'Church cherry picking'
Published:Monday | May 26, 2014 | 12:00 AM
JAMAICAN CHURCH leaders are being accused by one of their own of cherry-picking the moral issues on which they speak out.
The charge by the Reverend Garnett Roper comes amid reports that some pastors used yesterday's Sunday services to encourage their members to join a protest planned for today outside the Mona campus of the University of the West Indies (UWI) to show support for Professor Brendan Bain.
"Of all the issues in the society, to pick this one to protest is, once again, the Church being self-serving or cherry-picking moral issues because they are high-profile," Roper said.
"It doesn't do anything to increase or advance the moral standing of the society," he added.
not the right issue
Roper, who is also the president of the Jamaica Theological Seminary, said if the Church is going to "come out of hiding and start making noise in the society", this is not the right issue to use.
"There are far more profound issues that go to the heart of the quality of life of the citizens on which both the State and the powerful are complicit. Picking this issue gives the impression of a cynical Church," he said.
His views were somewhat similar to those of Reverend Gary Harriott, general secretary of the Jamaica Umbrella Group of Churches, who expressed concern that Bain's sacking was not resolved in a more amicable manner.
"I wasn't aware that some church leaders were encouraging their members to be part of any protest in support of Professor Brendan Bain, but I think what we need now is some helpful dialogue towards some kind of healing and reconciliation," Harriott said.
In contrast, pastors Paul and Dorrette Blake, who head Sold Out Ministries, based in western Jamaica, said they were in "total agreement" with the protest.
Bain, who is a retired university professor, was dismissed from CHART after a campaign by a coalition of groups who were upset over expert testimony he provided in 2010 in a constitutional challenge brought by a gay Belizean man against that country's criminal code.