In his closing remarks to the Good News Catholic Communications (GNCC) panel on the Age of Civil Responsibility (ACR) Bill, Bishop Clyde Harvey made several compelling observations.
- The bill does not take rights from parents; it ensures that children who need help have access to the help they need
- The challenge is not so much about laws as it is about education
- Churches have shrunk from their tremendous responsibility to educate teenagers and parents
- The idea that parents do not want their children to be sexually active is a Caribbean myth. Some parents encourage sexual activity
- The church has a major responsibility to protect the vulnerable, especially our children
And then he closes with a magnificent appeal, which we share in its entirety. “The bill must be withdrawn in its present form. It must be brought afresh in the new session of Parliament. Let that afresh be preceded by looking at the bill and presenting something that will suit the deeper things that we want to achieve, not least of which is the proper education of our families on these matters, both our children and our parents.”
This is responsible leadership from the church. But this constructive approach is seldom heard. Instead, most religious leaders keep silent in the face of our enormous sexual crisis. That silence is not just cowardly; it is sinful.
What instruction in responsible sexuality are our churches providing? What are they doing about intimate partner violence, our soaring incidence of incest, rape, and the high rate of adolescent pregnancy, fuelled almost entirely by adult men?
How has the church strayed so far from its mission of love, inclusion, fairness, and justice? Faith mingled with timidity is not faith at all. Yet our cultural stigmatisation of all things sexual has led religious leaders to censure themselves. They find safety in silence.
Rev. Dr Martin Luther King Jr was a religious leader and a soldier for justice who experienced this ugly wall of silence. He contended that “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
Another extraordinary warrior for justice, Nelson Mandela, said, “For every moment we remain silent, we conspire against our women.”
Where are the voices of our other faith leaders? What is faith without courage? Frankly, the silence of religious leaders in the face of the abuse of the least among us is nothing short of scandalous.
Sincerely,
Tonia Frame, PhD, President, Grenada Planned Parenthood Association (GPPA)
Fred Nunes, PhD, Consultant, Advocates for Safe Parenthood: Improving Reproductive Equity (ASPIRE)
While the question of “How has the church strayed from its mission of love, inclusion, fairness, and justice?” might seem legitimate, the honest answer might be more revolting than most people might expect. It has been said that “no one should build his house upon the sand because when the rain descends, and the flood comes, and the winds blow, and beat upon the house, it will fall, and the loss will be great.” The Judeo-Christian faith, vis-à-vis BLACK People, might be regarded as a house built upon the sand. Most of us have been brought up to believe that the church began after a reputed Jewish rabbi called Jesus was crucified on a cross as a manifestation of God’s plan for the redemption of humanity. The problem with religious or theological beliefs, though, is that they often derive from and are sustained in a manner akin to the internationally popular children’s game called “telephone” or “Chinese whispers.” Also, it has been said that “If you tell a lie often enough, people will come to believe it, and you will even come to believe it yourself Suffice it to say that the accounts of the biblical Jesus are completely at odds with the historical Jesus. As the recently discovered DEAD SEA SCROLLS reveal, Christianity was invented by another reputed Jewish rabbi and Roman operative called Saul of Tarsus (aka The Apostle Paul). Paul’s movement was subsequently appropriated by the Roman Emperor Constantine I, and tweaked by the British King James I (of KJV infamy), William Shakespeare, and a long line of Church Fathers. But even if we take the biblical Jesus as the gospel truth, we would have to admit that Jesus (the so-called God-man) was not inclusive. Matthew 10:5-6 reads: “These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: ‘Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel.” The book of John 1:11 further states: “He came unto his own, but his own received him not.” Despite such disdain for “inclusivity”, Black people have come to believe the “lie” so strongly that while Christianity is declining in “White” countries, the belief system is experiencing phenomenal growth in “Black” countries. Equally important is the fact that the church was instrumental in labelling Black people as “uncivilized heretics” and “savages”, and in enslaving our forefathers and colonizing the African continent (e.g.David Livingstone and Cecil Rhodes). Thus, any notion that the interaction between Europeans and Black People is based on “love” should be unconditionally dispelled. The fact that Pope Pius XI blessed the mustard gas and other weapons used in Mussolini’s invasion of Ethiopia (1935) shows that the church has never had an inkling of the concept of “justice”. Moreover, the church’s consistent use of white images to depict things that are supposed to be good and black images to depict things that are supposed to be evil must be construed as a lack of “fairness” and a clear indication of its determination to keep Black people mentally enslaved. Bishop Harvey, Dr. Frame, and Dr. Nunes might, indeed, be well-meaning in the belief that the church can be a beacon of hope for the inculcation of positive social values. However, given the role that the church has played in the subjugation of the AFRICAN (BLACK) People, and the reemergence of ideologies and policies geared at reinvigorating the perpetual dominion of one race over all others, Black people should spare no effort in ensuring that our “COLLECTIVE HOUSE” is built on solid rock. Given the present state of affairs, in which even our sovereignty is about to be taken away by those who profess to be the custodians of Judeo-Christianity, and in which we may no longer be able to sell our tuna and soursop leaves, it is fair to say that the church has never worked in our interest. And so, it’s about high time that we begin to recognize the urgency for adopting a home-grown vehicle for articulating our COLLECTIVE experiences, hopes, and aspirations as an AFRICAN People. Needless to say, the fledgling Philosophy of RASTAFARI, formulated as a dialectical synthesis of the lives and teachings of Emperor Haile Selassie, Garvey, Nkrumah, Malcolm X, Bob Marley, Black Stalin, and other enlightened black thinkers, is the only paradigm that purports to fill this vacuum. And so, it is incumbent upon us to ensure that we do not make the mistake of throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
Have him address the sexual abuses and the robed pedophiles in his ranks first.
Very powerful comments i agree church lost its way our leaders are themselves perpetrators of the malady and vextation and from where i sit the youth have been abandon withoutfirm examples within the churches to make a significant positive impact alas even some polictician leaders are not longer role models in morality and ehtics the central origin of the home has been mortally wounded with marriage as an institution created by God is now a vessell satan has commandeered to the prescipice of disfounctionality