I’d like to sincerely wish one and all a very merry Christmas, but how can I? I’m ending the year as I began it recognizing the utter vanity of tradition if we are not prepared to protect and preserve it. As far as Christmas is concerned, I’ve long repudiated the Johnny Mathis and Bing Crosby … More Black Christmas
Neither the United States of America nor Jamaica are Christian nations. Although the religious right in both countries are known for spinning a yarn of imaginative narrative inferring the contrary, the facts are clear. The history of the Church in the Jamaican Genesis, as is the case with the entire indigenous population of the Americas, … More On Christian Nations and Unchristian Nations
The idea of a Christian vote in the Jamaican context is an interesting proposition. For such a voting bloc to exist and to be of societal value requires an internal cohesion which can only be achieved through common connection to universally trusted sources of information and universally respected voices of authority. Even then, weighing in … More A church voting bloc?
A fair authentication of authorship is the ability to fix one’s broken invention. This assumption probably underscores the logic behind the central tenet of Christianity’s claim that Jesus is God – his purported ability to fix the problems of humanity. It started out with simple things, like saving the life of a party when the … More The Fixer
For 25 years, I’ve had real problems with the religious demographics being projected by scholars and even the most trusted institutions. I remember being dumbfounded by my scholar-friend Dr Muata Ashby, prolific author and Egyptologist, attempting to resurrect both ancient Egyptian language and religion, following the Zionist model, as a precursor to 21st century Pan … More Finally, it’s an atheist who gets it right.
The metaphysical foundations of the church were laid in a crucial conversation between Jesus and Peter. At the heart of this conversation were three questions. Two were stated explicitly and the third implied: Who do people say that I am? Who do you say that I am? Who do I say (and know) myself to … More Language and Identity
In human terms, the ability to choose and the experience or exercise of power are so intertwined as to be virtually synonymous. By definition, powerlessness is the absence of the capacity to choose. Power exists therefore only in the presence of choice, and effective or meaningful power is the ability to align choice with intention … More Reflections on Peace, Power and Pain
In pre-independent Jamaica, government, for the most part, was instrument of exploitation; while church was, in the main, nurturer of society, catalyst of change and defender of the people… or so goes one narrative among others seeking to provide leadership in our emerging Caribbean civilization. That perspective that sees church and school ideally as chief … More Pools of Knowledge, Pillars of Power: Coming in from the cold
The tension between a fundamentalist approach and an ecumenical approach to Christian faith constantly manifests itself in our ability to conduct and maintain constructive, productive and supportive relationships within the church, which best facilitates the harnessing of our collective pool of resources and creates the broadest platform of leadership that Caribbean Civilization so desperately needs, … More Dissociation, Disconnection, Dissonance
Being still fixated on describing the Beloved Community, my ‘Hephzibah’, (one generally does not deliberately arrive at a destiny that has not first been identified and articulated) … and this generation no longer resonates with the dreams of their ancestors, whether Garvey or M.L. King, Isaiah or St Augustine, no longer having an appreciation of … More The Healing Community
