‘Unparalleled evil has overtaken us’

WESTERN BUREAU:

AMID JAMAICA’S ongoing celebration of its 60th anniversary of emancipation and independence since 1962, one St James-based minister is calling on citizens and political representatives to exhibit repentance for crime and other national social ills in keeping with this year’s theme ‘Reigniting a nation for greatness’.

Reverend Dr Davewin Thomas, pastor of the Burchell Baptist Church in Montego Bay, St James, made the call in his keynote sermon during the church’s Independence Day service on Sunday. The service marked the beginning of the St James Municipal Corporation’s (StJMC) weeklong emancipation and independence celebrations.

In his address where he made reference to the apostle Peter’s call for national repentance in Acts 3, Thomas pinpointed Jamaica’s recent incidents of violence and criminality as issues for which the nation must seek repentance if it is to adhere to this year’s theme of independence.

“Our actual potential can be realised through what I see in Peter’s challenge, which was ‘Repent and turn to God so that your sins can be wiped out, that times of refreshing might come from the presence of the Lord’. Despite our many outstanding achievements that the world is in awe of, we are being bedevilled by a pandemic of crime, violence and corruption,” Thomas told the congregation.

“The savagery, brutality and callousness of the killings and murders that we are witnessing in this beautiful island have moved beyond frightening to what I call terrorising. They have moved beyond fits of passion to that which is calculated, cold and numbing, simply mind-blowing in demonic proportions. Unparalleled evil has overtaken us, and I believe it is time to repent,” Thomas added.

Since the start of 2022, Jamaica has been shaken by several high-profile crimes, to include the January 13 murder of nine-year-old Gabriel King in St James and the June 21 slayings of 31-year-old Kemisha Wright and her four children in Clarendon.

Jamaica has recorded 850 murders up to July 25 this year, 31 more than during the corresponding period in 2021. Of that tally, St James has recorded the most murders with 123 killings, followed by the St Catherine North Police Division with 81 and the Westmoreland division with 78.

Thomas suggested that one way to reverse Jamaica’s trend of crime and violence is for government representatives to genuinely work together regardless of partisan loyalties or rivalries.

“There is need for political repentance. Am I too simple and naive to believe that rival political factions can complement, commend, and genuinely care for one another openly and publicly? What a season of refreshing that would be when we do not have to go on the political stage and cut down people left, right, and centre,” said Thomas.

“When the music dies and the track field lies bare and empty, and when the pot covers cease from beating in Half-Way Tree, Sam Sharpe Square, and Santa Cruz (to celebrate Olympic successes), violence erupts. When those fields are empty and the lights fall fulsomely on the monster of corruption and greed, then times and seasons of refreshing are welcome. What am I calling for? It is social repentance, political repentance, and salvific repentance.”

Meanwhile, Montego Bay’s Mayor Leeroy Williams told the congregation to take Sunday’s service as an opportunity to celebrate Jamaica’s triumphs over various hardships in its 60 years as an independent nation.

“Jamaica and Jamaicans walk proudly into celebrating this diamond jubilee, and we do so against the background of hardships, challenges, and the many and varied successes that we have experienced. As we reignite our nation for greatness, it behoves us to use this occasion to recommit to the process of nation-building, to recommit to the rebuilding of good family values, and to recommit to showing respect to our national symbols, our leaders, and each other,” said Williams.

christopher.thomas@gleanerjm.com