The Editor, Sir:

I would like to congratulate Rev Dr Devon Dick for his column of the 23rd. The column, 'Christianity marginalised', and the sentiments expressed, is one that I have long wanted to write, but he did it so much better. Both Bogle and Gordon were Baptist deacons, as was Sam Sharpe, not of the 'Native Baptists', as Rev Dick is often at pains to point out, but of the Jamaica Baptist Union.

Inspiration

Gordon was commissioned by Rev James Phillippo to preach, and he chose Bogle as a deacon; Sam Sharpe was a deacon of Rev Burchell's Montego Bay Baptist Church. Marcus Garvey was a Methodist layman who often quoted the Bible as his inspiration and source. He often preached sermons and even ordained a bishop for his African Orthodox Church, as Rev Ernle Gordon has often informed us. (See: Garvey's Theology of Engagement, The Gleaner, August 22, 2001.)

This past week, at the school here in Mandeville where I teach, a teacher did a presentation in chapel on our Heroes for Heritage Week. The biases were so evident that I had to ask him afterwards where the script was sourced. He replied that it was from some book.

Not only did it make no mention of any religious motivations for the actions of any of the Heroes, it also contained many factual inaccuracies, e.g. Alexander Bustamante was born in Westmoreland; the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union was the first trade union in Jamaica; and the usual, that Sam Sharpe was a daddy in the 'Native Baptists.'

Especially when we are informing impressionable children we need to make sure that our historical information is scrupulously accurate. But there is so much looseness with the facts of our history, often in order to support the biases, either religious or political, of the presenters.

Thanks Rev Dick for speaking out for the too silent religious majority of our country. Blessings!

I am, etc.,

LLoyD A. COOKE

Ministries In Action,

Royal Flat, P.O. Box 642,

Mandeville P.O.