TWO respected pastors are maintaining that dictates of conscience should always take precedence over law.

According to head of the Holiness Christian Church, Bishop Alvin Bailey, pastors ought to take their instructions from God and not from any individual or authority in power.

"We operate on a higher mandate, uncompromising, unapologetically. It is what God says that goes and if we are convinced in our minds that God says so, we have to do so," he told editors and reporters during the Jamaica Observer Monday Exchange forum.

Bailey's remark came against the backdrop of last week's charging of fellow clergyman Merrick 'Al' Miller, who was caught escorting fugitive Christopher 'Dudus' Coke to the United States Embassy in Kingston.

Coke, who was wanted by the United States to answer drug and gunrunning charges, has since been extradited to the North American country.

Miller, in the meantime, has received both praises and harsh criticisms for his assistance to Coke. On Friday he was formally charged with harbouring a fugitive and perverting the course of justice. Miller, who is out on $200,000-bail, will make his first court appearance on Friday.

At the Monday Exchange, rector of the Stella Maris Catholic Church Monsignor Michael Lewis, while agreeing that conscience prevails over earthly authorities said, spiritual leaders must also be prepared to face the consequences that come with them breaking the law to appease their conscience.

"Should it get to a point where you do have a public law and it violates an individual's conscience, then he or she must understand that if you break that law, if you break the law of the land to satisfy conscience, then you understand very clearly that there are implications for that and you must be willing to deal with that," he said.

"If there is good to be done, though it may be difficult, though we may be threatened, though we may become martyred for it, we do it nonetheless, because that is what we are called to do, that is the witness value of our lives," he added.

Lewis' comments was in line with Miller's message Sunday to congregants at his Fellowship Tabernacle Church on Washington Boulevard in Kingston during which he said he was acting on the guidance of his conscience.

"In a dilemma such as the one I faced a few days ago, it is conscience that I fell back on when I said I was right. I am right to follow my conscience. Fault me on how you see the outcome, but do not fault me on my conscience. God and God alone is the judge of my conscience," he said.

When asked how they would have dealt with the situation had they been placed in a similar position as Reverend Miller, Monsignor Lewis said he would have sat down with Coke to discuss the implications of his actions.

However, Bishop Bailey said the expediency of the situation would have dictated how he behaves.

"You don't ask what the law says very often, the expediency of the situation often dictates the response in every quarters," he said.

"Christianity must not and cannot be seen as a code of written laws, rules and regulations that we confirm to, so that anytime we have to move we have to check the codes," Bailey later added.