Former Attorney General, now Minister of Legal and Constitutional Affairs, Marlene Malahoo Forte took to social media last week to do a victory dance about a court ruling that was in her favour.
The ruling underscored her right, under the Jamaican Constitution, to have recommended that the government enact the Disaster Risk Management Act (DRMA) during the COVID-19 pandemic. The government accepted and executed Malahoo Forte’s recommendation, which saw to the locking down of significant sectors, including the Church, and severely curtailing or bringing its activities to a halt.
Outside of the gathering of believers for corporate worship, the Church is a repository of outreach programmes geared towards supporting the sick, bereaved, dispossessed, broken, and most vulnerable members of communities across the island. The Church offers help to shut-ins, orphans, widows, and the elderly, who, more often than not, have no system of support other than what comes through their affiliated organisations.
Weekly soup kitchens feed thousands of people who are unable to afford a hot meal on any given day. By shutting down the church, thousands were left with no hope.
In 2021, at the height of the COVID lockdown, Governor General Sir Patrick Allen was citing statistics that indicated that each night one in six people in Jamaica go to bed hungry.
While government handed out care packages in communities during the lockdown, it must be understood that the Church is more than food for the physical body on any given day. Benevolent ministries provide personal and spiritual care on a consistent basis.
Under the DRMA, the Church obeyed the government’s instructions and kept its doors shut, admitting only the few at a time who were allowed face-to-face worship. The majority of congregants attended online services. Online is no solution for persons who must fend for food and other needs on a daily basis.
Last week, the court dismissed a lawsuit filed by Freedom Come Ministries that argued that efforts to manage the plandemic could have been equally effected under other constitutional provisions, which would have allowed the church to maintain some of its basic functions and services to the communities.
The court, which must interpret the Constitution and rule according to the established legislation before it, said that the choice of the Disaster Risk Management Act suited the stated objectives of the government and that all sectors of society were impacted. The Act did not prevent worship (since it was done online), hence the right to religious freedom was not infringed, and the Attorney General was the correct office to make the recommendation to the government. The case was therefore dismissed.
Malahoo Forte, who was the Attorney General at the time and a self-declared Christian to boot, had recommended the activation of the Disaster Risk Management Act, which essentially crippled the Church.
The then Attorney General would have intimate knowledge of the nation’s Constitution and must have been aware of other available provisions under law, such as the Public Health Act, which would have given the government the leeway to restrict movement and scale down operations across sectors, including the church, but still allow the religious body greater leverage to carry out its functions in communities in a safe way.
After the ruling last week, she took to social media to do a victory dance, totally oblivious that any Christian who is placed in a high seat of government occupies that office because God has allowed it, for His divine purpose, not for their personal glory.
Ask Esther. She knew that even if it cost her her life, she had a mission that was larger than herself, and it was about bringing God glory.
Malahoo Forte can also ask Joseph; he knew what it looked like to trust in God’s overarching plan, especially when you are properly positioned at the pinnacle of power. He understood that he was elevated to leadership in Egypt for God’s purpose. Israel was protected from perishing in the famine through his divine and strategic placement. While he couldn’t foresee the specifics of how his pain would lead to a greater purpose, Joseph held on to the belief that God was working behind the scenes.
Regardless of the office we attain, as Christians, we are called to stand for righteousness. Anything else is to become a pawn for the enemy and advance the Satanic agenda. Locking down the Church is the goal of the enemy so that the beast system can be facilitated without any pushback.
The United Nations has made it clear that religious bodies stand in the way of advancing its agenda; hence, hate speech rules and other international conventions were endorsed and adopted under the recently agreed pact for the future. These rules are established to block the Church from advancing the gospel of Jesus Christ, through Biblical teachings, especially online.
Online worship makes it easy for those who own and manage social media platforms to monitor messages and block the gospel with which they disagree. Nearly every church organisation using online platforms has been threatened with being blocked because of Biblical teachings that do not support the reprobate lifestyle and the transgender agenda that God Himself calls an abomination.
Churches have lost members who moved their worship online permanently. The resources of congregations in personnel, kind, and finances have dwindled to the point where building maintenance and electricity bills are the only budgetary items that can be accommodated.
Since the complete lockdown of the Church during the plandemic, many soup kitchens and other benevolent services run by the church, especially in remote communities, have not been able to restart.
The Church, which was already in a weakened position in society because of its own doing, grew even weaker since the COVID-19 lockdown. The DRMA pushed the body further away from its role as the moral compass of society, making way for the unbridled spread of unrighteousness across communities.
When Christians lose their spirit of discernment and become pawns to be used in the plans of the enemy, it is time to step back, reassess, relent, and repent.
Perhaps Malahoo Forte was being used to punish the Church for its many failings, as judgement begins in the house of God. However one chooses to interpret her recommendation, it dealt a massive blow to the body at a time when benevolence was needed. This is nothing for her to brag about.
Interestingly, while the church complied with the dictates of the Act, not even members of her own party obeyed it.
Minister Floyd Green and his group of friends ignored it. Bars and partygoers found their way around it. Hotel doors were swung wide open in it. Even an election campaign was in full action during the period.
Having served her master’s mission, Malahoo Forte was duly demoted from the high office of Attorney General in 2022 to a less influential position as Minister of Legal and Constitutional Affairs.
Troubles and offences will come to the doors of the people of God; that is certain. But, woe unto him or her, through whom they come!
That one group decided to challenge the DRMA recommendation in court is commendable. That Malahoo Forte is dancing in victory over the ruling is utterly disgraceful.