The few articles that have mentioned ‘evangelicals’ or the like have not always been fair, due no doubt to their brevity, or misunderstanding or some such thing. Many have rightly condemned the distasteful pronouncements of some of the movement’s leaders but appear to ignore its contributions. I will continue the conversation by delineating what I [...]

Working with the U.S. Peace Corps in Jamaica almost forty years ago, I learned that, for perhaps what are now far more obvious reasons, there were few leaders either from the U.S. or Jamaica for that matter who seemed truly interested in teaching us Volunteers that most uneducated or even poorly-educated people, regardless of where [...]

Bishop Delford Davis must be commended for his prayer initiative aptly entitled ‘Heal The Family, Heal The Nation’. The event is now in its fifth year and is endorsed by the six umbrella church groups in Jamaica. The event succeeded in getting the participation of the Prime Minister and the Governor General. It was a [...]

In 1859 Charles Darwin, a British naturalist, published a book, “On the Origin of The Species by Means of Natural Selection”, which after its publication, caused a great deal of controversy that still continues today. It is the only scientific theory that has engendered so much vilification and the only one non-scientists feel they can [...]

Prime Minister Bruce Golding asked Jamaicans to pray for God’s intervention in the affairs of the nation to help him in the work that he is called to do. A release from the Office of the Prime Minister said he was addressing a prayer and worship event, organized by the Power of Faith Ministries at [...]

It is regrettable that the Gleaner has again found it fit to publish the so-called “prophetic utterances” of Steve Lyston and his unstoppable band of seers who insist they speak on behalf of the Almighty. It made the ”News” again this year, but is it really news, and is it really necessary? When you read through these predictions, you [...]

The new year (in this case, 2010) never is exactly like the year before it and only occasionally is it all that similar, but around this time of so many recent years, owing primarily to the calendar I suppose, many of us like to make reflections upon the previous one or predictions of what will [...]

The debate about the Bible translated into Jamaican language continues unabated. Months ago the Bible Society of the West Indies once again made its intention clear to translate the entire Bible into the Jamaican language commonly called Patwa (patois), Jamaican Creole, or simply, Jamaican. The announcement sparked a heated discussion in the form of a [...]

Prof Hilbourne Watson in his capacity as a member of the online think tank, Caribbean Dialogues, responds to Dr Judith Soares’ article Religion as Gender Ideology Judith Soares must not have read Frederick Engels’ ‘The Origins of the Family, Private Property and the State’. Soares raises a number of plausible arguments about religion and the [...]

In this essay, we argue that religion, in the Caribbean and Latin America embodies what we term ‘gender ideology’ which, in our discussion, would embody the dialectical contradictions, the unity of opposites, expressed in moments of patriarchal dominance and feminism and women’s liberation. Here, ideology is understood as a system of beliefs, symbols, myths, rituals [...]