When it comes to engaging various social questions in the country, the moral compasses of Christian denominations vary widely, from moral indifference to active involvement.
Some compasses gyrate between moral convenience and intellectual torpor. Many are set to fundamentalist rigidity with some ministers targeting their personal demons in their favorite scapegoats. Yet others wholly remove themselves from issues such as crime or engage such issues tangentially or superficially in terms of their preaching and programmatic responses.
At a recent religious service, part of a church convention, a bishop ranted about what he viewed as the poor attendance of the government and opposition at the service. Then, with little irony, the prelate proclaimed that crime fighting is the responsibility of government, not the church. He advised that the church's role was prayer.
It is an odd theological admixture, but not without resonance and roots in more church communities than one may imagine. Part of the mindset is for politicians to prostrate themselves before pulpits and pastors. "But, for God's sake don't ask us to get seriously involved in gritty issues like crime" goes the thinking.
Materialism
Some ministers of the Gospel are fixated on what has been termed the Gospel of Prosperity, their own luxurious living and access to political power and influence. In building their religious business empires, they help to promote crass materialism providing it with spiritual underpinnings and proof-texted biblical warrants.
Such narcissism and material consumption has helped to foster a social environment and moral landscape conducive to a culture of greed and criminality at every level of Bahamian society. There is moral culpability here for religious leaders who have confused the Gospels of Jesus with that of Prosperity.
Such confusion runs the gamut from those more obsessed with kingdom building than Kingdom Building. There is the more explicit moral turpitude of which a recent letter to the editor reminded of a Christian leader who brazenly declared that "principle don't put bread on the table!" The letter writer opined that for some pastors, principles also don't help to air condition and carpet the churches, nor purchase fancy cars for pastors.
Some years ago a pastor advised politicians not to talk about drugs in his church, as drug money helped to construct the edifice. Counterfeit values and theology masquerading as authentically Christian has given rise to all manner of counterfeit activity and morality.
Such a synergy was captured in a societal snapshot witnessed by a friend of an older woman with a well-thumbed and open Bible witnessing outside a grocery store to a man selling counterfeit DVD's. Somewhere between Genesis and Revelation she found time to consider which movies to purchase. What exactly was the witness or message she left?
Another story by a friend involves a co-worker given to expressive bouts of praying out loud with hands waving. These same hands were also repeatedly making their way into the cash register. Apparently, the co-worker's church had taught him how to pray but did not do so well with the Eighth Commandment.
Outrage
There is another sort of counterfeit or fraudulent conduct seen in some pastors filled with moral outrage at, for example, the scene of a murder, sometimes involving domestic violence. Evidently that outrage does not extend to marital rape, because such a violation is supposedly impossible within a marriage.
The previously quoted letter to the editor expressed this gripping frustration shared by many Bahamians.
"So forgive me if I change the channel whenever I hear preachers at a murder scene fanning the hysteria and calling for the state to join the killing spree. Is that the extent of their Christian leadership? Do they really believe that this is what Jesus would say?"
The letter writer continued:
"I can listen to preachers like Rev. C. B. Moss because I know that they are not just grabbing television time but are working in their communities to make a difference and trying to show our lost young people another way. The rest should clothe themselves in sack cloth and ashes and repent for their failure as church leaders."
For some, the refrain of that Christian hymn of hope, "They'll know we are Christians by our love" has been replaced by a refrain marketing hope as a business platform: "They'll know we are Christians by the size of our bank account, the Rolex on our wrist and the luxuries we have amassed."
Fortunately, there are pastors whose moral outrage and genuine Christian hope is expressed more in prophetic witness and practical action than performance art and public relations. Examples of the former next week.
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