God and politics

[Karl]

<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=1 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD><SPAN class=TopStory>God and politics</SPAN>
<SPAN class=Subheadline></SPAN></TD></TR><TR><TD>Mark Wignall
Thursday, March 01, 2007
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=5 width=86 align=left border=0><TBODY><TR><TD></TD></TR><TR><TD><SPAN class=Description>Mark Wignall</SPAN></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><P class=StoryText align=justify>The word "god", even when expressed in the uppercase "God" has no absolute, single meaning. To the intellectual, it may take on the meaning of that part of us which is outside the control of our known senses or powers. God may mean that unknown which is given the authorship of the Grand Design and/or the powers to be the dispenser of life, death and anything which could exist beyond the end.<P class=StoryText align=justify>To the peripherally religious, God probably exists in one of the great books and His name is based on how an accident of birth and geography defines it. In our neck of the woods where most of our people are notionally religious, our geography, slavery and colonialism have given us Christianity. I would imagine that most of our people, especially those over 35 years old, are sold on the idea that the Christian God, being all-powerful, has good and bad at His disposal.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Therefore He creates little babies to bring joy to the world, but does the same with monster storms to bring death, destruction and pain to many. Most Christians in Jamaica believe in a literal heaven and hell. They also believe that the church has the power to "save" people on behalf of God or Jesus Christ and that, at any time, the distinction between God and Jesus is very blurred.<P class=StoryText align=justify>This power to "be saved" so that one can "enter into the Kingdom" is what gives the church in Jamaica its power over the people, especially the poor and undereducated. Like those people living in the southern "Bible belt" states of the USA, God is in the church and the church is in God. If the God of the Bible said "vengeance is mine", it is extended to mean that those who belong to the church are, at all times, on the right side of vengeance.<P class=StoryText align=justify>It becomes therefore the duty of the church to decide who are the meek who shall inherit the earth and separate them from the malefactors, the sinners, that is those who have denied God. Political leaders who ally themselves with the church (it's political suicide not to do so) and never miss a chance to invoke "God" will always have a head start in the political jungle.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Last year when Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller told a church audience in Portmore that she was the appointment of "The Almighty" she struck the right political chord among a nation of people overdosed on ignorance. Recognising that there are many village tyrants in the religious hodgepodge called "The Church" in Jamaica, she told her congregation, and by extension, the nation, it was their duty to "support the appointment of the Almighty", otherwise a whip would fall. She went further to say when the whip fell, it would not do so on her, but on them.<P class=StoryText align=justify>She had by then taken on the role of preacher, intercessor between man and God, the dispenser of pain, pleasure and happiness. In the end, however, she had conveyed her infallibility to the nation by arming herself with the power to keep the whip away from her, but aiming for the backs of those who were only too willing to swap one master for another.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Fundamentalist Christians, that scary sect, have this habit of telling us non-believers either, "Don't worry, I am praying for you" or "God still loves you". Those responses always come whenever their actions are criticised. In recent times super teacher

[Karl]

