Recently the Jamaica Council of Churches (JCC) and evangelicals raised concerns with the decision to have regular horseracing on Sundays. It seems to be suggesting that the Government should put in place a law protecting Sunday as the day of worship.

I am, however, concerned with such a request by the JCC because it seeks to threaten religious liberty and individual freedom. The request ignores the fact that there are Christians who worship on Saturdays, which they regard as 'the Bible Sabbath'. While I do not support gambling in any form, I am somewhat surprised that evangelicals are requesting regulations for the day of worship rather than addressing the immoral path of gambling the country is being taken on.

Not to be a burden

Such a request raises a question as to why evangelicals have become concerned about regulations to be put in place for Sunday as the day of worship when in the recent past they preached and campaigned against such regulations, saying the day was not to be a burden.

While Seventh-day Adventists have never called for the state to protect Saturday as the Bible Sabbath, they have always called people everywhere back to the keeping of God's Ten Commandments, including the fourth that requires the observance of the seventh day of the week as the Sabbath of the Lord. It has always been the evangelicals preaching and teaching that such a Biblical law was abolished and cannot be kept.

I believe this recent campaign is smoke to a bigger fire that will soon be made manifest in Jamaica and the world at large. In recent times the Vatican has been calling for a revival of Sunday sacredness among Protestant Christians. I believe it is such request by the Vatican that the Jamaica Council of Churches and evangelicals are championing.

I believe the day of worship must not be legislated or regulated by the state in the interest of any individual or group, but rather be left to individual faith and conscience.

I am, etc.,

R. K. SPENCER

jah_prinz@yahoo.com

Mandeville, Manchester