Dear Editor,
The religious community has decidedly failed this society – at the time of greatest spiritual crisis in this nation, it has chosen to still its collective voice. Martin Carter said that a mouth is always muzzled by the food it eats to live, and I suppose the members of the religious leadership in Guyana are concerned about maintaining their physical succour at the expense of the spiritual. I would like them to be aware that history does not only record your words but it records your silences as well.
It was a Pastor, Martin Niemöller, who initially chose silence during the rise of Nazi authoritarianism, and who left us with the words:
“First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”
In Guyana, the leadership of the religious community refuses to speak out against corruption, discrimination and impunity because it does not directly affect them. Indeed, we find that prominent religious people have positioned themselves as part of the machinery or to benefit from it, the Christian community in particular.
When Anil Nandlall referred to the money he mysteriously took from and returned to government, he cited cabinet approval of the transaction, a cabinet that included Junior Finance Minister, Bishop Juan Edghill, yet Mr Edghill claimed in response to Kaieteur News that he did not know enough about the transaction to pronounce upon it. Interestingly enough, Edghill was front and centre as President Donald Ramotar was invited last week by the Caribbean Baptists Convention to lecture them – in the midst of a scandal involving possible financial impropriety and threats of violence by a serving senior member of his government – on promoting unity and responsibility for poverty alleviation.
Another one of Mr Nandlall’s fellow PPP parliamentarians is Reverend Kwame Gilbert who, according to his profile on the Church of God website, “is a prolific writer and conference speaker, who preaches and teaches with a passion for the lost,” yet whose voice and pen are consistently rendered impotent in the wake of the worst excesses of the PPP.
And finally, when Mr Nandlall decided to resort to PR services to help restore his tarnished image, he didn’t turn to GINA or the tremendous media machinery that the PPP has at its disposal. He turned in his desperation to Alex Graham, good friend of Rev Gilbert, Chairman of Prison Fellowship Guyana and Pastor of Living Stones Ministry.
As this country descends further into decadence, I suppose it takes sinners like me to remind these holy men of an apparently overlooked part of the Bible, Matthew 6:24:
“No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.”
Yours faithfully,
Ruel Johnson
