-says Bishop Edghill
– maintains position, urges the offended to confront him
PENTECOSTAL minister Bishop Juan Edghill, in response to public calls for an apology for a statement he made recently at the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) rally at Lusignan, East Coast Demerara , maintains his position and has declared that he would not be responding to ghosts. “I will not respond to people who are afraid to say who they are. I will not be responding to ghosts,” he told the Chronicle in an invited comment.
According to him, there have been no public disagreements between him and any leader in the religious community over anything said that was deemed offensive.
“In Christianity, there is a principle: If a brother does something that offends you, you let the brother know; and until those persons are prepared to call me, confront me, meet with me and show me where theologically I was incorrect by my statements, I stand by my statements.”
Endorsing the PPP/C at the rally, the former chairman of the Ethnic Relations Commission (ERC) made public his belief that Jesus Christ would have favoured the governing party in an election were He in Guyana today.
“I believe (that) if Jesus Christ, who I serve, was in Guyana and he had to vote, he would have voted for the PPP/C, because Jesus loves justice,” Edghill told the rally.
There have since been several letters published in the dailies calling for Bishop Edghill to apologise to the Christian Community.
Edghill, however, told the Guyana Chronicle that his statements have to be considered in the context in which they were made.
What I said at Lusignan was that Jesus is 100 per cent God and 100 per cent man…if Jesus Christ, the man who lived on Earth; who ate, who fed the poor, who healed the sick, who paid taxes…if that Jesus was living in Guyana, and was a registered voter and had listened to all that was said by everyone, and he understood what the PPP/C stood for – which is justice, love, unity, national reconciliation –and he had to vote, then out of my clear conscience I believe he would have supported justice, love, unity, national reconciliation… they (the PPP/C) are not preaching a message of hate, they are not calling for war, they are not calling for violence…,” Edghill posited.
Bishop Edghill maintains that since the courts have prevented him from operating as head of the ERC via an injunction, his statements at the rally were his personal endorsement of the incumbent party.
“As a religious leader, I am supporting the PPP/C,” he declared.