Editorial

Perspective: The National Leadership Prayer Breakfast Committee Changes Speaker

The sex scandal rocking the Moravian Church has claimed yet another casualty.  As a result of the alleged rape of a 15 year old teen allegedly by Pastor Rupert Clarke, of Nazareth Moravian Church, Maidstone, St. Elizabeth.  The alleged rape that occurred in Austin District, Manchester late December 2016, has likely influenced Dr. Stanley Clarke, of the Moravian Church to decline the invitation to speak at the 37th staging of the National Leadership Prayer Breakfast to be held on Thursday, January 19, 2017 at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel, Kingston, Jamaica W.I.

Reverend Dr. Burchell Taylor, OJ of the Bethel Baptist Church, of the Jamaica Baptist Union, Kingston has accepted, at very short notice, to Speak and was the very first Speaker in 1981 when the Breakfast series started.

Victoria Mutual Building Society will sponsor this year’s staging as it has done for 32 of the 37 years that the National Leadership Prayer Breakfast has been held. Also the Family in the Marriage series for 29 years.

Victoria Mutual was founded in 1878 some 13 years of unbroken service, having been started by the church community after the Morant Bay rebellion/war  of 1865 and certainly after the abolition of slavery in 1838.

The Theme this year is “God-Empowered Intervention for Transformation”

Bishop Dr. Stanley Clarke obviously found himself in an awkward position of having to address the church and the nation in the midst of his church being in turmoil as a result of the sex scandal rocking the Moravian Church at this time.

This Annual Prayer Breakfast attracts a broad cross-section of National and Business Leaders nationwide.

Hopeton O’Connor-Dennie is senior international correspondent & photojournalist for vision newspaper.

Photo from: www.linkedin.com

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