Dear Editor,

I was always told growing up — long before I joined the Church — two things about Jamaican ministers of the gospel (or better yet scammers in long robes), they are politically one-sided and biblical illiterates.

I have proven that for myself since I have been listening to the whole sorry lot. But it has come full circle since the Government’s push to put in place a national identification system (NIDS). The so-called pastors or pedlars of the gospel are all out labelling NIDS as the mark of the beast. If these biblical illiterates understood the Bible they claim to be hollering and screaming from, they would very well know that’s rubbish.

What is the track record of these mark of the beast prognosticators?

When the Government was instituting National Insurance Scheme number and the taxpayer Registration Number, these same people told the nation not to sign up because it was the mark of the beast. We all saw what happened. The beast seemed to have decided not to bother taking up the offer that these pedlars of ‘fake biblical news’ wanted it/him to so badly take up.

Not only that, but some churches in Jamaica are notorious for following false versions of prophecy. They have long been predicting the end of the world and finding all sorts of scriptures to twist and contort to justify their version of the end times.

Where have these misguided and sometimes outright lying pedlars of the gospel taken us? Well, they have caused many thousands of Jamaicans to abdicate their responsibility to think and know God for themselves. They drive people to God, not through scriptural engagement, but through the fear of going to hell. They have sacrificed the word of God so they can sit on certain boards when their political party is in power.

In the final scheme of things, these pedlars of the gospel are more concerned about the mark of the beast and other forms of fearmongering rather than tackling the social ills of the society in which we live.

It is full time these pedlars of the gospel realise that many people don’t take them seriously anymore. Look at the sharp decline in the attendance at churches these days. People are seeing through their façade and realising the Church in Jamaica is a hopeless entity that needs God back in charge, rather than the bunch of hapless losers that are more interested in ‘robbing the poor blind’ than anything else.

When taken in totality, the many different denominations are more of a hindrance than an agent of change and moral rectitude in this country. Too many pastors are more concerned with enriching themselves rather than standing up for what is right. When last has anybody heard the Church put forward any idea that would contribute significantly to the advancing of Jamaica? They are more concerned with the “God has your name with a miracle on it” trash. It’s sad, but God must be upset with the sorry lot of them.

NIDS is not the mark of the beast. Many of these same pedlars of the Gospel are behaving more like beasts than Godly, holy men.

Fabian Lewis

tyronelewis272@gmail.com