RE: God and politics

<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=1 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD><SPAN class=TopStory>Jamaica on show</SPAN>
<SPAN class=Subheadline></SPAN></TD></TR><TR><TD>Henley Morgan
Thursday, March 01, 2007
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<P class=StoryText align=justify>Hyacinth Bennett, an admirable woman based on her accomplishments in the field of education and her willingness to offer herself for public office, is at the same time reflective of a tendency by Jamaicans to be self-denigrating in what we do and say. Her recent criticism of church people, among whom she numbers herself, as Pharisees and hypocrites for no other reason than their offering to clean up the environment ahead of Cricket World Cup is a case-book example of one impaling oneself upon one's sword without provocation.<P class=StoryText align=justify>There is a lot that is wrong with Jamaica and Jamaicans. No one can deny it. But there is also a lot of good left in us. One thing I can point to is how we prepare our house and open our arms to welcome and receive visitors.<P class=StoryText align=justify>I saw this demonstrated in the most graphic way last year. A group of about one hundred American college students, mostly but not all white, chose to use their spring break to minister to the people of Trench Town. The bus driver, a Jamaican, parked at what he considered to be a safe spot and declared he would go no further. Those young people, apparently too naïve and mentally unencumbered to know their own danger, alighted from the bus and after a short devotional exercise disappeared into the labyrinth of streets, lanes and alleys that make up the community. This continued for days with an experience of receptiveness and warmth unique to the Jamaican character. Before it was done, another team was on their way, excited by the reports they had received.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Jamaicans, who for one contorted reason or the other are hoping that Cricket World Cup will prove to be a grand stage on which we embarrass ourselves in the eyes of the world, are wasting their time. Some of the arguments put forward by people who think this way are spurious indeed.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Given our circumstances, the most compelling argument is that spending $8 billion on a sporting event is a classic case of misplaced priority; we can't afford it and furthermore there are so many people in need. This argument is not new. Neither is it the sole preserve of nations that call themselves poor.<P class=StoryText align=justify>President John F Kennedy had to withstand criticism from the cynics of his day when, embarrassed by the success of the Russians who had bettered America by launching Sputnik into space, he committed the country to the goal of "sending a man to the moon and returning him safely to earth by the end of the decade". The voice of opposition - people who from their track record one would have thought had no feeling for the poor and uneducated of whom there are many even in America - was loud in the defence of the ideals of equanimity, equality and equity in the use of "scarce" resources.<P class=StoryText align=justify>For a time the naysayers seemed to have the upper hand. After all, what could be more wasteful than travelling across the emptiness of space; going from a planet in need to one that is barren with no obvious economic benefits. The passing of time has provided a different perspective in which to view and understand these things.<P class=StoryText align=justify>The rigour of scientific discovery required by the manned space programme has kept America at the forefront of innovation and inventiveness in the world. Whoever stops to count the many ways in which the lessons learned from space have been applied to advancing human civilisation?
Whether it is in the hundreds of new materials that have been developed, the improved surveillance of weather patterns or the network of satellites that make modern telecommunications possible, the returns from what at first seemed like waste

[Lazie]

RE: God and politics

Last year when Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller told a church audience in Portmore that she was the appointment of "The Almighty" she struck the right political chord among a nation of people overdosed on ignorance.

Is there a more true statement? What yuh say Karl?

[Mosiah]

RE: God and politics

Lazie (3/1/2007)

Last year when Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller told a church audience in Portmore that she was the appointment of "The Almighty" she struck the right political chord among a nation of people overdosed on ignorance.

Is there a more true statement? What yuh say Karl?

Yes, there is!

"I wonder if Jamaica was hosting a competition which involved mainly visitors from black Africa if our Christians would go out to bat as they have done."

[Lazie]

RE: God and politics

Well ... in the example you quoted, he was simply wondering. In the quote I highlighted .... he was making a statement. You never notice some of the idiotic reasons people put forward in attempting to defend dem religion? Here is one, Karl admitting that he is corrupt in order not to call a spade a spade.

[Mosiah]

RE: God and politics

Karl (3/1/2007)<P class=StoryText align=justify>Cricket World Cup, Highway 2000, Emancipation Park, the spectacular bus terminus being built in Half Way Tree, the new Parliament building when it comes - those things that stretch us and remind us of what we are capable of - should be celebrated and not condemned. It may be all that we have to hold on to until the better we desire comes.<P class=StoryText align=justify>

<P class=StoryText align=justify>That spectacular bus terminus in HWT is a landmark structure, the likes of which has not been done in Kingston for a while.<P class=StoryText align=justify>As you approach HWT from almost any of the5 main thoroughfares that converge on that square, you see the impressive arch a halfmile away. It makes a bold statement in an otherwise drab park and squarely places Kingston again as the Caribbean's prime metropolis. <P class=StoryText align=justify>My only regret is that I am not working on that project. sigh!