BECOMING LESS ENGLISH CREATING A MORE CULTURALLY RELEVANT JAMAICAN CHURCH
Day Two at the conference also saw a powerful session entitled ‘Racial Justice: Recovering Spiritualities, Restoring Justice’. Here Bertram Gayle, an ordinand from the Diocese of Jamaica and The Cayman Islands, develops his ideas. Disestablishment of the Anglican church in Jamaica in 1870 was part of the legislative change brought about by the Governor in conjunction with the Colonial Secretary. The Jamaican Assembly had abolished itself after the Morant Bay Rebellion and the island came under direct rule from Britain as a Crown Colony. Two facts about disestablishment are worth noting. Disestablishment addressed issues of ecclesial politics and economics, not culture. In addition to the clergy appointed in Britain, all the churches had a small number of Jamaica-born clergy. Few questioned the euro-centric and class-based ethos of churches in 1870. Garvey and Bedward were the advocates of a greater understanding of Jamaican African heritage. However, they were largely dismissed. Rev’d Bertram Gayle Photo: Bertram Gayle
Attention to popular culture only came after the Second World War and the agitation for political rights leading up to independence. But even then, British cultural norms and practices (including its Christian expression) remained the ideal for those who took the reins of the Jamaican church, wherever they were on the mixed (Creole) racial spectrum.
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