Perhaps I was one of the most dumbfounded listeners to this week’s Q95 morning radio show on which an unmistakably heartbroken and despairing brother Amos lamented what seemed to be the most shocking revelation of his life!
According to the pastor’s tale, one of the most vocal and prominent pastors in our Dominican society turned out to be ‘the other man’- and the reason for his unsuccessful marriage. In an even more despicable twist, ‘the other man’ had been counseling brother Amos and his wife during marriage. In an age where so many young people are reluctant to get married and our world is populated by so many ‘baby daddys’, I am forced to wonder at the true morality of ‘the other man’! Some of us will remember having heard this ‘other man’ recently in his campaign for the so-called blasphemous musical artist ‘Movado’ to be banned from entering the country, simply to entertain several fans.
While I do sympathize with the anguished Amos, I certainly feel he has overstepped certain boundaries in his quest to ‘expose’ the hypocrisy of the religious community. Of course the entire nation should hear a first-hand account of the proliferation of corruption and scandal by the self-proclaimed self-righteous evangelical leaders who pounce on every opportunity to condemn contemporary music, cultural activities and the Catholic community that always seems to be in the wrong.
However, It was ethically wrong for the grieving brother to talk of his marriage in a manner of gossip, speaking of how he used to do all the household chores and his wife would come home and ‘put up her feet’; or of how he and his spouse would be uninvolved for up to six months. No one wants to go into a marriage which, like many, stands a chance of failing, and later discover that such trivial private matters are made public news.
The brother should have known better; the radio host was simply doing his job by probing- that’s what he is paid to do. And the male cheerleaders who called to encourage his attack of his wife’s flaws were probably suffering from ‘gopwel’ too.
In any case the story has ended on a bitter note, but I do hope that this will certainly put a stop to the evangelical community’s outrageous behaviour. There are so many religious figures in our society who have had immoral sexual relations with young women, broken up churches because they parade as the ‘more saintly leaders’ and brainwash many of our under-employed and uneducated citizens in rural communities. Many of them are like leeches who feed on the people’s ignorance and blind faith. In a nation where we’ve been so disillusioned by politicians, it is not hard to understand why ordinary people have turned to these ‘Men of God’. So why do they abuse it?
I am not condemning Amos, the scandalous wife or ‘the other man’. But I certainly hope that this revelation will put a stop to the ridiculous and petty issues frequently raised by the evangelical churches in our mainstream media- such as preventing different musical artists from performing or putting a 6-o-clock curfew on Carnival Tuesday activities (or even banning Carnival for that matter!). I know many Evangelical churchgoers who are wonderful Christians, but it always seems to be the most ‘self-righteous’ ones which are quick to condemn the ordinary people who ‘indulge in worldly pleasures’.
Hopefully Dominicans will begin to have more faith in God and less faith in pastors. And hopefully some of these pastors will begin to ‘cast …the beam out of [their] own eye;’ so they can ‘see clearly to cast …the mote out of [their brothers’ eyes].
And so we may one day see a less bitter final chapter of ‘The Pastors’ Tale’, one yet to be written, but with a happy ending.
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