The political declaration of support for the People’s National Party (PNP) from a political platform by Dr Michael Harvey, a pastor of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, has brought into sharp relief the issue of Christian involvement in politics. His comments have sparked protest and even derision from various sections of the society. The minister has been roundly condemned as being partisan and even his denomination has not looked kindly at his fulminations. The issue merits discussion as the political campaign leading up to the general elections picks up pace.

To be sure, the issue of Christian involvement in politics is not anything new. Various denominations have differing persuasions, and even policies, as to the level of involvement that their clergy representatives may have in the politics of the day. This varies from outright condemnation of such involvement to a certain degree of accommodation.

The more conservative wing of the church, largely represented by the evangelicals, has disavowed overt involvement of their clergy in political action. In the United States, this used to be the case until recent times where the divide between covert and overt support of political parties has narrowed considerably since the Moral Majority movement of Jerry Falwell and the creation of the Christian Coalition group. Leading evangelicals, despite the threat of losing their IRS tax-exempt status, have openly endorsed Republican candidates. Liberal clergy have tended to support the Democrats. By and large, support from either camp is no longer as muted as it used to be.

For some, the issue turns on the doctrine of the separation of Church and State. For others, Christians have no business with politics and should leave it to the politicians. As a writer and priest who has expressed opinion on political issues, I have been criticised — sometimes severely — to leave politics alone. I have been told to leave PNP or Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) business and stick to my priestly tasks. Some of the e-mail received can be quite nasty, but I have never shied from evaluating political issues nor to hide or shield my identity as a priest and member of the church.

The fact that I have been criticised by both JLP and PNP bloggers and e-mail responders may be an indication of my impartiality in addressing the subjects raised. I notice that people only get upset when you are dealing with issues that affect their particular party.

I remember an article I wrote, which was critical of the JLP, and a Comrade told me how great a piece it was. Such encomium faded when I wrote a piece critical of the PNP. Like everyone else, I pay taxes and drive on bad roads when I am in Jamaica. My life and well-being are also threatened by a dilapidated health system. I, too, am a victim of a predatory politics that favours the distribution of spoils and scarce benefits to the victors in national elections. I could go on, but it is sufficient to note that a clergyman is not exempt from the consequences of political governance. To ask him or her to not have anything to do with this process cannot be the correct posture to assume.

Let us be clear, the politics of any country affects the lives of people in very fundamental ways. We vote into office people who will hold tremendous power over the lives of citizens. They make laws often ignorant of the fact that they too have to live under them, especially when they are no longer in power. In the Jamaican context, the prime minister and his/her minister of finance can impose taxes as they see fit. Our leaders have shown a penchant to behave like potentates answerable to no one. They use the resources of state as they see fit to benefit themselves and their political cronies. The ignobility of their intentions in office is only matched by their contempt for the people whom they pretend to love but who they really want to use as political pawns in assuaging their thirst for power.

Take, for example, the roads that have been in a chronic state for years. The cry for not fixing them is often that there is no money to do so. Yet the present Government can maintain a Cabinet that looks more like a whatnot if the amount of deadwood in it is anything to go by. Government ministers rent ostentatious office spaces while there are many government buildings that are empty and which have to be maintained at great, unnecessary expense to the people. Simple things that can be done, and which would take the grime out of people’s faces, are left undone.

There is a piece of road on Spur Tree Hill in Manchester on the corner down from the Alex Curry Goat establishment. When going downhill you come to that treacherous corner at the bottom of the hill (over which many lives have been lost). The road is so bumpy that the tyres of your vehicle just bob up and down. Why has this been allowed to remain? Where is the Works Agency or the member of parliament for this constituency? Why has no one who can do something about it not seen the need to remove this danger? To what end should anyone be motivated to vote for the continuance of such contempt of the people’s safety?

There is no doubt that this road is just a microcosm of what can be found across the country. But it is a mere commentary of the sloppy way in which we attend to national business. The zinc fences which continue to persist in inner-city constituencies is another case in point. They are still to be found in the constituencies of the prime minister and leader of the Opposition, who, although they have had the privilege of power over the lives of these people for years, have not moved with any alacrity to remove this offence from the face of the people. They stand not only as monuments to failure, but of contempt for those they give the impression to love.

As a citizen of the country, the clergyman has a right and even a duty to call down brimstone and fire on this sordid status quo. They have a right to critique pretenders to power who think they can invoke the name of God or call for divine intervention in national affairs, but often the true intention is to behave as dictators. Power at any level must be critiqued and brought under the judgement of the people. The Old Testament has a proud tradition of this critique of political power; kingship and prophecy went hand in hand, but there was a clear line of demarcation between the prophetic voice and the king’s exercise of political power. The king would often be reprimanded if he did something wrong or if his actions violated the will of God, especially in its preferential treatment of the poor. You may read the eighth century prophets — Amos, Micah, Hosea, and so on — to see how the prophetic voice challenged the status quo of the day. See also Isaiah chapters 1-2 and 58.

The prophet represented the voice of God and the voice of God demanded good governance and just and equitable treatment, especially of those who were poor, oppressed and marginalised. There were kings who tried to bring harm to prophets because the message they gave was not in concert with their approach to governance. As Al Gore would say, there was no constraining authority. As it was in the day of Jeroboam, when the Jewish Kingdom was divided, everyone did what was pleasing in his sight and there followed the consequent chaos that would unfurl in such situations. The king had to be brought back to his self-identity with the God who appointed him in the first place. This was not a mere theocratic statement but one which was essential in the king dealing justly and properly with his people. Kingship or governance had to be subject to the critique of the prophetic voice.

So, Dr Harvey has all the right to state his political views. He cannot be denied the expression of what he believes in, but I believe that a line is crossed when a clergyman openly on a political platform endorses a political party, especially in the divisive context of politics in Jamaica. It is to the credit of former Prime Minister P J Patterson to caution me in one of our conversations at Jamaica House not to become so involved. Not that I was seeking to be involved, as I clearly understood where my identity as a priest resided.

A pastor in a congregation has to function as a reconciler. There are disparate political views and support for any political party represented in any church, however small. To openly endorse one over another is to ask for trouble. It can create problems of division within the flock and division cannot be the business of any church. It runs counter to what the clergy should represent in the congregation as a force making for unity and not division. Dr. Harvey’s partisan support of the PNP is best relegated to the ballot box, not on an overt political platform.

Dr Raulston Nembhard is a priest and social commentator. Send comments to the Observer orstead6655@aol.com