Despite the macroeconomic success on the international stage, our nation is precariously poised. Immediate and decisive action must be taken now to determine if the future holds success or catastrophe for us.

What will you do, Church? What will you do, Jamaica?

Will you watch Jamaica’s demise and film it for social media? Will you throw up your hands in frustration and dismay? Will you complain or criticise? Will you pray, then turn and run away hoping for the best? Will you stand back and wait to see what happens? Will you be crippled by fear and concern and watch it? Or will you be determined to engage and transform it?

Irish statesman and British parliamentarian Edmund Burke, speaking from the volatile experience of his times, said, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Speaking from my Jamaican experience I would amend Burke’s quote to say, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for church men to do nothing transformational.”

I and a team of associates have carefully looked at the national landscape from all angles. We have decided that we love enough, care enough, and are committed enough to call to action all citizens who love Jamaica, starting with the Church! It’s time for straight talk not public relations spin! It’s time to face the reality, confront the issues and provoke each other to love and good works.

We are challenging the Church, the sleeping giant, to awake and take back her place as the ambassador of the kingdom of God. We the Church are to represent our King and culture and stand for righteousness, truth, and justice.

A Bible prophet of more than two millennia ago reminded the ambassadors of his day, “He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what the Lord requires of thee, but to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God?” It’s time for the Church to retake her place as guardians of the welfare of the people, to fight their causes, defend them from injustice, expose the evil systems and people that contribute to the unrighteousness and horrendous socio-economic issues that sometimes assail us. The Church must advance and fight for what is good for the people’s success and prosperity.

All of us who claim to be defenders of the cause of righteousness must lead in building the new Jamaica. Anything less is to miss the mark. The new Jamaica can only be effectively built on a foundation of unity, trust, and renewed shared vision that fulfils.

We have failed, Lord forgive us!

We have failed our society in general and this generation of youth in particular. We have failed to give them a new Jamaica with solid foundations on which they can build. Look at the events happening in our communities, in our schools: the bullying, beatings, stabbings, shootings that no longer seem to be happening in selected depressed communities or at night, but anywhere in broad daylight: underage children being killed, mass shootings and murders, mothers and children targeted for death, and seven-year-olds carrying guns to school. Improper child rearing, bad education, and a silent church are some of the causes.

There are two primary people and institutions who must take responsibility for where we are. These are pastors and politicians — the Church and the political class — albeit for different reasons and angles. The Church, because of its silence and fears to rock the political boat. The political class because of self-serving ends, greed, and corruption.

Radical intervention is absolutely essential. The Church has a critical and central role. But it clearly has to do more than it is currently doing. We need action, not just talk, to produce real change towards rescuing and rebuilding the new Jamaica.

I sense a growing concern in our citizens to see a transformed society. I hear church leaders echoing it. Church leaders, especially, should remember that transformation does not happen just because one is concerned. In the book of Nehemiah, his concern was just the beginning. True concern must find expression in planned action and engagement, as with Nehemiah, to produce a transformation in the rebuilding of the walls that were broken down.

Citizens, it’s time to rebuild the broken walls of our country! And rebuilding must be done on strong foundations. The new Jamaica must be built on fresh and solid foundations. We must remove the old and establish the new. The roots of destruction of the soul of the nation must be uprooted and removed so fresh foundations can be laid. The unbridled lust for power, witchcraft, deception, lies, ideologies that divided us and formed the bed of the political, social, economic, and subsequent moral decline must cease. It caused the rise of garrisons, guns, and dons which must be acknowledged and broken in order to break the cycle of socio-economic defeat that has crippled or hindered our development.

A new Jamaica cannot be constructed on top of the old evil systems and structures. It requires at the very least openness and honesty. The curse of it cannot be broken to free a nation without a spirit of confession and public acknowledgement to expose the evil.

Those negative post-Independence actions that Jamaica experienced from the early 70s onwards are the seeds that produced the fruits of unhealthy political division, the crime and violence, the gang culture, and the deepening poverty that is a stranglehold on the neck of the nation today. We have forgotten that fruits bearing today are from the seeds sown yesterday.

We will not and cannot deal with the current fruits without uprooting the roots of yesterday’s seed planting. How do we do that? By applying principles of truth and honesty expressed with humility in planting new seeds.

There is hope for a nation with fathers to guide it from both Church and State. Fathers of both are here. The quickest way to start the process is for the two great leaders and now fathers in the political class and former prime ministers form both of our two major political parties to guide us in acknowledging and forsaking the negative past and committing to fresh seeds for a preferred future.

They received a baton passed on to them. They took it on the turn and ran with it, ignoring that the baton passed was filled with the stain of unbridled power, corruption, division, self-serving, and malicious thinking. It was successful passed to a the next generation of leaders. Hence the present leaders are running with the spirit of the old contaminated baton filled with a deadly virus causing the problems we are continuing to experience. Nothing has changed, it is only getting worse, as no treatment has been administered.

We cannot pass on this infection, we must arrest it now. We must discard the virus-filled baton, quarantine the receivers, and apply treatment to get it out of their systems. If rightly and skilfully handled, we can heal the breach of the past and set new paradigms that pave the way to build the new Jamaica.

I believe that together we can shape the path to a secure future for all Jamaicans. I am committed to it. Will you join? “A fi wi country, mek wi bil it.”

Every well-thinking Jamaican should want to be part of the new thinking and action of a reimagined Jamaica.

Reverend Al Miller is senior pastor at Fellowship Tabernacle and founder and chairman of Build Jamaica Foundation. Send comments to Jamaica Observer or pastormilleroffice@gmail.com.

Al Miller