Call for people to put down weapons, find other ways to deal with conflict

Put down the weapons and find a better way to deal with conflict. This is the plea of Rev Dr Adrian Smith and Rev Suzette Archer who made the call earlier today during First Sunday services at their respective churches.

Smith, senior pastor Calvary Moravian Church, Roebuck Street, St Michael, said that people, especially the youth, should be encouraged to find alternative ways to deal with their anger.

“All the stakeholders are going to have to work together; it is going to require an extra effort to encourage persons to find alternative ways of dealing with conflict, to encourage persons to not see a lifestyle of crime and violence as a lifestyle to be glorified, emulated or followed. I don’t think that one single approach or one method would work. I believe that we have to try varying methods and all the stakeholders — church, school, parents and community groups — we have to come together consistently and be committed to working with persons to look at other ways of life and living,” he said.

“There has to be another way to fight, there has to be another way to solve conflict. There has to be another way to work through differences of opinion and disagreements, and even when things get heated do not just let your emotions hijack your ability to think or to reason. Don’t throw away your life…”

Similarly, Archer, at the St George Parish Church, The Glebe, St George, said that more children needed to be raised in an environment of values and morals and the church was such a place.

“We need to get back to raising our children in fear of the Lord so that they realise that we all are created in God’s image and we need to be treated as such … and we need to behave as though that is what we are,” she said. (SZB)