Shame on Church - Clergyman charges Christians to focus on serious crimes, not anti-gay protest
Published:Monday | June 24, 2013 | 12:00 AM
Nedburn Thaffe, Gleaner Writer
On a day when segments of the local church community led protests against gay-rights activists seeking to challenge Jamaica's buggery law in the courts, one clergyman urged the Church to address its failure to make serious headway in fighting crime.
"The more churches we get is the more heinous the crimes that our people are committing. Somehow, there is a disconnect. The Church is not making any serious inroads into the nation," declared the Reverend Father Franklyn Jackson.
"There is a serious crisis in the Christian community because, up to 15 years ago, there were 366 different Christian denominations in Jamaica, and since then, I know of four more that have come," he said.
Jackson, during his sermon at St Luke's Church in Kingston yesterday, pointed to the stabbing death of a 13-year-old girl at the Anchovy High School in Montego Bay, St James, last week as testament that the country was in crisis and that the Church had lost its footing.
"From whence have we come to this place as a nation where our children turn on each other and start slaying one another? When we start slaying the mother of the nation, what are we saying about the future of Jamaica?"
He said: "Our land is under scourge, and it's not just economic plight. We would want to think it is economic plight, but if we bought all the gold and brought it to Jamaica, we'll have problems, because the white-collar person will find ways of embezzling the funds from the national purse."
Jackson pointed out that it was time the Church got rid of "our tribal Jesus, because our nation is in trouble and we need to witness to the power and the presence of Jesus in our lives".
Local gay lobbyists have long argued that the Church has been guilty of nitpicking in denouncing homosexuality. On several occasions, activists called on local clergymen to end the campaign against homosexuality and focus on issues such as crime and corruption.
Asked yesterday whether he supported the mass protests put on in Kingston and Montego Bay by the church group Prayer 2000, Jackson said: "I don't want to comment on that. [But] there is no sin that the Church needs to come out and campaign against.
"Sins that are committed, the Church should make a pastoral response. I would not support any demonstration against [any sin]; what I would ask the Church is to see people in communities that have problems of whatever kind and be there to minister to them and show them the way of God."
He used the occasion to call for the governor general to "lead the way and call us to prayer and let us ask God to lead us out of what we have fallen into".