Dear Editor,
THE recent news captioned: “Rosignol Pastor gets 40 years for raping minor” was very shocking and disturbing, since the rise and fall of our so-called pope among other religious leaders in the Christian community who remind me of the Rev Jim Jones who killed 918 innocent souls in the name of God.
The current news of a pastor getting a 40-year sentence for raping a minor sets a bad example to the Christian community as well as other religious communities. Men and women falling into sexual sin is an old disease that plagued the church since the beginning of time. As a reverend and religious leader myself, I wish to admonish all religious leaders from every religion to be very watchful, also political leaders and leaders of government and private institutions. When I attended Bible College or Seminary, I was taught a course called “Ministerial Ethics” and over a dozen courses on the “Principles of leadership.” I was taught that the three principles or weapons used by Satan to destroy men are: “Power, Sex, and Money”. In the Bible, King David, a very powerful man used his power to take away and seduce a next man’s wife, Bathsheba, when he discovered the man called Uriah was a soldier in his army. He then got him killed by putting him in front of a battle line. King David used his power to corrupt his own life, but he did not escape the harsh judgement of God. His son Solomon also fell into sexual transgression.
We also see many modern-day preachers and money-hungry con men falling from grace, even going to jail, now we see them in Guyana. Many of these guys who have churches bigger than cinemas just try to deceive and swindle uneducated followers for money all in the name of Christ and God. Now with this pastor going to jail for 40 years brings a very bad name to the church of Christ. What one minister does can impact the ministry of many others, even though they may not serve in the same church denomination and that will also include imams and pandits from their religions too.
From the course I did, “Ministerial Ethics,” I learnt that a minister of religion should not counsel a woman alone, be alone with a woman in a closed office, have a woman alone in his car, eat with a woman alone at a restaurant and the same goes for the female ministers of religion. Today we have seen the opposite one sentence in the Lord’s Prayer when Jesus said: ”And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil”. Ministers of Religion need to set a better example to the church, community, society and nation. Even today, we have a lot of so-called pastors and church leaders who never went through any training for ministry but call themselves Apostles, Prophets and Bishops, many of whom can barely read at a very competent level. Saint Paul told young Timothy “Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth,” meaning, to study and rightly interpreting the Holy Scriptures and Paul himself was a literary scholar and lawyer, also an orator and linguist.
What is important in ministry and every capacity of leadership is our morality, character, integrity and respect from others. It’s not how nice we dress, it’s how much morally upright we must be. Good character is the leadership quality that distinguishes great leaders. It is the quality that most people admire. Leaders of good character have integrity, courage and compassion. They are careful and prudent. Humble in their awareness of their own limitations, they seek out the knowledge and counsel of others. They constantly learn and others want to learn from them. Their decisions and actions inspire employees to think and act in a way that not only improves the bottom line, but that contributes to the well-being of the organisation and society.
The love of God in our hearts will give us the ability to love our wives, husbands, children and the human race. No amount of wealth can replace the love of God. What we need in Guyana is God’s love as the cure for all our social problems. Ministers must see their own daughter in a next man’s daughter, they must see the mothers, sisters, aunts as their own, because they must have the love of God in their hearts and don’t see members of the opposite sex as sex objects and rape objects, because we will reap what we sow. Ministers of Religion are not angels and no man or woman is perfect and no sin is too big for God to forgive; we can learn from our mistakes. My heart was broken when I read of the bad news in the press, but life must go on and the church will continue to grow. One man’s sin or failure will never affect the whole body of Christ. I advise all ministers of religion and all other leaders to live a life of morality and integrity and above all, love your neighbour as yourself.
Regards
Rev. Gideon Cecil
