Beware of religious commissariats

UNDERSTANDABLY, THE tragedy at Kevin Smith’s church a fortnight ago has triggered debate about the supposed prevalence of cults in Jamaica and calls for tighter regulations of religious organisations, including, presumably, people who lead them.

While Mr Smith may have been an unhinged, though charismatic, megalomaniac, whose delusionary embrace and sale of his divinity led to the ritual killings at his Pathways International Kingdom Restoration Ministries church, the authorities should proceed with caution. Indeed, the public should be wary of any knee-jerk reaction that might encroach on the constitutionally guaranteed right to freedom of religion. For when citizens voluntarily and uncritically surrender their freedoms, it is the wont of governments to ask for or pinch way more until rights that were believed to be sacred become badly eroded.

Further, while today the call is for action against perceived cultists, a year hence it may be against some denomination that has fallen out of favour. Or maybe fringe churches, say the Jehovah’s Witnesses or Mormons. After that, it could be one of the great monotheist religions – Islam, perhaps. Should people be dismissive of the possibilities, they might cast their minds to the rise of Hitler and the Holocaust. Bigotry’s defence is usually that it is in defence of the protection of some group or principle.

Moreover, ahead of any contemplation of religious agency or ecclesiastical authority, the authorities should determine how well they have employed existing mechanisms that allow the State some oversight of religious organisations that seek its imprimatur, including exemption from its taxes.

NO EXCUSE

None of this, of course, is to excuse anything that was done by Kevin Smith, who, based on what has emerged since the debacle at his church, was a convicted sex offender and a narcissist (he insisted on being addressed by his followers as ‘Your Excellency’) whose members paid expensively for the privilege of attending his church and were taxed extra for his prayers and intercessions with God.

He may, indeed, be guilty of all the perversities claimed against him. Unfortunately, Mr Smith’s death in a bizarre motor vehicle collision, while being taken to be charged for murder, means that he cannot answer the allegations against him before a jury of his peers in a court of law. However, the greater strength, and moral force, of liberal democracy is that its underlying values, the foundation of its existence, are not surrendered, or taken into retreat, when they fall under stress.

These values, which are captured in Jamaica’s Constitution, include the right to thought, conscience and belief, freedom of expressions and association, and the right to peaceful assembly. These rights underpin religious freedom. But Jamaica’s Constitution is declarative about freedom of religion and people’s right to worship with whomever, or whatever, they will.

It says at Section 17(1): “Every person shall have the right to freedom of religion, including the freedom to change his religion and the right, either alone or in community with others and both in public and in private, to manifest and propagate his religion in worship, teaching, practice and observance.”

No right, of course, is absolute. The crime of murder is not tolerated because the killing was claimed as religious observance. Neither does fraud get a pass; nor does human trafficking. They fall within the ambit of the law, whose enforcement should happen in like manner whether branches happen in secular society, formal religious groups, or in those branded as cults. There is, however, potentially a thin line between being alert to religious/cult groups and discriminatory trespass on people’s freedom of association and the right to practise their religion. The State should be judicious in how it approaches these intersections, mindful of prevailing cultural and social biases that colour perceptions of the legitimacy of how some people worship.

CALL THEM OUT

This does not mean that the society must not be on watch for religious charlatans and be willing to call them out when their presence is known. In this respect, the State is not without some obligation or tools.

Under Jamaica’s Charities Act, charities and notfor-profit organisations, if they wish to be free of the burden of taxes, have to register with the Charities Authority, whose day-to-day function falls to Companies Office of Jamaica. Among the purposes for which a charitable registration is allowable is “the advancement of religion”.

Prior to this law, requests by religious/churchrelated bodies for exemption from taxes were usually the subject of specific motions to Parliament. Now, registration is considered by the authority which, in approving registration, has to be satisfied that the organisation’s governing body meets a fit-and-proper criterion. Additionally, the authority has the power to monitor the activities of the registered charity for compliance to determine whether it should retain its registration.

The authority should publish the latest review of its registry of how many of the registered charities are up to date with reports, whether fit-and-proper determinations were done of their governors, and what were the findings. They might indicate, too, whether there is any registered charity or group of which Kevin Smith was a governor and what their fit-and-proper inquiry of Mr Smith revealed.

But the suggestions that there are other Kevin Smiths and Pathways-type ministries in Jamaica also demands another and deeper conversion about the societal fragilities – failures in critical thinking – that cause people to embrace the would-be, messianic deliverers.