GOD IS GOOD ALL THE TIME

The God that I - David Comissiong - worship is ‘good’ - all the time! He is a God of perfect goodness - the God that Jesus Christ described as "our Father who art in heaven". He is the perfect Father, immeasurably surpassing in goodness to his children my own father and every other earthly father.

I therefore have never accused the God that I know and worship of committing evil! I have never believed that our heavenly Father wilfully directs earthquakes, hurricanes, armies or slave traders to inflict death, disease, pain, starvation or slavery on innocent babies, children or even adults.

However, there are some people who seem to worship a peculiar kind of god. For example, there is a man in the United States by the name of Pat Robertson who, it appears, worships a god that would inflict death and suffering on totally innocent and blameless new born Haitian children, simply because some obscure Haitian is supposed to have allegedly made a so-called pact with a being called Satan some 230 years ago. Clearly, Pat Robertson’s god and my heavenly Father cannot be one and the same God!

There is also a woman by the name of Janice D. Gibbs who had a letter published in the Nation Newspaper of Monday 25th January 2009, and it appears that she worships a god that would impose punishment and evil consequences on my totally innocent and blameless children and grand children simply because I made a statement which she and her god deemed to be inappropriate. Again, it is clear to me that my God of perfect goodness and Ms Janice Gibbs’ god cannot be one and the same!

I would also like to take this opportunity to inform Janice Gibbs, Pat Robertson and all those who think like them, that if they are looking for the purveyors of evil in Haiti, that they are much more likely to find them among the Christianity - practising mulatto and black elite of Haitian society than among the Vodun-practising segment of the masses of poor black Haitians.

The elite sector of Haitian society is comprised of Roman Catholic Christians who speak French rather than Haitian Creole, and who look to France and Europe for their models and value systems rather than to Africa. For almost 200 years now, this elite - often in complicity with Europeans and North Americans - has exploited and oppressed the Vodun and Christianity practising, Creole speaking, Africa oriented masses of Haiti.

Indeed, on more than one occasion over the past 200 years the Christianity - practising Haitian elite has used the state power at their disposal to organise military-style, violence filled campaigns designed to stamp out the practise of Vodun in Haiti. In the name of religious purity these supposed Christians inflicted murder on thousands of Vodun practitioners. And of course they claimed to be doing so in the name of ‘their’ god!

DAVID A. COMISSIONG