Devon Dick

Last week Monday night, at a dinner reception held at Knutsford Court Hotel in honour of Stanley Clarke's consecration as the fourth native bishop of the Moravian Church in Jamaica and the Cayman Islands, musician Dwight Richards and Rev. Dr. Byron Chambers, president of the Methodist Church, hailed Stanley as a humble man.

Bishop Stanley Clarke is indeed a humble man. He is approachable and his friend of decades, Br. Eric Crawford highlighted that virtue.

He makes himself accessible and available to his parishioners and associates. He has no airs about him. Few persons know that he did postgraduate work at the presti-gious Ivy League Harvard Divinity School. Stanley does not flaunt his academic achievements.

Humility

The bishop is a humble man because he is teachable. At the reception, Anglican bishop Robert Thompson, a recent bishop, felt comfortable in offering to teach him a thing or two about the bishopric.

When Stanley was teaching at the United Theological College of the West Indies, he could be found in the library preparing for his classes.

The humility of Stanley Clarke was symbolically demonstrated by the seating arrangements at the reception.

There was an elevated head table with 12 persons and the guest of honour, Stanley Clarke and his wife Avelena were not there. I have never seen a guest of honour not being at the head table. And it was no problem to the humble bishop. He took a lowly seat with his wife and relatives.

Activist minister

On Sunday, September 16, Stanley Clarke's biography, which was distributed at the service of consecration at Covenant Moravian Church, described Stanley as an activist minister.

His activist ministry began when he became host pastor of the popular Hand of Fellowship radio programme on RJR (1992-98). His advocacy reputation was enhanced when he served as chairman of the Inter-Church Association of Health, Healing and Counselling; board member of the Kingston Restoration Company and the Religious Media Commission (Love Radio and Television) and president of the Jamaica Council of Churches (1997-2000).

He continues to serve as chairman of the Bible Society of the West Indies and as secretary of the National Leadership Prayer Breakfast. Obviously, Stanley is intent on being an activist bishop. He is carving out a distinctive role as a Moravian bishop.

A history of the Moravian Church, co-written by one of the four native bishops, S.U. Hastings in 1979, said, "They did not come to work for their emancipation. In 1865 - and again in 1938 - the Church prided itself on the fact that no Moravians participated in the upheavals, rebellions or riots of the day." This was consistent with the directives from European churches such as Baptists, Anglicans, Methodists and Presbyterians.

Set to continue role

However, the activist role, a departure from the traditional Moravian position was detected in Stanley's 1990 thesis, which examined the theology of Count Nicolaus Ludwig Von Zinzendorf.

Stanley recorded that, in 1739, von Zinzendorf, Moravian leader, visited the island of St. Thomas, and said that Negroes were experiencing slavery because God was punishing them for what Ham had done to Noah. Stanley was not afraid to recognise the weakness in the position of Zinzendorf and the failure of Zinzendorf to take an activist position in relation to slavery.

Bishop Clarke is ministering at a time when human trafficking, the second fastest growing crime in the world, is a problem in Jamaica. The Moravian bishop has a worldwide ministry and so Stanley has his work cut out for him. But this will not be insuperable, as fortunately, Bishop Stanley Clarke is humble and is set to continue his activist role in this society.