Rev Al Miller, please stop your nonsense
‘CHURCH TO turn prayer power on illegal gun users’ was the title of a Gleaner article on Saturday, August 4.
Oh, wow! I can just picture all of Jamaica’s most vicious gunmen hiding and cowering and crying on each other’s shoulders, thinking that the power of prayer is about to seriously curtail the power of their guns and ammunition.
Not surprisingly, the clergyman who cannot exist for too long without being in the limelight – Rev Al Miller – is at the head of a coalition of people, well-meaning, I believe, but hopelessly deluded if they really believe that another bawl-out or gathering of ‘prayer warriors’ will have any practical impact on the ferocity of the gun and the young men empowered by its use.
Yes, it is the same Rev Al Miller, a man who claims to pray away hurricanes, who spouted the following spectacular bit of pseudoscientific nonsense in October of 2016.
“Let it not be lost on us that there is energy that is emitted from human behaviour, which affects the physical earth’s environment, positively or negatively. Evil and wickedness have a negative impact which, when it is sustained and built up, causes atmospheric and divine disquiet that often becomes judgement on a people, or ‘acts of nature’, as it is referred to by many.”
Pure balderdash!
I fully support the efforts of community leaders and church members who actively reach out and minister to at-risk youth and those involved in criminality. Those people deserve a nation’s thanks and maximum respect.
In the case of our friend, Rev Al Miller, he is in the business of selling his brand and his church and he needs to tug at the gullibility of the religious community in the hope that many more of them will see him as the only authentic intercessor between the gunmen and what he surmises is the ultimate divine power.
In other words, when he prays the gunmen will all tumble down, confess their wrongs, and in droves and in a line stretching from Montego Hills to Bull Bay, they will briskly march, heads bowed and teary-eyed, and hand in their guns to the good old Rev who blows away hurricanes with nonsensical words designed for third graders.
The real sad part of this ‘promise’ by Rev. Miller is that there will be people predisposed to believe that his prayers can capture whole gangs of
vicious gunmen, or at least their guns, and those people will be in for a terrible disappointment. Miller is not a policeman although I am certain that he has had more than a nodding acquaintance with a gunman or two as he ministers among his extended congregation.
USE YOUR CLOUT
I would suggest to Rev Miller that he uses the clout he has as a wellknown Jamaican who has hobnobbed with princes, clowns and criminals in his outreach as a clergyman. He should level with those most gullible and let them know that he is advertising his excess of snake oil and inform them that they each have a responsibility to tell what they know to those who are in the business of fighting crime.
Instead of announcing another exaltation of himself and his direct line to his personal divine connections, I would suggest that he pray for an unemployed acquaintance of mine who has lost a leg to diabetes.
Rev Miller, my ‘idrin’ cannot afford a prosthesis and he needs a leg real bad and, if your prayer has the clout to bring in guns, bawl it out right now please, so my friend’s leg can grow back.