By Mark Dawes, Staff Reporter
- Carlington Wilmot /Freelance Photographer
EARLY IN his life, Martin Wright was told that there could be no happy mixture between his Christianity and the practice of law. But that was not his verdict. He is both a judge and a pastor. The consensus is that he does both well.
Though officially retired since 1995 after a long career in the law, where he rose to become a judge of the Court of Appeal, Mr. Justice Martin Wright continues to dispense justice. These days he mostly conducts enquiries as ordered by the Governor-General.
At present, he gives most of his time to the Dayton Avenue Church of God in St. Andrew where he has been in pastoral charge since 1973.
The church, founded in 1963 largely through the prayer ministry of Ms. Ruby Kelly, is an outgrowth of the Church of God in Jamaica. In many quarters it is known simply as 'Sister Kelly's Church'. It meets at 6 Dayton Avenue (off Molynes Road) where about 250 worshippers regularly turn out each Sunday.
Hailing from south Manchester, Pastor Wright, 77, left school in 1947. The following year he became a born-again Christian. Having left school, the young Mr. Wright had his sights set on a career in the medical field, particularly psychiatry. He was drafted into the civil service in 1948 and was assigned to a court. He sought a transfer to a department that dealt heavily with the medical field. It was not forthcoming. According to him, he worked so close with the law until the law adopted him. The career focus was permanently altered.
LAW CAREER BEGINS
In 1957, he went to England to study law. He was called to the bar in 1959 at Lincoln's Inn. He returned to Jamaica in 1959 and then served as Clerk of Court for Falmouth, Port Antonio and St. Catherine. In 1963, he joined the staff of the Director of Public Prosecutions and stayed there for 13 years till he was appointed a Puisne Judge. He was judge of the Supreme Court for 10 years then he was promoted to the Court of Appeal which he served for a further nine years.
Standing at five feet, seven inches, Pastor Wright serves his God and his church with glad abandon. He is an unsalaried clergyman. "It is all voluntary," he says. "It is all as unto the Lord. That is my privilege."
Twice married, Pastor Wright's first wife Erleen Adele (nee Gordon) died in 1975 leaving him to raise two sons and daughter. The following year, he married Joyce Cynthia (nee Case) who serves as the church's organist. Both wives were professional pharmacists. His older son, Paul, works on Wall Street; his son, David, is a computer engineer at Windalco and his daughter, Grace, is a medical doctor and an assistant professor of medicine. All of them are professing Christians.
When he got back from England and began his career as an officer of the court, he found sections of the church community to be suspicious of him. "In those days in church circles it was taboo for a Christian to be working in the courts. When I went to Chapelton, Clarendon, as a young lawyer and a young Christian I was expecting to find church folk who would nurture me. But I was on my own. Afterwards I understood that their fear was based on St. Luke11:52 where Christ said, "Woe unto you lawyers! For ye have taken away the key to knowledge; ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered." (KJV) After a while, Pastor Wright, explained, the church folk realised the error of their ways and when they saw the evident Christian character in him, they warmed to him some even sought free legal advice.
MEDIATING CHURCH DISPUTES
He muses that it is providential that he, a minister of the law, and a preacher of God's grace has over the years been the person on the Bench who often heard cases involving church disputes.
Contrary to the impression some may have of him, he maintains that he is far more given to exercising mercy than most persons would realise. He cites 'chapter and verse' of cases where he opted to dispense justice tempered with mercy. "When the evidence proves guilt, I remember that the Lord is a God of mercy. And if one does not show mercy, don't expect any," he said as he spoke with The Gleanerr
from his Drumblair home in St. Andrew. However, he reserves his sternest sentences for those found guilty of rape.
Not formally schooled in theology, Pastor Wright said it is among the things he would pursue if he were to live over his life as a shepherd of God's flock. Nevertheless, he acknowledges that his career has prepared him for the pastorate, as "the discipline of the law" has taught him to be an acute thinker. Thus he has a keen sense that "things may not always be what they seem to be." The lack of formal theological training has made him an even keener student of the Bible, especially with how the holy book deals with human frailties. He tells the story of how after a sermon, a female visitor to his church had a conversation with him.
Woman: Pastor Wright, did you study theology.
Pastor Wright: No.
Woman: Oh, that is why your sermons are so practical.
SENSED GOD'S CALL ON HIS LIFE
He did not set out to become a pastor, but as he immersed himself in church life, he sensed the call of God on his life for the pastorate, especially as such was revealed to him in a series of dreams and visions. A keenly private man, Pastor Wright shuns publicity though he is a well-known judge and for almost three years he has been seen on television as the preacher on 'Dayton Avenue Hour', a programme of his church broadcast on CVM Television second and fourth Sundays at 6 a.m.
He is not, however, private about his views about the invasion of 'worldliness' in churches. "The Church", he maintains, "is not for amusement but for amazement." It is, he said, for people to stand amazed at what God is doing in changing lives for the better.
Pastor Wright serves a church that constantly bears testimony to 'signs and wonders'. It is nothing strange in that church, he said, for persons with sicknesses such as cancer to be prayed for by the church and to see shortly thereafter evidence of healing. He recites happily a story of a man who was blind and who, after he was prayed for, went home and picked about 200 ackees with his new-found sight."
CHURCH MUST REMAIN PURE
A one-time head of the Youth For Christ chapter in May Pen, Pastor Wright is emphatic on the Church retaining its identity and remaining unpolluted from 'worldly' influences. "The Church must not make itself a hermit. It must not be isolated from the world. It must mix, but not get mixed up." In this regard he reserves strong judgement for those in lodges.
He tells the story that when he was about to go on leave for England to study law someone came to him and urged him to join a lodge while he was there. He asked the person: "What is involved in the lodge?" The person said: "I can't tell you, you would have to join first." With that the young Martin Wright dismissed thoughts of joining a lodge as he could not reconcile joining something and then finding out what it entails afterwards. "My church is my lodge," he declares.
STAY CLEAR OF LODGES
"If it is spiritual help I am seeking, I get it from my church. I have spoken with people who were in the lodge and I have read accounts of ex-lodge members. I don't see why a Christian should be in it I have heard people say lodge signs are passed in court. Well, I don't know, for if such signs are passed in court, I don't recognise them because I am guided by nothing but my sense of justice. I have seen where people in legal circles are in it and even ministers of religion but I have never queried them as what it is that is deficient in their Christianity that has to be supplied by the lodge. From what I have read and from I have heard, there are occultic things associated with the lodge.
HIGH STANDARDS
"I have very strong feelings about the standards in the Church. When I see the levity that is sometimes portrayed as Christianity, I ask myself, 'You mean Christ died to make that possible'," Pastor Wright asked rhetorically.
"The Church is not an artistic show. The only show the Church is supposed to have is the demonstration of the power of God through prayer and sanctified living. I am not into dancing in the Church. The dancing that I see in the Bible is a spontaneous outburst of joy. It is not something that you study moves and do. I have been to churches and seen people wriggle up around me. I don't know what they are saying. I know that can't save anybody. It may amuse some people. But as I say, the Church is not for amusement but for amazement.
"When the Church tries to do what the 'world' does, the 'world' does it better. So what the Church must do is concentrate on what the Church is supposed to do. The world cannot perform the function of the Church and the Church must not try to perform the function of the world," he said.
