Last week I remember reading a piece of rather shocking news in fact I'm not sure whether or I should be highly amused or deeply disturbed, according to well placed sources it is said that last week that Youth and Culture Minister Lisa Hanna had the offices of the ministry blessed with “Holy Water” (which is really nothing more than common salt water) during a devotion service at the Ministry to mark the beginning of the new year. It is no secret that in Jamaica the church is a deeply entrenched establishment and being a devout Christian myself, I enjoy a good worship service just as much as the next believer but isn't this whole holy water business taking things a little over the edge, especially since there are many who thinks that such rituals are linked to spiritism and obeah and as such would be very wary to take part while others particularly the irreligious would no doubt find such rituals ridiculous taking them as a joke, this in fact was little more than a mockery of religion put on by government officials and the clergy for mere show.
Jamaica is still for the most part a conservative Christian country (although that is somewhat changing) and as such religion plays a big part in society even at the highest levels of the state, our Head of State the Queen is herself a religious figure as head of the Anglican Church,according to her official title she reigns by the Grace of God and is Defender of the Faith (I'll talk abut the divine right of kings in a subsequent post) , her representative the Governor-General is also a noted religious man having served a number of years as an Ordained pastor and was once head of the Seventh Day Adventist church in the West Indies before being called to serve Queen and country in his present office. The Leaders of both major political parties also join in this by portraying themselves to firm Christian believers and have been seen from time to time proudly affirming their Christian principles when debating on many issues affecting national life, unlike in other countries where religion is all but banned from public spaces in Jamaica every public institution from schools to court houses and even parliament itself begins the day with devotions or prayers while religious personnel are among some of high profile people within Jamaican society, there is no little doubt that in Jamaica the links between the throne and the altar are indeed very strong.
Regardless of these strong ties, Jamaica as a democratic society prides itself on having total religious freedom, a right guaranteed to all of Her Majesty’s Jamaican Subjects by the constitution, a right that cannot be revoked by the government. The exercise of this right is seen in the fact that Jamaica has countless amount of Christian denominations not to mention other non Christian religions such as Rastafarianism and Islam, in fact it is often said that Jamaica has the most churches per square miles in the world. Yet this diversity is not all as rosy as it’s cut out to be, in fact it is often noted that even though the Church is still has some influence, this is somewhat pale in comparison to what it used to be in early years. According to a poll taking late last year it has been shown that with the exception of the Seventh Day Adventist all of Jamaica’s other traditionalist churches have been declining sharply over the years in favour of upstart new age churches such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the varying Church of God sects, the Pentecostals and even the Mormons are beginning to gain a foothold, whereas Churches that were once integral to this country’s early historical foundations such as the Anglican Church (also called the Church of Jamaica), the Roman Catholics, the Baptist, the Methodist and the Moravians are all seem to be in recession or something, it’s truly a sad state of affairs when traditional old time religion is thrown out the window in favour of so called newer churches, and it’s quite evident that even though we now have more Church buildings, moral decay is now worse than it has ever been, clearly more churches alone is not the answer, but rather religious bodies that are interesting not only in gaining member to swell their ranks but that are also patriotic in their service to God, Queen and Country, willing to provide for and facilitate the wider community and the interest of the nation on the whole by building of schools, hospitals, aiding the less fortunate and the like, such acts of good citizenry are often known to be carried out by traditional church groups such as the Anglicans, Catholics, Baptists and Adventist, unfortunately I cannot say the same about the new agers like the Mormons or the Jehovah’s Witnesses whose primary concern is to spread their own propaganda and gain members.
Church life and religion in Jamaica is a vast topic, which is by no means exhausted, it’s also a very controversial discussion in many quarters one thing for sure is that the religious life in Jamaica and its diversity is one of the many things that make us a very unique society
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