THE Seventh-day Adventist Church in Jamaica yesterday distanced itself from the sharp tone of a pastor’s sermon and the brandishing of placards in church, aimed at Prime Minister Bruce Golding, in the continuing ‘Dudus’ affair.

“He was not speaking for the Seventh-day Adventist Church,” Pastor Adrian Cotterell, president of the East Jamaica Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, said of Pastor Lorenzo King’s fiery sermon at the Andrews Memorial Church on Saturday.

Pastor Derek Bignall, the president of the West Indies Union of Seventh-day Adventists, is off the island on church business and Cotterell, under whose conference the Andrews church falls, spoke on his behalf.

He described the display of placards — with the words “We want truth” — during the Sabbath morning service as unprecedented and a break from Adventist practice as a way of expressing a position against the ills of society.

“The placards were unnecessary. The church should not be used for that purpose. We have never done that. It’s the first time that we have seen that in church,” Cotterell said. “Whenever we have spoken against the ills of society, such as drugs and guns, the placards have been outside the church.”

King, who is Governor General Sir Patrick Allen’s pastor, was reported by the Sunday Observer as calling on Golding to give “the truth, the stinking truth, because out of that will come the resurrection”.

It was a direct reference to widespread belief that the prime minister had lied to the nation over the Manatt, Phelps & Phillips affair, triggered by the dispute between Jamaica and the United States over the US’ request for the extradition of Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke to face drug- and gun-running charges.

King, who has been pastor of the Andrews church for the past two years, led the placard waving by the choir prior to delivering his heated sermon, in which he declared he was willing to demonstrate in the streets for truth, and prayed for Golding to be truthful and honest.

Sir Patrick was absent from the service, but present was the prime minister’s wife, Lorna Golding, who was led to say her husband could not tell everything he knew and that church members should read between the lines, setting off further controversy.

Cotterell insisted that commentary on such a delicate public issue would be dealt with at the highest level of the church leadership, a role reserved for Pastor Bignall.

“This is not the ethos of the church. We would have preferred if Pastor King had, in keeping with the mission of the church, used the pulpit to communicate to everyone the everlasting gospel of God’s love as revealed in the high-priestly ministry of Jesus Christ,” he said.

He said that individual pastors had the right to express their own views but that it should be done in line with the mission of the church.

Asked if any action would be taken against King, he said the pastor would be “counselled and reminded of what we stand for”, noting that he was a “good pastor who is expected to co-operate”. He added that King felt his comments were “taken out of context”.