ANOTHER ATTEMPT is being made by Government to get the Church's view on noise abatement legislation.
Minister of Housing, Lands and the Environment, Liz Thompson-McDowald, told a meeting Wednesday morning with church and religious leaders at Dove Convention Centre, Country Road, St Michael, that there were concerns that the legislation was trying to silence the Church.
However, she said given the number of complaints about the Church, its behaviour was counterproductive, as it was now losing the community it was trying to reach because of the noise.
She said her ministry had sent a document, the National Noise Abatement discussion and concept paper, to the Pentecostal Assemblies of the West Indies, the Barbados Christian Council and the Barbados Evangelical Association, and a number of non-Christian groups since January, to get their input, but had received no response.
"It was very difficult as a policy maker, therefore, to know what was the right way to go forward," she added.
Wednesday's meeting was a second attempt to get that comment, and Thompson-McDowald told those gathered the policy was not designed to stop the church from performing its role of saving souls.
However, given the number of complaints which she received about the noise emanating from some churches and calls for them to be shut down, some agreement needed to be reached.
She said the situation had a reverse side as church leaders would call her and say they were unable to keep service because of karaoke bars.
"The pastor at an Anglican church is saying 'I can't have communion anymore because the church down the avenue has ten people in it, but has its speakers outside and we can't hear each other pray anymore'," she said.
Taken from The Nation newspaper.
