Dear Editor,

I read with some concern a letter in the Stabroek News on September 29, titled ‘There are too many hooligans on the streets,’ written by Reverend Gideon Cecil. In referring to these people who have gone astray and whom he calls ‘hooligans’ he said, “These elements are the sons of broken homes; some of them come from decent families but followed the wrong type of company. Many parents have allowed their children to get away with wrongdoing because they never disciplined them in their homes. Then we have the single parent lifestyle that has invaded our society like a sudden cancer.” In another section of his letter the good Reverend said, “It’s about time we enforce the laws and had more police patrols in the Corentyne as well as vigilante groups.”

What the good Reverend did not say was how he and the church are going to help clean up this mess. What is the church doing in all this? This is not just a case of collecting hooligans, as he called them, and putting people in jail; people need to be rehabilitated, and may I remind him that the real agent for social change is the Christ. Remember he said, “I come not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

It is time for the church to step up. What the Rev has outlined in his letter are all social ills that need to be remedied, but cannot be remedied with vigilante groups and police; the church must play its part. The church has to be an agent for social justice; we must put humanity back in the church, where we encourage Christianity rather than Churchianity. Can we let go of self-serving attitudes and name-calling long enough to see the next step open before us? If we can do that, we will find the road has been made clear for us and as our values change, old things fall away and behold all things become new.

There should be a higher calling for the church than what it stands for today, and when you look into the eyes of your brother, your sister, the smiling eyes of a child, know that you are seeing God made manifest and the place where you stand is Holy ground.

I would like to remind Rev Cecil and all church members, that 2000 years ago the call came for you to be a champion for the disadvantaged, the downtrodden, the hungry, the weak, the wronged and the oppressed. The call came to empathize with them and deliver them from their sorrows. The call was not to condemn and chastise them.

I now call on the church and all the Rev Cecils who are clamouring for vigilante groups and the police, to realize that they are not the answer. The answer is for the church to take an active stand and not just talk against exploitation, poverty and corruption and all the other social ills that plague this society; these are the real causes that led the Rev to write his letter. It is time we attack the causes and not the effects. Is not religion man’s road back to God? Well we need to do more to get men back on this road.

Look around you Rev Gideon, look through it all, look through the hooligans, the sons and daughters of the broken homes, the decent families where the kids went wrong, the single parents, the teenage parents, the AIDS victims, the alcoholics, look closely and see if you can discern the sobbing of the women, the cries of the starving children and the disadvantaged men clamouring for justice. It means to fight for the rights of your brother and take a stand against organized oppression. It is a call for the Christ, the real agent of social change and it also means to shout from the rooftops and echo the words of the prophet Isaiah: “Thy princes are rebellious and companions of thieves: everyone loveth gifts and followeth after rewards: they judge not the widow, neither doth the cause of the fatherless come unto them; the spoil of the poor is in their houses, their hands are full of blood! Bring no more incense, sing no more songs, pray no more vain prayers; observe no more ceremonies. I will have justice, before worship, saith the Lord of Hosts!”

Yours faithfully,
Leslie Bonner