The news yesterday morning highlighted a fairly common scene. The PNP held a press conference speaking specifically to the emerging incidents of leptospirosis and the health threat posed to the nation in the aftermath of Melissa. At the podium was Dr Alfred Dawes, PNP spokesperson on health and in the background were party dignitaries headed … More Systems of predation / Systems of service
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 recent issue of raised ‘cane’ (the pun should become obvious in a moment, and yes c-a-n-e, no unintended misspelling) over the Daryl Vaz sprinkling rum to bless and commission new school buses (that very well may have won his government the last election so he could have set an entire thanksgiving table with lit … More Fathers of our Faith and Cultural Continuity
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?
I spent Marcus Garvey’s birthday visiting the Haitian refugee camp in St Mary. It is hard to determine exactly how many have arrived on the island by boat. It is almost certain that some have evaded our Coast Guards and found a way to integrate into informal settlements around the island, but the government of … More The Least of These
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
This peculiar phrase, oft repeated in ritual prayer privately and publicly by adherents to the Christian faith encodes a key understanding, vital to all humanity, regardless of faith or lack thereof. Properly understood to be addressing a personification of the progenitor and source of the cosmic order, when stripped of gender and paternal assumptions, which … More Hallowed be Thy Name 3
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.
… for they are like the angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection …Luke20:36 Easter approaches, so I offer for reflection the articles below and the following testimony, recorded in Natural Mystic which was relayed to me personally by the Rev Tony Bailey when we met in Toronto in 2008 at a prayer … More Sons of the Resurrection
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: If we can recognize that the human drama in its entirety is the mission to define self, (whether that self be individual … More Language and Identity
