Pastor wants churches to prioritize security
Although he has not received any reports of security breaches at any of the churches aligned to the Independent Churches of Jamaica (ICJ), president of the church umbrella group, Bishop Neville Owens is cautioning pastors to put security protocols in place given the current climate.
Bishop Owens noted that while God is sovereign and knows everything before it happens, he also grants wisdom and knowledge to protect lives and property.
“It is a mad world in which we live, so we have to be proactive and not reactive,” he said.
The Bishop asserted that, “The world in which we live has changed and is changing even more drastically every day. Sin and the prevalence of evil are causing men to do things that prior to now would have been unthinkable.”
Jamaica is considered to have one of the highest ratios of church per square mile in the world. While churches have proven to be a safe space to a large extent, there have been a few cases where criminal activities were undertaken on such sacred properties. One such case was the murder of banker Andrea Lowe-Garwood at a church in Trelawny on January 31, 2021. Her 30-year old stepson was among persons later charged for the murder.
Cases of a criminal nature in the church generally attract widespread media attention. One of the latest incidents was that of pastor Lamor Miller-Whitehead who along with his wife were robbed while he was preaching at his Brooklyn, New York church recently. The pastor and his spouse were reportedly relieved of US$ 1 million or J$153 million worth of jewelry by men who brandished guns while they made their demands. The pastor has since lobbied for a law to be passed in the US that allows pastors to carry a firearm.
“They need to pass a law expeditiously that pastors of houses of worship — anyone on the ecclesiastical staff — need to be able to have permits for firearms,” said Bishop Whitehead.
Bishop Owens does not support the idea of pastors bearing arms. He does not believe God would want his children, “to fight evil with evil and fire with fire.”
“We have to trust God and rely on his grace. If he cannot protect us and deliver us in a time like this, then we would be resorting to our own defense system and structures and that is not my approach at all,” he declared.
