Ian Boyne, Contributor
IT'S THE season of celebration and cheer but the church has little to cheer about.
The church would do well, in between its reflections on the little baby Jesus in a manger, to spend some time reflecting on its failure to lend direction to this society.
Occasionally, we hear commentators and talk show hosts bemoan that "the church is not speaking out", "the church is not doing anything", "the church is not relevant", but usually this represents their own frustration with the refusal of the church to advance their own partisan agenda and pet peeves. They usually scream for the church to speak out on specific issues, whether the street people issue, the fat salaries issue, the Agana Barrett incident or the state of the prisons.
The church has to do more than issue press releases and sanctimonious pronouncements on single-issue causes. The church must articulate a philosophy, an ideology if you will; a worldview, and then offer its critique and analyses in that context. Within a clearly and systematically reasoned philosophical framework, then the church can respond meaningfully to the issues and events as they arise, rather than react to the media's sense of what are the priority issues.
If we must chastise our political leaders and parties for their failure to excite the imagination of the people and to build a sense of hope, then church leaders, particularly those in the Jamaica Council of Churches, the Jamaica Association of Evangelicals, must also be chided. They cannot wash their hands of any responsibility for checking the moral decay of Jamaica and the runaway, rampant individualism and amorality which permeate the country.
Shame
Yes, the church leaders will point to the work they are doing in their churches and the fact that every week they mount their pulpits to teach moral values. But either they are doing their jobs very poorly and incompetently or they are not doing enough - or both. They must bear a part of the shame for the sorry state of he country, the rising incivility, crudeness, crass materialism and worship at the Golden Altar of the Almighty Dollar. For all our reputed churches-per-square-mile we are a morally degenerate, corrupt and fundamentally unjust society. How the church, especially of the established tradition which eschews pietism, can disclaim any responsibility is beyond me.
We can't make people righteous by preaching, for sure. But just as political and business leaders have to assess themselves and be assessed as to how well they are doing their jobs, church leaders have to be held accountable before the last judgement! Indeed, many of our newer charismatic and neo-Pentecostal churches are part of the problem. Watch TBN, Love TV, Word and the other charismatic-evangelical networks and you will see the religious version of materialism being proudly displayed, disguised as prosperity or health and wealth teaching.
The popular charismatic and evangelical churches which are holding sway in Jamaica, and whose influence has strengthened since the advent of cable, are doing little to help Jamaicans cope with their reality. Aside from the theological errors involved in so-called prosperity theology, the promotion of the view that God is a "bigger boops" who has a lot to "let off" to those with faith; and who has a lot of spoils and benefits to dole out to the faithful reinforces a negative in our culture.
Poor, oppressed Jamaicans are already despised by a society that equates personhood and worth with possessions. Self-esteem is so bound up with things to such an extent that Jamaicans go to great lengths, not excluding gross immoral actions, just to get the things which confer status and "smaddytisation" on them. Yet there are preachers on the religious cable networks and on Love TV openly and brazenly telling people that if they were really faithful to God, they would be rich and prosperous; deepening the insecurities, self-doubt and, in some cases, neuroses of the Jamaican people.
More help
Religion should help people cope with the complexities and difficulties of life, not blame them and throw them in self-deprecation and guilt because they are not prosperous, presumably because they lack faith. We have moved from one extreme to the other. From the equally debilitating and false view that God wants people to be poor and glories in our deprivation and suffering to the view that everyone's prosperity is decreed and it is just the faithless, disobedient individuals who are sabotaging themselves.
Popular Christian religion in Jamaica is "sapsy", light-headed, superficial. The gospel concerts are jammed with jubilant Christians having a good time (absolutely nothing wrong with that) but serious discussion fora by a sharp Christian thinker like Clinton Chisholm are empty, leaving the impression that Jamaican Christians would rather sing, shout and wave rather than reflect and critique.
Christianity in Jamaica in anaemic. We face a new millennium with not just a weakened political culture and system, but a feckless, compromised Church. The theologians and thinkers in the established churches which have a more rounded, balanced theology are speaking to themselves and are failing to engage the society. Ernle Gordon is the only one regularly making his voice heard apart from the churchmen who are regular columnists.
The Jamaican church has some highly qualified, articulate and sophisticated thinkers. But many lack the vision to perform the role of the public intellectual.
Some simply have no guts. They speak in hushed tones in little corners but are afraid to speak out. Where are the Jeremiahs (yes, they are needed), the Hoseas, the Isaiahs, the Ezekiels? The Pauls who could intellectually challenge prevailing ideologies, bring every contrary thought in captivity to Christ?
The church has given free rein to the neo-liberal economic philosophy and has failed to give the kind of challenge and alternative to the dominant materialistic and hedonistic culture. At a time when so many are concerned about issues of justice and corruption perhaps the two biggest issues in Jamaica the church has ceded ground to groups like Jamaicans for Justice and other groups in civil society to carry the struggle. The church should be addressing the continuing moral, cultural and political crisis in the country.
Crusades and big tents alone cannot deal with the problem. People are "giving their hearts to the Lord" and their minds to the materialistic philosophy, which is all-pervasive.
Jehovah's Witnesses
For all the ridicule they have suffered, and notwithstanding the obscurantist and irrational positions they have held, including their withdrawalism, the Jehovah's Witnesses provide a greater counter-cultural challenge to this society than many other churches. The Witnesses, through an impressive and methodical way, also train their people to wage ideological and psychological warfare against materialism. The average Jehovah's Witness is less likely to run off and leave her family just to earn a few dollars in the United States, the Bahamas or Cayman; the father is less likely to neglect his children in pursuit of an American lifestyle and the children are more likely to have a healthy self-esteem even in the face of poverty and the lack of social status.
The Roman Catholics also have an enviable theology and history of social action which fits them for the challenges of the new Millennium. The church must hang its collective head in shame at the end of the Second Millennium. I suggest that they use this season to think not about birth, but re-birth.
