The Church has been urged by a senior judicial officer not to compromise its religious principles. In fact, Chief Magistrate Ian Weekes said the institution cannot allow itself to be silenced by any potential or perceived risk of public disagreement.
“You must have the balance. And the Church must continue to shout the name of God. The church is always afraid. During Crop Over the Church wants to criticize lewd behaviour and we’re afraid of the fallout. You can’t be afraid of the fallout. You have to be bold and shout the name of God,” Weekes maintained.
Magistrate Weekes’ comments came during a virtual panel discussion hosted by the Cave Hill Wesleyan Men’s Ministry on Tuesday night. He was among panellists that also included criminologist/senior researcher Kim Ramsay; ex-prison inmate Mark Headley; Head of Inmate Rehab at Dodds Prison Anthony Holder and acting Inspector Peter Dawson of the Barbados Police Service.
During the talk, the magistrate reiterated the need for mandatory parenting programmes as he stressed that much of the societal issues facing Barbados today begin in the home. According to him, these programmes are necessary because some people are becoming parents by default and do not possess sufficient knowledge to adequately parent their children.
“We have people getting together for physical reasons,” he said. “They do not want children, children come. So they now have to be taught what is appropriate social behaviour to deal with them. So the family is where it starts, the Church reinforces it, the school reinforces it.”
Magistrate Weekes also noted the need for people in the community to accept advice from positive influencers. He gave an example of a successful West Indies player seeking cricketing advice from someone who has never had any success in the sport.
“You can’t go to jokers. . . . You need to find successful individuals who will mentor and guide you,” Weekes advised.
The need for community reinforcement of proper family values was also emphasised by senior pastor of the Cave Hill Wesleyan Holiness Church, Reverend Kwesi Jones. He suggested that the Church was still actively addressing this growing deficiency, but cannot do it alone and will need a wider buy-in to ensure that the society returns to employing the important concept of ‘community’.
He said that currently society has become more individualized and self-centred, a far cry from 40 years ago when the entire village came together and what one person did affected the entire community.
“That type of interaction perhaps we need to see how we can get that back. Yes, the Church has been trying to do that and with its limited resources has been pushing for that to continue, but the Church is not the only organisation that needs to be spreading that message. We need to be spreading that message across the island. . .
“That particular message I think has to be loud and clear that ‘yes, while we want you to be successful it is not success at any cost. It is not success at trampling on somebody, it is not about getting the latest because it is nice if that means stealing or doing something to somebody. It is being able to take into consideration that your actions at [any] age . . . are going to affect an individual, a family, a community,” Reverend Jones stated. (KC)
