An open letter to President Jagdeo

Feb 06, 2011 Letters

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Dear Mr. President,
I here most respectfully wish to address your proposal of an Inter-Faith TV channel which, according to the press, is to be realised within the next three months. The press has also reported that your intentions to this effect had been signalled since 2005. (Kaieteur News, January 26, 2011).
I wish to recall Mr. President that subsequent to 2005, the State most unceremoniously and unapologetically severed the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN), a Christian broadcast on Channel 72. This Mr. President was done by the State in an unconscionable display of absolute disregard for the Christian Community in Guyana.
And thousands upon thousands of Christians who comprise in excess of 56% of the population of Guyana, grieved painfully at this wanton disdain of our faith.
The Christian Community was neither informed, nor consulted nor compensated for this vacuum created by actions of the State. Our religious space was violated and we have since been deprived of the added spiritual sustenance the TBN Christian broadcast would have continued to bring to multiplied thousands of Christians and to the wider Guyanese viewership.
Not being a Muslim or a Hindu or a member of any of the other religious sects which comprise the religious demography of our country, I would not dare to presume to speak on their behalf in anticipation of what their reaction would have been if they had been deprived of an existing operational 24 X 7 broadcast facility. I speak as a Christian about the pain, the bruising and the wounding that the tearing and ripping away of TBN by the State, has brought upon Christians. How we have lamented to each other about this injustice!
Mr. President, your present proposal to now establish a State owned Inter-Faith TV station where the State has the coordinating role in determining the air time to be allotted for each religious group is seen by multiplied thousands of Christians as yet another autocratic intrusion and violation of our inalienable rights and liberty to practice, to preach and to teach our faith without the interference of the Government.
Such an imposition is an overstepping of the bounds of the State thereby infringing upon the basic human right for Christians to freely and peacefully observe our faith.
I beg that you here graciously further permit me the liberty to be candid. Any move on your (government) part to exercise and or to implement these proposals is an execution that bears the signature of State control of religion. This I hasten to add, is particularly disturbing for us as Christians since, the only proper role for any democratic government is to justly facilitate the discharge of the constitutional guarantees of freedom of religion, the exercise of conscience and freedom of expression.
We must not forget, lest we pay dearly for our forgetfulness, that in any true democracy, that the government is by the people for the people.
I again most respectfully submit that State control and regulation of air time for religious programmes is a hindrance to our faith. The State having already taken away our TBN Christian broadcast, therewith inflicting an injury so painful that the proposal of State controlled air time further compounds the censorship that Christians see as a move to further debase and subjugate. Christians now no longer feel free since, beyond the very immediate borders we see what the Holy Bible calls the signs of the end of times.
Further Mr. President, Christians are appalled having listened to Bishop Juan Edghill’s discourse on television on Channel 11 on Sunday 30th January 2011. In his discourse in explaining about the activities planned by the IRO, Bishop Edghill emphasised that in the planned visits to schools and other institutions, should Christians have to pray at those gatherings, that we would not be permitted to pray in the name of Jesus. Mr. President, such a thing is anathema.
The Lord Jesus Christ is the author and finisher of our faith. (Hebrews 12:2). When a Christian is prohibited from praying in the name of Jesus then that act or prayer ceases to be Christian. It has a form of godliness but it lacks the substance thereof.
It is here therefore incumbent upon me to point out that the Lord Jesus Christ teaches us in the Gospel of Luke 9:26 saying, Whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he shall come in his own glory, and in his Father’s and of the holy angels.”
These scriptures are key tenets of the Christian faith. No true Christian will omit to pray in the name of Jesus. We are peeved Mr. President that Bishop Juan Edghill failed to make clear that he does not speak with the endorsement of the Christian Community, but rather he speaks in a private and personal capacity that is concomitant with the public office he presently occupies within the State’s infrastructure.
This is a faux pas that Bishop Edghill ought to address expeditiously since, he is cognisant of the fact that the Christian Bible teaches that should men attempt to prohibit the use of the name of Jesus in our preaching, teaching and prayer, that we ought to obey God rather than men. (Acts 5:30)
Mr. President, Christian chagrin is great; our hearts are grieved and we can no more be silent. Our faith is threatened, and this shall not suffice. We entreat you therefore Mr. President, listen to the voice of the people. True Christians are “…not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth…” (Romans 1:16)
Thank you, Mr. President for your most kind wise and gracious consideration.
Most Respectfully
Mrs. Patricia Gonzalez

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