Barbados has evolved into a multi-ethnic, multicultural and, as a result, a multi-faith society.
No longer are we a nation comprising the established Christian denominations: Anglicans, Roman Catholics, Methodists and the Pentecostal offshoots.
We have in our midst Muslims, Jews, Hindus and Baha’is who are also seeking to worship the one Almighty God as has been revealed to them.
We of necessity have to practise religious tolerance. There is only one God and man has always, in his many forms, tried to know and to worship this Supreme Being.
The raison d’etre for our creation is to know God, to worship Him, to attain spiritual God-like qualities, to be of service to God, ourselves and our fellowman, to carry forward an ever-advancing civilisation, to procreate and raise up a generation that will serve God.
The scenario is that in modern-day religions, there are many denominations and sects and this foments a form of disunity among men.
Many adherents to religions have taken portions of the Scripture, be it from the Bible or the Koran, and made it the core of their teachings, thus leading to schisms and factions.
The Seventh-day Adventists and Jehovah’s Witnesses have differences, yet they are Christians. So too Sunnis and Shi’ites have differences, yet they are Muslims.
The main reason for religion should be to unite people, to promote justice and remove prejudices and inequalities both between genders, sexes, races, to stop exploitation and to cease wars.
We need religion as a “safety cap” to prevent us from becoming like the feral beast and to draw us to God, whose Holy Spirit dwells within us when we accept the manifestation and live by His teachings.
Any civilisation which moves away from God is doomed to destruction – Sodom and Gomorrah, Medo Persia, Babylon, Rome and Israel, to name a few. Every time Israel broke God’s covenant, it fell into the hands of the enemy.
Modern-day civilisation has strayed away from God and will be punished. The suffering, turmoil, chaos, political, economic and social upheavals are some of the pangs of this dying civilisation.