Love must prevail

An Anglican cleric is raising concern about the violence, lawlessness, hatred and individualism prevailing in our society today.

 

Speaking on the topic ‘The Language of Love’, during the Whit Sunday service at the St. George Parish Church, Rector and Rural Dean of St. John, Reverend John Rogers lamented the problems facing society and told those gathered that the best way for persons to coexist is to speak the language of love.

 

“We have a world today where people continue to speak different languages, different tongues, yes, but different languages, we’re not continuing to speak the universal language of love. There is hatred, there is latent fascism in our world; friends, racism still exists and when all of these things exist in our world, the language of love is thwarted, and when the language of love is thwarted, then evil can reign,” he said. 

 

The Anglican priest added, “I fear that we are going back to the time when persons are not speaking the universal language of love, [but] the language of hate, the language of individualism, where persons are seeking to procure things for themselves at any cost, even at the cost of a life of another human being.”

He made the point as he referred to the recent murders in this country including Valdine Hinds who lost her life when a stray bullet struck her while she was travelling along Barbarees Hill, St. Michael as a passenger in a vehicle. Rev. Rogers stated that while the authorities may want to suggest it is “not that bad” based on the crime statistics, he contends that human life cannot come down to mere statistics. Moreover, he said that what is concerning about the recent spate of criminal activity, is the nature of the acts.

 

“We are seeing a brazenness by those committing crimes in our society, where in broad daylight they would drive by and shoot others, they would walk up to persons openly and shoot. These are the things we should be concerned about, not the statistics. We should be concerned with why persons have become so brazen, why persons feel so empowered to take the lives… [and] commit crimes openly,” he lamented.

 

He further stated, “Where persons do not care about the consequences of their actions, where persons are not thinking about how their actions would affect the lives of others … that’s the problem we are having in our society – the language of love is fading. The language of love that leads to care and compassion, to think beyond ourselves is fading, and we’re getting a society of lawlessness... Let us pray that this Pentecost that attitude will change.”

 

With that in mind, the Reverend added that to see a transformation in our society persons must be encouraged to “speak the language of love”. However, noting that the 2010 Census indicated that one-fifth of the pop-ulation have no religion, he said Christians have a duty to spread God’s word so that the language of love can prevail. (JRT)