The Editor, Sir:

The Weekly Gleaner of April 16-22, 2007, featured certain sectors of the Jamaican church praying for the Jamaican Prime Minister, the Honourable Portia Simpson Miller. They also issued 'prophecies' about her being victorious in the upcoming elections.

The church has always been a significant contributor to the results of political elections in Jamaica. And this is not surprising, given the large proportion of the population who are Christians. The church featured notably during the days of Michael Manley's democratic socialism, in the '70s, and Edward Seaga's deliverance campaign, in the 1980s. As a minister of the gospel of Christ myself, I believe in the pastoral involvement in the political life of the country. However, it is dangerous for the church to place, as it were, divine imprimatur upon politicians, and at the same time, practise the usual chastisement of the masses, for the results of unrighteousness upon the land.

Politicians are highly paid professionals who are supposed to be elected on the understanding that they have the capability and the will to deal with the economic and social problems that are facing the nation. Any kind of divine right to govern robsthe people of their democratic prerogative to hold their representatives accountable for any mismanagement of resources and abuse of power. It was Reinhold Niebuhr who said, "Man's capacity for evil makes democracy necessary".

Smothered by religious organisations

This human propensity for wrongdoing can be suppressed in our politicians when they are kept on their toes by an unbiased and vigilant electorate, not when they are smothered in the arms of religious organisations.

I am not sure whether it is a case of being genuinely misguided or one of self-interest, but my observation over the years has been that the church is too quick to castigate the Jamaican people for the sins of their political leaders. By doing this, they absolve the true culprits who have brought about much of our current socio-economic problems. The resulting implications are far-reaching; it may even be said that the church is complicit in the bad governance of the nation and subsequently, notwithstanding unwittingly, contributes to the impoverishment of so many of the Jamaican people.

I am, etc.,

REV. TREVOR SMITH

Edmonton New Testament Church of God,

London