THE EDITOR, Sir:
IN YOUR issue of Thursday, February 27 were two seemingly unrelated approaches to further Jamaican patriotism and nationalism, consistent with authentic integrity and morality.
One contribution was from your columnist Melville Cooke, who bemoaned our lack of history relevant to Black History Month.
The other contribution was from a letter to the Editor by Richard and Merle Roper, linking Jamaica's current "moral bankruptcy" to a decline in the teaching of Bible Knowledge.
Both contributors, in my view, have valid points and their observations deserve practical follow through.
Particularly pungent from the column of Cooke was this paragraph:
"Heck, what about St. William Grant, the most striking monument to whom is a stinking park downtown, where people pee on the concrete and the shrubbery?"
St. William Grant is one of Jamaica's heroes of the social transformational period from the 1930s to 1950s. Regrettably, his exploits have never been adequately researched nor reported. In the other contribution, Richard and Merle Roper contend that the Bible in schools 'dropout' is a continuing tragedy, relevant to our social transformation, and so to the current Values and Attitudes campaign.
What the Ropers are concerned about is that sociology has replaced theology. The shift has occurred from a focused study of Christianity or Bible, to a focus on comparative reflection on religions.
What is needed, as the Ropers in their brief letter have made clear, is that Bible Knowledge should remain on the curriculum, no matter what curriculum changes occur. The case of Christianity's superiority is no small matter, and Christianity is a dominant part of our proud heritage, and so ought not to be diffused and diminished in our education institutions, and by extension in national life.
The current youth, mostly devoid of the powerful dominant influence of the Bible in Sunday and Sabbath schools, are about to pass their ignorance and rage to a generation without the Bible in all schools as a curriculum subject.
It is time more people in Jamaica come alive to the fact that governments rise and fall, as do nations, not because of poor planning and bad economic policies but on issues of morality - the forte of the Bible, as the Ropers maintain.
Their recommendation is to be respected - put the Bible back in the curriculum.
I am, etc.,
BILLY HALL
billsophia@hotmail.com
