OSWALD BROWN WRITES
WASHINTON, D.C., January 6, 2019 — There is no shortage of so-called religious leaders in The Bahamas who are charlatans using their churches as businesses to provide them with sufficient income to enjoy a lifestyle of luxury. Indeed, they are so good at pretending to be “men of God” that the majority their parishioners place more importance on paying their weekly tithes than they do on paying their rent or buying grocery.
What’s more, many of these religious imposters have made a mockery of the educational requirements to receive a Doctorate of Divinity degree and thus legitimately use the prefix Rev. Dr. before their names. Consequently, there are probably more religious leaders per capita in The Bahamas who currently profess to have completed the necessary educational training to obtain a PhD in Divinity than in any other country in the world. This dishonesty no doubt is something which they will have to answer for “when the roll is called up yonder.”
I have never considered Rev. Father Sebastian Campbell to be one of these charlatans because he is an ordained priest in the Anglican Church in The Bahamas, which historically “can be traced to the earliest English settlements, but it was in 1729, with the arrival of the first Royal Governor, Woodes Rogers, that the Church was established by law,” according to information gleaned from the Internet.
However, Rev. Father Campbell has over the years waged what I consider an “ungodly campaign” apparently aimed at disavowing the historical significance of The Bahamas once being a British colony and, presumably, that includes the fact that it was the first Royal Governor Woodes Rodgers who “established by law” the Church to which he has dedicated several decades of as a priest.
Indeed, according to information I uncovered during my research for this column, Father Campbell said he always wanted to be a priest; in fact, the desire to become a priest “was sparked within him at the tender age of six while attending the St Andrews Anglican Church in Arthur’s Town, Cat Island, under the pastoral leadership of the late Archdeacon Murillo Bonaby.”
At some point during the 20 years he served the Parish of All Saints in New Providence and subsequently as Rector of the Parish of St Gregory and the Carmichael, he seemed to have developed an unchristian disdain for the British Royal Family and the contributions that The British made to the development of The Bahamas while it was a colony of Great Britain.
Surely, Rev. Father Campbell cannot deny that the British established and left in place some formidable institutions – Judicial, Political and Educational – that provided a solid foundation for The Bahamas to successfully navigate the rough seas of world diplomacy and remain committed to the tenets of democracy after obtaining independence from Great Britain on July 10, 1973.
With our independence coming at a time when the Soviet Union was emboldened by its success in establishing the political ideology of communism as a way of life in Cuba, if democracy had not been so firmly entrenched in The Bahamas, there is no telling how successful the several misguided groups of Bahamians who made serious attempts to introduce communism disguised as socialism to our political system would have been.
I can personally attest to the high quality of education the British established in our public schools. There was only one Government High School during my youthful years, for which you had to sit an entrance exam, and if you were lucky enough to pass, your parents had to be able to afford the 10 pounds, 10 shillings annual tuition.
The British, however, established Junior and Senior Schools in the Eastern, Western and Southern Districts of New Providence, and made it mandatory to stay in school until the age of 14, when you were required to sit an examination to obtain what was known at the time as your “Leaving Certificate.” If you decided to remain in school, two years later you sat an examination to obtain your Cambridge Junior Certificate and subsequently your Cambridge Senior Certificate.
During my time at Southern Senior, each of the senior schools had headmasters whose names are legendary in education in The Bahamas. At Southern Senior, Carlton Francis was the headmaster; at Eastern Senior, the headmaster was Donald Davis; and at Western Senior, the headmaster was T.G. Glover. There is a school of thought that the level of education a student received at one of these institutions was vastly superior to what the proliferation of public high schools in the country are providing their graduates.
To be sure, there is documented evidence that some students who received their Leaving Certificate from one of these institutions and decided to enter the workforce as civil servants eventually held leading positions in some government departments after continuing their education through correspondence courses offered by British continuing education institutes like the City and Guilds of London Institute.
I received my primary school education at Stanyard Creek All-Age School in Andros, and after my family moved from Andros to Nassau, I was enrolled in Southern Junior and subsequently moved up to Southern Senior, where I received both my Leaving Certificate and Junior Certificate, before joining the workforce first at Bahamas Telecommunications Corporation and subsequently at the Parcel Post in Oakes Field prior to joining the staff of the Nassau Daily Tribune in May of 1960.
In all likelihood, growing up on Cat Island, Rev. Father Sebastian Campbell benefited from similar educational policies put in place by the British as I did at Andros that prepared him for his life-long learning experiences. This being the case, it is difficult to understand why he seems to be so “anti-British.” Whatever his reasons, he is wrong; dead wrong.
He again demonstrated his disdain for British honours with his acerbic criticism of the Government’s announcement of The Queen’s New Year’s Honors, which included Janet Bostwick, the first woman elected to the House of Assembly being named Dame Commander of the Most Excellent Order of The British Empire for service in politics.
Aside from the fact that the honour bestowed on Mrs. Bostwick is long overdue, I am an unapologetic supporter of the British Monarchy and the Royal Family in general and firmly believe that the historic ceremonial traditions The Bahamas observed while we were a colony of Great Britain should not be capriciously discarded because of the misguided beliefs of Rev. Father Sebastian Campbell.
