#BTColumn – Faith of our fathers, Holy Faith

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By Ralph Jemmott

I was more than a little upset when someone in the audience at the first meeting of the New Constitution Commission at The St. Michael School questioned why the meeting began with a religious invocation. The invocation was given by the Senator the Reverend Dr. John Rogers, Parish Priest at the St. George Church. One therefore assumes that it was a ‘Christian’ invocation. The apparent objection was that with a few Muslims and Hindus in attendance, it was somehow inappropriate not to acknowledge their particular faiths. This might imply that a prayer should have been said on behalf of the two minority faiths or none said at all. Perhaps the gentleman who questioned the Christian invocation was himself an atheist, or an agnostic or a sceptic, but he did proclaim that Barbados was now “a secular society”. He may also have expressed the view that our country should be one “free from religion”.

I am not an evangelical Bible-thumping Christian myself, not by a long shot. In terms of the fundamentals of that faith I might if I were truthful have to admit that I am something of a sceptic or maybe a secular Humanist or maybe a Christian Humanist. These things often mean different things to different people. Only God, Jehovah, Allah, Jah, truly know the contents of our hearts. 

I do however understand the difference between Good and Evil and think that both inheres in every human soul. The Good or “the better angels of our nature” reflects God and the Evil that men do reflects what some call the Devil or Satan. I do not conceive of the latter as a Being, certainly not with horns and a long tail, as often pictured. 

Raised in the Christian Faith first with my grandmother as a Pilgrim Holiness, then as a Brethren with my mother, as an adult I developed an affinity for the Anglican High Church. When on a few occasions, I was prompted to go to Church, I attended the St. Mary’s Church in Bridgetown when the Reverends Frederick Layne and Andrew Hatch were the presiding priests. There I developed a strong love of the Anglican ‘Hymns Ancient and Modern’. I loved the choir of St. Mary’s and the quiet communicative, contemplative power of the Layne/Hatch sermons. I have developed a distaste for loud evangelical sermons that involve what Peter Laurie once called ‘hollering’. But to each his own, whatever draws you closer to the Godhead. 

For some reason religion and spirituality play a large role in the lives of many black people. Historically, organised religion plays a dichotomous role among black folk. This is particularly true among Black Americans in the former slave owning states of the Southern United States. Religion, to use the words of the old Negro Spiritual, was indeed “a Balm in Gilead.” 

Religion, more specifically, the Christian faith, has generally speaking had a beneficial effect on the Barbadian landscape as a whole. Some might contend that it has tended to make Barbadians too conservative and malleable. Karl Marx was right when he said that religion could be the opiate of the people rendering them unwilling to rise up and overthrow the capitalist oppressors. 

On the other hand in Barbados it helped to produce a gentrified black working class that was the backbone of this country. It was a class that was poor but decent, ‘poor-great’, infused with an almost Calvinist ethic, it was hardworking and thrifty with a love for continuity and order and a distaste for revolutionary disruption. 

It could be argued that our current predicament, social decay and dysfunction is a consequence of our failure to hold on to the traditional values inculcated from the faith of our fathers, a Holy Faith to which we were not true. That failure was reflected in our remorseless incapacity or inability to hand those values from one generation to another. In time, the Church, the School and the Home lost their socialising efficacy. The church still, a big drawer on Sundays, became centre of entertainment devoid of spiritual meaning. The Schools, once key agents of socialisation became more like certificate factories and the black family has continued to disintegrate with often disastrous consequences for its children, particularly our boys. 

In the quest for economic growth, we seem bent on diversifying our population by bringing in large numbers of immigrants, God knows from where. If a significant number of the new Barbadians are not of our culture or faith, we may have to drop our Christian values that generally speaking have served us well. No doubt the Moslems, Hindus and others with more tightly knit cultures and family structures will hold on to theirs. 

Douglas Murray is the author of two significant texts. One is The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity. Another is The Strange Death of Europe. He is clearly a Eurocentric conservative, but his arguments are interesting. He contends for example that Western Christian civilisation has lost faith in its beliefs, traditions and legitimacy and is now experiencing what he calls, “an existential fatigue” and “a great derangement”. Some see a plot to make Christianity lose faith in itself. Barbados for now is still a Christian community. We must keep the faith of our Fathers, Holy Faith. In this life one needs to believe in something. Christianity as a way of life is as good as any. Brethren and Sistren, Keep the Faith!

Ralph Jemmott is a respected, retired educator and commentator on social issues.