Colin Steer, Associate Editor - Opinion
REV. THOMAS J. Euteneuer, who identifies himself as a Roman Catholic priest, in a letter to the Editor published on Monday, July 3, sounded an alarm to the Jamaican public in giving his support to local Christians in their fight to have the proposed Charter of Rights embrace specific Christian tenets.
In so doing, he has skidded on the slippery slope of selective morality. In his letter, he argued that the change of the concept of 'rights' in the American legal charters in the 1960s and 1970s "occasioned an unprecedented moral collapse". He also argued that "1950s America was permeated by a universal Christian spirit in public and private life until 1962 when our Supreme Court literally outlawed prayer and Bible reading in public schools. From then on, the moral degradation began."
Try telling that to the families of the thousands of black people who were lynched, castrated, bombed, set upon by police dogs, bludgeoned by state troopers, hosed down and burned out of their homes or shamelessly exploited in the workplace for decades including this '50s and '60s era of the universal Christian spirit of which he wrote. And much of this took place in the Bible Belt of the southern United States. Indeed, virulent racism has long had and continues to have its strongest support in the southern United States, among the most churched part of that country. Rev. Euteneuer's argument that Jamaica faces a similar danger of being swamped in a flood of immorality and filth, if certain 'rights' are accorded to people insisting that they are entitled to privacy in their homes to do whatever they wish, is one that has found frequent endorsement among local Christians.
'RIGHTS' AND 'PRIVACY'
Granted that the concept of 'rights' and 'privacy' is still a matter of debate, can Christians argue convincingly, however, that Jamaica, as currently governed and operated, is a moral society by Biblical standards?
One would expect Christians, at the very least, to read their Bibles more carefully and to be a bit more expansive of what constitutes sin rather than the narrow fixation that seems to afflict many.
In the United States, for example, many Christian groups have developed prison ministries to get literature and toiletries to those incarcerated and to use the opportunity to persuade inmates to repent and turn away from a life of crime. They, however, do not see it as part of their responsibility to address a justice system that results in the overwhelming majority of the prison population being young black men.
In 1992, I was part of a group of journalists from the Caribbean, Africa and Europe who participated in a U.S. Information Service programme looking at the international trade in drugs. Throughout the programme law enforcement officials kept saying that as many whites as blacks and other ethnic groups were involved in the trade in crack and cocaine. Yet, by their own admission, more black men than any other ethnic group were being nabbed and imprisoned. This stirred quite a few heated debates especially among the European journalists, who pointed to the blatant hypocrisy in what was being said and what was being done in the home of the free and land of the brave.
To many Christians, of course, these issues have nothing to do with concepts of righteousness. Similarly, concerns about how our security forces bludgeon inner-city youth until their intestines protrude don't cause much of a stir among local Christians. Perhaps, though, if and when the American zealots re-read Amos and Isaiah and 'discover' that God is as interested in a society's social and economic arrangements as he is about two men or two women diddling in the middle of the night behind closed doors, or the abortion of foetuses - then will our local Christians also 'see the light'.
When these issues appear on the radar of our American friends up north, we too will discover that these issues fall under the rubric of sin and righteousness. Who knows, there may yet be a few prayer and fasting vigils to seek divine guidance and intervention on such matters.
