Pupils of St. Stephen’s Primary School bow their heads in prayer at the launch of the prayer book Tots 2 Teens at the school.??
A Government Minister has expressed concern that this country has become too secular.
Minister of Social Care, Christopher Sinckler, made this comment today at St. Stephen’s Primary School, while addressing the launch of Tots 2 Teens – a prayer book written by journalist, Cheryl Harewood.
Stating that Barbadians had strayed from the ability to pray and establishing a relationship with God, he said: "Barbados has become an increasingly more secular society in a way that is fairly discouraging…?? That secularisation … is pervasive, but when you see it creeping into those who are youngest among us, then, you know that it has taken root within the society in a way that … we would not want it to happen."
Minister Sinckler commented on parents not sending their children to Sunday school for religious instruction, and said this had resulted in the young ones not being aware of the importance of religion and spirituality in the development of society.
He called on the audience to reflect seriously on how they could help to infuse a different vision for the building of a society that was wholesome and not gravely individualistic, and to consider all that God had bestowed on us and what was owed to Him for His righteousness to Barbados.??????
Mr. Sinckler also advised them to look at other societies to see how they had been ravaged by crime and violence and how the secularisation had caused them to depart from spirituality. He added that they should note "the disintegration and decay of those societies had started from within, rather than from without."??
He warned the adults: "If we do not become the moral compasses that point the direction in which Barbados has to go and for our children to follow, believing that they will choose the right direction, we are dreadfully mistaken.?? We will continue to lament what is happening in our society."