kong with four children, but remarried when he came to Singapore before World War II broke out. Khong was rebellious and did poorly in primary school, he claimed that his grades improved dramatically when he entered secondary school at St Joseph's Institution. Following this, he went on to National Junior College, where he met his future wife, Nina, and were classmates with future prime ministerLee Hsien Loong. Despite becoming a Christian at the age of 13, Lawrence said that he had "backslid" during his army days, even though he said he went for a church camp at Port Dickson. Khong claims that a drowning incident at the church camp made him reflect deeply on life and on himself. He returned to church and joined the Varsity Christian Fellowship and began preaching on the pulpit while he was still an undergraduate. Khong also started performing publicly as a magician, and was a member of the Singapore Charter of the Society of American Magicians. After graduating with a B.A Business Administration from the National University of Singapore, he worked as an intern pastor. A year and a half later, he married his fiancé, Nina and the two set off for Dallas where he attended the Dallas Theological Seminary. While studying there, Khong was asked to pastor a Dallas church with a Chinese congregation because he could speak some Chinese, which he found challenging. Khong returned to Singapore and joined Grace Baptist Church in 1981. The church's congregation grew from 300 to 1600 between 1981 and 1985.
Career
Faith Community Baptist Church
, was founded by Khong as a cell church in 1986. Khong delivered his first message to the new congregation on 17 August 1986. Besides serving as the pastor of the megachurch, Khong also stages entertainment shows that combine magic, music, drama and dance to engage his congregation. The church is reported to have a congregation of around 10000 members as of 2014. FCBC is a charismatic church that is socially conservative. In 2012, the Faith Community Baptist Church fired a member of the church staff on "moral grounds" because of her adulterous relationship with a married church worker. As the Employment Act of Singapore states that an expectant mother from her fourth month of pregnancy must be paid benefits if she is sacked without sufficient cause, the church was made to pay the sacked employee $7,000 in salary and benefits. In 2017, the church opened an arts hub at Bukit Merah Central. The nine-storey building includes a performance venue Gateway Theatre, which is rented out to arts groups on weekdays and used for church services on weekends. It is operated by Gateway Entertainment which is run by Khong and his daughter. The new building, costing more than $50 million, is mostly funded by the congregation. Khong is one of the International Twelve of Cesar Castellanos. Following the pattern in G12 churches, FCBC is formerly led by Lawrence Khong and his wife, Rev Nina Khong.
Media and entertainment
Khong has been performing magic since his late teens. He started producing movies in 2010 and performing magic shows such as "Magic of Love" and "Magic Box". Khong shared his experiences of "Magic of Love" in his book Give me the Multitudes! Obeying God's Call into the Media World, TOUCH Ministries International: Singapore but has received some criticism from fellow Christians for his use of magic and involvement in "marketplace ministries." Khong is the founder of Gateway Entertainment, the entertainment ministry of FCBC, which provides Christian stage and movie productions and magic shows. Khong stated that he uses his magic shows as a platform to introduce certain religious beliefs and "good Christian values" a secular audience. Khong has performed magic shows, with his daughter Priscilla. Khong's magic shows have attracted controversy in 2015. As Khong is known for his strong views against homosexuals, pro-LGBT groups questioned IKEA Singapore for its member discounts for Khong's magic shows. Ikea Singapore continued offering its member promotion for the shows after a review. Lawrence Khong has also been vocal against the spreading "anti-Christian and immoral values promoted by the secular world" by entertainers in Singapore, a non-religious state. He has spoken out against performance of Madonna in the country.
TOUCH Community Services
Khong is the founder and chairman of TOUCH Community Services, a non-profit, non-religious welfare organisation that has 18 services, 19 centres, and 24 youth clubs in Singapore helping the under-privileged. The organisation has served over 100,000 individuals since its establishment. In 1998, Khong was conferred the public service medal in recognition of his contributions to the community. In 2002, Khong conceptualised Project SMILE or Sharing Magic in Love Everywhere. For his achievements, he was selected as a finalist for the SIP-Schwab Social Entrepreneur of 2007. In 2007, TCS won the Outstanding Non-profit Organisation Award in the National Volunteerism & Philanthropy Awards, which recognises best practices in the management of volunteers and donors, including fundraising practices, in non-profit organisations.
Views on homosexuality
Khong has been criticized for his views regarding equal rights for homosexuals in Singapore. In January 2013, Khong issued a statement to ex-Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong against repealing Singapore's laws that criminalises gay sex. He sees the repeal of Section 377A of the Penal Code as "a looming threat to this basic building block by homosexual activists." and regards the "homosexual act" as "the greatest blasphemy against the name of God". In 2014, LoveSingapore,a network of 100 local churches that Khong, chairs, created a guide to how to support Section 377A of the Penal Code, criminalising sex between men. He also wrote an open letter to the Health Promotion Board, criticising that their webpage on sexual health "condones same-sex relationships and promotes homosexual practice as something normal". He has also actively protested against the annual Singapore gay pride event Pink Dot SG, and has supported the counter-campaign and encouraged his followers to speak out against the normalisation of homosexual relationships in Singapore.
Support for Creationism
In 2016, Khong was noted to have delivered a series of sermons at Faith Community Baptist Church, saying Charles Darwin's Theory of Evolution was "a real deception from the Devil". The church's support for creationism in its pulpit and on its social media channels prompted a discussion on the spread of the idea by certain groups of Christian evangelicals in secular Singapore. The Ministry of Education has since clarified that creationism is not taught in local schools.
Personal life
Khong and his wife, Nina Khong, have four children – Priscilla, Michelle, Anthony and Daniel Khong Bao Liang, a grandson, Isaac, and a granddaughter, Hannah. Nina Khong has given up her medical practice to serve full time in FCBC. In 2003, Khong publicly disclosed Priscilla's incident of having a child out of wedlock. The family has since reconciled with the church and stands strong on their biblical belief of 'sex after marriage'. He is also a national polo player who won a silver medal with the Singapore team at the 2007 South-east Asia Games.
