The death of a church heralds much worse, or does it?

Jul 27, 2011 Letters

Dear Editor,
As an outsider looking in at the literal tearing down of a place of worship, the St Barnabas Church in Georgetown, I am extremely appalled at this situation to say the least. Churches, especially our Catholic and Anglican churches, are blessed and consecrated by the local Bishop.
No house of God should ever face the same fate as St Barnabas and be de-consecrated; it’s just not right. But one must ask the question, how did this church get to that dire stage, whereby nothing else could have been done but to sell the building, then have it demolished, erased from the Bourda landscape and indeed the annals of our history? Now, when the damage has been done, outrage and regrets are coming from left, right and centre, especially from the Anglican Diaspora; too little, too late I say.
Kaieteur News, June 12, 2011 “For one, vagrants have taken over the compound of the church, which occupies three lots …feces are all over the compound…vagrants, known as “junkies” use the compound to defecate, wash their clothes, and sleep”.
Oh my goodness! How the heck did the Anglican parishioners in that church community allow their church to get to that sad state of affairs?! Obviously it did not happen overnight. The gradual state of affairs of St Barnabas Church took place over a period of years. How shameful!
The situation at St Barnabas is a true reflection of how insignificant and spiritually impotent the Anglican Church has become in Guyana. Sad, but true, the church, formerly at the forefront of education, culture, etc, is experiencing a severe loss of membership, and is referred to as “the senior citizens’ church”.
And the lay people, as well as church leaders, have done nothing—nothing— to address this problem but rather, sit back and allow their church to continue fading into the sunset. The reality? We see St Barnabas, once a vibrant church community (from what I read), dying a proverbial death. How sad!
The Anglican Church needs a revival or else it will become an extinct organization soon enough, especially if the current cabal of local church leaders continue in the manner they are at present. I don’t know how young people—the future of any religious organization — can be attracted to a church with mostly old people. Young people need to be handed the baton to carry on the work of the church and much more should have been done in previous years to ensure that was so.
Where is the Holy Spirit, worshipped and revered by Anglican Christians, today in that church?
Then we have Abiola Inniss, crying over spilt milk in the newspapers a few days ago. She is, presumably, writing from overseas and now has a wake-up call about her beloved St Barnabas Church. Well, Abiola, it is too late. There is no way “this travesty can be stopped”, because just as how you chastised and pointed fingers at the “worst form of intellectual impotence” of the Anglican leadership here, a finger is pointed right back at you, for you have played a key role, too, just like the other Anglicans in this local church, in killing that beautiful church.
Somewhere along the line, that church community started to become degraded: absenteeism, poor cash collections, and the rest is history.
A church is not a building alone. Rather it is the people of God, living in the presence of the Holy Spirit, moving them to love, care for, support, and build up the local church wherever they serve, and you and they failed
to build St Barnabas Church. It was left to decay and rot and the people of God there abandoned God’s house for “other Anglican Churches”, since “whatever funds the Anglican Church has would be better spent on other church buildings, such as St George’s, instead of St Barnabas” (KN, June 12).
Since Christianity began centuries ago, man has always expressed his love for God by building huge, magnificent, lavish church buildings, tall as the mountains and noticeable from far away. The evidence is there for all to see; the gorgeously constructed Anglican and Catholic Churches around the world.
How I see things, yesterday it was St Barnabas; tomorrow it might be another of their church buildings. The Anglican Church needs to go back to the drawing board and devise proper ways to fire up its members, while attracting and keeping younger ones, to continue the mission of the church and doing it with vigor and vitality, or else Anglicanism—like St Barnabas—will vaporize and vanish for ever.
Leon Suseran

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