A Community-Minded Pastor - An Interview with Rev. Ronald McGarrell

March 2009

National leaders have had the challenging mission of balancing the development of the church with expanding their network of ambassadors for peace. Here, one leader explains aspects of his work that have helped him win hearts in his multi-ethnic homeland of Guyana.

I understand you are involved in a community of faiths in Guyana.

I was recently made the co-chairman of the Inter-Religious Organization (IRO) in Guyana, after having served for some years as its public relations officer. Through this organization, many people have become peace ambassadors. We're a religious community breaking down walls and working together to promote the peace culture.

People from Guyana who have gone to International Leadership Conferences in the U.S. and Korea have come back with a mind-set to carry out inter-religious work. Our work is truly inter-religious, and embraces more than just Christianity. We also have Hindus, Muslims and Bahais.

Our IRO work has actually become well recognized in the country. Every time there was an election in Guyana, there was violence before the election and even more afterwards. We were fed up with forty years of political violence. We decided to do something to promote harmonious relationships before, during and after the 2006 elections. We solicited support from the United Nations, which paid for a professor from the University of Guyana to visit all the political parties. I had the opportunity to go with him, meet the political leaders and discuss issues with them. Based on those discussions, we designed a peace pact. We had leaders of the political parties sign it at the Parliament Building. They vowed to maintain a peaceful and civil atmosphere. It was a national event.

Were the elections more peaceful?

In 2006, we had the most peaceful elections in our country's history. The IRO got a lot of exposure through that initiative.

Religions tend to fight over a few issues and to lose sight of the many areas where they have similar interests and similar concerns. By focusing on areas of conflict, they drum up hatred and animosity toward each other. It's such a waste of time and energy when we could be concentrating our efforts on working for the benefit of the community.

What kind of problems do you see?

An intense issue in the IRO at the moment is that Christians regard Hindus as easy targets for conversion. Hindu leaders have publicly expressed their displeasure toward these Christian groups. They have characterized these conversion efforts as a form of violence. Where a flag identifies a home as being a Hindu's residence, some Christians have just been barging in and trying to force their religion on whoever is at home at the time. These Christians look down on Hindus and ridicule them for believing in many gods. This is happening now, and in fact Pentecostals and other evangelical groups are converting many Hindus. Hindus are not generally converting to Islam. The Hindu leaders see this as trampling on their religion, especially because of the contemptuous attitude some Christians show by just walking uninvited onto a Hindu's private property. The IRO recognizes this situation and is trying to avert violence between Christians and Hindus.

Are there problems involving other groups?

Once, a Muslim group was distributing flyers critical of other religions at a national exhibition. It mentioned Rev. Moon. Someone called me up and said, Ronald, Rev. Moon is mentioned in this flyer. What are you doing about this?

What we did on that occasion was hold discussions in a prominent location. The leaders came, and I told them they have to promote their religion purely, not demonize other people's religions. The purpose of religion is to help people understand God. If you have to demonize someone else's religion to promote your own, something is definitely wrong.

There's a parliamentary commission, the Ethnic Relations Commission, which promotes racial harmony in our country. Because of clashes such as this, the commission recently held a conference for religious leaders and one for religious broadcasters. After the airplanes crashed into the World Trade Towers in New York, in Guyana, we had Pentecostals appearing on television and demonizing Muslims, saying terrible things. Some Christian pastors have also said terrible things about other pastors on television programs.

The last conference we had was a national one for over three hundred religious leaders -- Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Bahais and others. We stressed the need to promote your own religion purely, but not by criticizing other faiths. Otherwise, the situation may worsen to the point of becoming outright religious conflict. Religion is responsible for the worst wars we have ever had in human history.

I was one of the facilitators at the religious broadcasters meeting. I spoke to radio and television hosts about how they should conduct themselves so that they promote peace and harmony in our country.

Are you well-known in your country in the inter-religious field?

My work with the IRO has brought me public attention. In fact, the opposition parties are now concerned about the IRO. Because 95 percent of the people in the country believe in God, and even the parliamentarians are in church on Sunday, they see that the IRO is becoming a very influential organization. Some are concerned about it.

For the world to turn toward goodness, we need to have God-fearing leaders. The political parties are keeping an eye on us. The parliament wanted to put us on the list to provide a candidate for membership of the Ethnic Relations Commission, but the opposition party said no. They've agreed to fifty NGOs having a representative on the Ethnic Relations Commission, but they're blocking the IRO entry. Those in opposition parties are concerned about religious leaders having political influence.

There is a Christian leader who has attended some of our conferences; he heard Father speak at the United Nations in 2000. He is very well-known throughout the country. He mobilized religious leaders when Parliament voted in favor of passing a human rights law that allowed gay marriage. We opposed this.

The government has designated me as a legal marriage officer, someone qualified to conduct marriages. Had this become law, it would mean that if a gay couple came into the Unification Church with a marriage license, I would have to conduct their marriage. If I refused, I could be dragged before a court. We had to picket against that becoming law.

The matter went before Parliament, but the president never signed it, for which we are thankful. And we continue to encourage our young people to prepare themselves for marriage in the right way.

Right now we are thinking about how to reach out to the nation's people by the end of 2012. Every month or every other month we have an interfaith service. We have people come from other faiths, including Hindu leaders, and give the sermon in our church. Other religions make very important points, in some areas, very similar points to ones we make. But most of all, allowing other religious leader to speak to us provides a working environment for us to come together. If we keep ourselves isolated, we cannot promote unity and harmony.

This seems to align with the vision for the temple to be built in Korea.

Yes. The father of a young Muslim man who recently spoke in our church dedicated a piece of land as a religious worship site. He had the vision for a place where people of different faiths could come, and meditate and pray. He visited Korea while the palace was being built, and when he came back to Guyana he had this vision. It's an interfaith site to which someone from any religion will be able to come and perform their own prayers, and so forth. He once said to me, "I'd like to do what you are doing." Especially since he went to Korea he has given tremendous support to our church.

There is another point I would like to mention. In 2007, I was one of ten people chosen from Guyana to go to the United Nations in Geneva to be trained in issues related to human rights treaty organizations. I represented the religious community in Guyana. After returning to Guyana, we founded the Guyana Partnership for Human Rights. We work alongside government bodies promoting human rights in our country, which is one of the UN's millennium goals. We recently received a grant from a Catholic organization to do five programs on human rights throughout the country.

I am now teaching human rights in schools and to youth groups and churches and so on. In 1948, after the UN passed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the concept of human rights was supposed to be taught in schools, but it didn't happen. What we are doing now, therefore, is going to schools and to youth groups and so forth. It's so important, because sometimes I find that even public officials don't know what human rights are. We found they could mention one or two at the most, such as freedom of speech or the freedom of religion; they're lost after that. They don't understand the point of human rights. They don't know how important it is for young people to know.

I was interviewed on television about this matter, and I indicated to the host that when people are firmly grounded and understand what human rights are, it will strengthen democracy in our country, and the democratic process. There will be more transparency, more openness. That benefits everybody, right? We're letting people know they have rights, so they know what to stand up for. It gives you a sense of wellbeing knowing that these rights are there for us. We will then have a society where rights are respected, honored and uplifted. Such a society becomes safer for all of us. For example, we can pursue any religion we want to pursue.

Of course, when we teach human rights, we also teach human responsibility. I think that's crucial. I like doing it, because I can teach human responsibility along with human rights. Just as you would like your rights respected, you respect the rights of others. That really strengthens the fabric of our society.