Tarnished! Anglican church leader says slavery has damaged his institution's image

PORT MARIA, St MARY:

ANON CHARLES Manderson, head of the St Mary Parish Church has said until the issues surrounding religious institutions and their relationships to the transatlantic slave trade are addressed and explored, the Anglican Church?s reputation will remain tarnished.

The parish church in St Mary is a historic building that has remained at the heart of the local community for almost three centuries, but Manderson claims it is becoming increasingly difficult to engage local residents and young people with the gospel message.

?There are many people who feel all services of a civic nature should be held in the parish church because they always have been; that?s a good thing that suggests a level of status.

?However, there are also negative repercussions because people still consider this to be the church of the plantocracy: the ?rich people? or ?big man? church.

?And so you have a mission with grassroots people who feel it?s not the Church for them, and they won?t be welcomed because they don?t have the status and prominence to be accepted as authentic members.

?The Church welcomes all and makes no distinction between race, creed or class, but to some extent, especially in areas where colonialism was prominent, the stigma remains,? Manderson told Family and Religion.

community won?t buy in

Manderson has spent most of his life either working or worshipping inside parish churches. For the past 20 years, he has led the congregation at the St Mary Parish Church, but as a child, he served at the altar of the parish church in Falmouth and upon completion of his theological training was assigned to the parish church in Montego Bay. He says it is a hard task trying to get the community buy in.

?Trying to change the image of the Anglican Church is a tremendous challenge, which is intensified by the perception that we didn?t do much to help free the slaves. To some extent, we have to take responsibility for that because the slave-owners in this parish were the members of this church.

?There was resistance to slavery from the inception, but the Church?s contribution to the abolition movement has never been highlighted. For example, one of my predecessors in this church, Father Cohn Donaldson, was actually arrested for treason, after preaching a sermon against one of the plantocracy who ill-treated his slave.

?Another problem I find is that generally, the Church does not adequately reflect the indigenous nature of the people. To some extent, it would seem like an English church operating in a Jamaican setting, and that needs to be addressed.?

To help resolve these issues, Manderson believes the Church must embark on a comprehensive programme of education. He explained: ?I think we have to continue to teach and sensitise people to become conscious because chattel slavery done us a great injustice and while that is now behind us, we still have a bit of work to do where mental slavery is concerned.

?Our motto is ?Out of Many One People,? but I?m not sure if we have achieved that. We are Jamaicans in a sense, but that level of die-hearted patriotism, enthusiasm and dedication to the country is lacking.

?I think the ideologies of National Heroes like Marcus Garvey and others are important and should be taught to our young people. We have to teach our people that Independence as a country means each of us as individuals must try to become independent, self-reliant and self-sufficient.?

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