"... an excellent piece of work... the only one of its kind...
presents a Caribbean perspective..." - Prof. Barry Chevannes THE COLONIAL and oppressive legacy of western organised religion is the subject of a newly released book - The Role of Religion in Caribbean History - authored by Patrick 'Pops' Hylton, a Jamaican who practises law in Washington D.C.
Mr. Hylton, 54, left Jamaica in 1969 and returned in 1976. Between 1976 and 1981 he did much work with government bodies to help effect socio-economic and political transformation especially among farmers and rural folk.
His book has earned the plaudit of Prof. Barry Chevannes, Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences and noted cultural anthropologist. According to Prof. Chevannes, whose comments appear on the book's back cover: "This is an excellent piece of work, the only one of its kind to my knowledge. Role of Religion tries to present a Caribbean perspective: Anglo, Franco, Hispanic, Netherlandphone - The central thesis is that the various Christian denominations in the Caribbean manifested, to a greater or lesser degree, a common adherence to the aims of colonialism, imperialism and human exploitation. This thesis is not original but I do not know of any other attempt to document it so comprehensively."
THE ROLE OF MUSIC
The author, who is in Jamaica on a brief holiday, told The Gleaner that he did not set out to write on the role of religion in the Caribbean. He wanted to write on the role of music in the region. But the further he went in his research, the more entangled he found religion in music.
Mr. Hylton, who attended Calabar High School and later Howard University, grew up in the Jones Town Baptist Church in Kingston. Today he acknowledges that he does not attend church regularly, nor would he be drawn into a categorisation of his religious outlook - be it theist, atheist, agnostic etc.
"My focus in the book is on the secular role of religion in the history of the Caribbean. My concern is not with which philosophy is in conformity with the 'truth', or with which 'God' is the 'correct' God. My fundamental question is 'Where did these denominations - Christian and non-Christian, stand on the questions of: territorial plunder, the enslavement and genocide of the Amerindian people, the enslavement and genocide of the African people, the Slave Trade, the abolition movement, Independence, the struggle against colonialism and racism."
In the interview, Mr. Hylton was not short on invective towards Christian denominations. He said "We do not have any denomination that has ever advocated the basic principles that constitute the essence of Jesus' teachings - though we have individual ministers who do."
Religion, he concludes "is not going to assume a posture that is different from the secular life of the society because historically church and state have always operated with both informing the other."
His research has made him firm in his resolve to pursue justice. He said, "Going to church and praying and worshipping do not have much meaning unless there is a material basis for it i.e. unless you can see yourself as at one with the rest of humanity."
ESTABLISHED CHURCHES
About half of the 375-page book deals with the established churches. The other half deals with non-Christian and indigenous religions of the region.
The role religion has played in the Caribbean, he stressed, "is to impose the culture of the conquerors on the conquered people." For the conquered people, he said, religion became a mode of resistance to the conquerors. In this regard, he extolled the Rastafarian religion as exemplars of his thesis.
"When we were taught that Africa is a dark continent; that everything black is bad; that Creole and Patois were bad languages; and that English, French and Spanish were proper languages - when we were taught these kinds of things - it was the church that taught these things to us," he stressed.
Mr. Hylton acknowledged little surprise at the findings of the research except for the extent to which certain celebrated abolitionists such as William Wilberforce were racists.
He quoted Wilberforce as follows: As far as the lower classes were concerned, 'their more lowly path has been allotted to them by the hand of God,' and that it was 'their obligation faithfully to discharge their duties' in their given station in life and 'contentedly to bear its inconveniences.' Mr. Hylton expressed the hope that his book will help Christians to see Christianity as a humanising religion that is concerned with the poor. "I hope it will strengthen their faith in going forward and advance the principles of Jesus Christ i.e. the moral imperative to do justice."
Mark Dawes
