Garnett Roper, Contributor
Students of the history of Christianity in Jamaica and the Caribbean are intrigued at the interesting shifts that are taking place in terms of the balance of power and influence among Christian denominations. The Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) movement over the 165 years of its history has never disguised its intention to replace Sunday worshippers as the dominant religious force. The key area in which that shift was to be discerned is in the extent to which Saturday replaced Sunday as the national holy day. Adventists have never been closer to the realisation of that goal than they are in Jamaica today.
It is well-known that in 313 AD, when Roman Emperor Constantine became a convert to Christianity and declared Christianity religio lecita, or the national religion of the Roman empire, Sunday became the mandatory day off from work. When the Seventh-day Adventist founder Ellen G. White claimed a vision of the Ten Commandments in 1844, she claimed that the fourth commandment, the Sabbath law, was circled. Her understanding was that it was God's desire that Saturday replaced Sunday as the national holy day, or in other words, Adventism should become religio lecita, the religion of empire.
The pursuit of that goal has been admirable, single-minded and relentless. Many Seventh-day Adventists, therefore, saw the rise of former SDA head Patrick Allen to become governor general of Jamaica as the nunct dimitis of Seventh-day Adventism. It was their moment of glory, equivalent roughly to the eighth century when Charlemagne, the Roman pope, crowned the emperor. The joy, rather than trepidation, with which Adventists welcomed their political endorsement by the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) is, at best, ironic. SDAs have always regarded the endorsement by Emperor Constantine, of the Christian religion, as a corrupting influence, but they missed the danger that lurked for themselves, and the temptation that comes with power.
Sir Patrick Allen, governor general, gives his first Independence Day inspection of the guard of honour during celebrations at King's House this year. - Rudolph Brown/Chief Photographer
divide and rule
One of the first things that has happened is that there has been the use of the habit of power, called divide and rule. A wedge has been driven between Seventh-Day Adventism and the rest of the Christian Church. Two recent incidents illustrate the way this division has begun to become apparent: the first, the proposed introduction of Sunday horse racing which has raised the ire and caused consternation among Christian denominations, especially those of fundamentalist persuasion. It has understandably not troubled Seventh-day Adventists because since horse-racing was always held on Saturday, their holy day, what they see are signs that Sunday has begun to be treated like Saturday has always been treated. Even though gambling is something to which SDAs are fundamentally opposed, the defeat of the stranglehold on power by Sunday worshippers is more important to them.
The other incident is the visit of a team of our athletes that performed so well in Beijing and in Berlin, to Portmore. The athletes were hosted by an SDA Church two Saturdays ago. Importantly, no other church in Portmore was advised or invited to participate in the event. One does not begrudge the Seventh-Day Adventists their moment in the sun, as it is said 'every dog has his day and every puss his 4 o' clock'. On the contrary, one is seized by the danger.
role of the church
What the quarrel about minor things, like who is on top, or who is in touch and who is the point of ready reference disguises, is that the real struggle is about what role a church or a given denomination wants to play in the society as a whole.
Historically, the Church, the collective Christian presence, has chosen between either of two roles and responses to things as they are, to the status quo: either the church has played the role of legitimation of things as they are, of the existing power relations, even the oppressive use of power, or the church has played the role on the side of liberation, as the agent of liberation for those who have been the butt of the stranglehold of power. It seems to me that when all is said and done the Church is fighting for the wrong things when it is preoccupied with its own privilege in the society and power and influence within the society.
From the day Christianity came to these shores in the late 1700s, this is the choice that has confronted the Church. In the earliest expression, the majority church, through the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church, placed itself on the side of empire against the poor African enslaved people. They not only excused what power did, including chattel slavery and the accompanying brutality, but they interpreted scripture in ways that sacralised the oppressive use of power.
Even when the early missionaries came, among them Baptists and Methodists and Moravians, they came to pour oil on troubled water. The mass of the population rejected their enslavement and oppression, they were rebellious and mutinous. The missionaries came with a message for them to accept their lot, to become submissive and docile. It was the indigenous leadership, including the enslaved Africans, the African cultural retentions like Myal first and to a lesser extent with George Leile, Moses Baker and then Sharpe, Bogle, and Gordon that helped the church find the voice of resistance and made it a liberating, rather than a legitimating force. The masses saw, in their reading of the Bible a notion of equality and a notion of justice and righteousness that did not allow them to continue to accept their lot and so they organised themselves through prayer meetings and class meetings into becoming forces of resistance.
It is out of the movements of the Native Baptists, Myal, Pocomania, Revivalism that the modern church in Jamaica has emerged. What has happened is that power has granted favours and given privilege to the church in exchange for its complicity, collusion and silence. It did first to the Church of England (Anglicans), and then to all the mainline churches. Since the late 1970s and with the publication of the Santa Fe document, it has sought to privilege the new line churches, the churches with long names, and those that have single congregation bishoprics, of the fundamentalists, Evangelical and Pentecostal brands.
PRIVILEGE AND SIDESHOWS
Now it is seeking to privilege Seventh-day Adventism. What power, influence and endorsement by the power brokers have done for others it will do for the SDAs as well. It is a matter of time, but the signs of the damage done have already began to emerge.
The sideshows about abortion or even gaming and even casino gambling are culture wars, the impetus for which originates in the metropole. They are not the real issues. The real issues have to do with the entrenchment of inequality, the destruction of the dignity and autonomy of the community, the exploitation and manipulation of the masses, and the climate of violence and insecurity with which our people are forced to live.
The issue, therefore, is not who is in and who is not, but on whose side is the Christian Church. There are signs that the Church is in danger of forgetting its history and its mission and abandoning the people. On the issues that have profound effect on the lives of so many in the society the Church has lost its voice. It has not been silenced, it has chosen not to speak.
What prevents the Church from raising its voice of protest to say to Government, do the right thing and extradite the wanted man. If the US authorities are to be believed the accused man imports, controls and distributes guns across the length and breadth of this country. What national good can come from dithering and engaging in esoteric discussions about rights of citizens, instead of letting the law take its course. Does the fact of the expansion of violence matter to the Church? What has prevented the Church, the collective Christian presence, from being unequivocal on this matter?
fiscal responsibility
Once again a choice is being made to throw people out of their jobs, so that we can show fiscal responsibility, or, as some have put it, prove that we are transformational leaders. We are not willing to increase the tax on the interest earned by the rich, to show fiscal prudence. No, we must threaten public servants, leaving the rich safely ensconced with their millions, but box bread out of the mouths of the children of the poor by taking all they have from them. Where is the voice of the Church, in the selective prosecuting or wrongdoing. Why should we be allowed to prosecute some people's corruption and make up excuses for the corruption by other people?
The Church would rather engage in quarrels about side issues, because it does not ever want power to believe that it is not on its side.
It is time the Church, the collective Christian presence, put its privileges at risk and reposition itself as a liberating, rather than a legitimating, force.
Garnett Roper is pastor of the Portmore Missionary Church and president of the Jamaica Theological Seminary. Feedback may be sent to columns@gleanerjm.com.
Source: http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20091011/focus/focus4.html
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