Jamaica’s Adventist Prime Minister Announces Plans to Partner With Churches on Social Intervention
September 26, 2017: Jamaica’s Prime Minister, the Most Hon. Andrew Holness, has unveiled plans for new partnership between the government and faith-based organizations.
According to the Jamaica Information Service, the partnership will tackle intervention initiatives in high crime areas.
“We have to draw on the spiritual powers of the church,” said Holness who himself is an Adventist. He was speaking to Adventist leaders at the denomination’s Western Jamaica Conference Centre in Montego Bay on September 24.
Holness recognized the Adventist Church for community improvement work it had done in the Mount Salem area of north-west Jamaica’s St. James parish.
“We have to put on the whole armor to fight this spiritual evil. The Government is willing and the Government is embracing the opportunity to work with the church to implement social-intervention programs, especially in an area like Mount Salem, which has been declared a zone of special operations,” he added.
He said that religious conversion brought about the greatest transformation in people.
“We see it every day. We have seen vicious killers changing their lives for the better. I am asking you as members of the church to continue to mobilize and get into these communities where we can interact and get persons to move away from crime and be productive members of the society,” said the Prime Minister.
Holness is the youngest Prime Minister in Jamaica’s history and the country’s ninth Prime Minister overall. At the age of 45 he has served as Prime Minister twice, first from October 2011 to January 2012. He started his current term in March 2016.
