call for boycott of di pastor whe deh pon chrg convention

[evanovitch]

Children’s lobby group calls for confab boycott


The lobby group Hear the Children’s Cry is calling for a boycott on a religious convention being hosted by a pastor who is now on sexual offence charges.

<span style="font-weight: bold">International pastor, the Reverend Dr Paul Lewis, is spearheading the convention called the Gathering of the Prophets. </span>

Other international pastors are also scheduled to attend the event, which starts today in Kingston and next week in Montego Bay.

Dr Lewis is on charges of carnal abuse involving a 15 year old Westmoreland girl and indecent assault involving a 14 year old girl.

The pastor is currently on a $1 million bail and is barred from leaving Jamaica before his next court hearing on September 4 in Westmoreland.

Betty-Ann Blaine, the convenor of the group Hear the Children’s Cry, said it’s inappropriate for Dr Lewis to be part of the convention amid the allegations.

[uswe]

Re: call for boycott of di pastor whe deh pon chrg convention

who wants to lay a wager that the so called &quot;Gathering of the Prohets&quot; will be packed to the rafters?
There will no shortage of people who can't wait to hear the word of &quot;God&quot; uttered from the mouth of the alleged paedophile.

[uswe]

Re: call for boycott of di pastor whe deh pon chrg convention

Just heard that he will not now be preaching at the event.

[evanovitch]

Lewis removed from women's conference

Lewis removed from women's conference
Friday, 14 August 2009
Reverend Paul Lewis who is facing sex abuse charges has been removed from the roster of speakers for this weekend's Dove Ministries sponsored women's conference.

In a statement, Dove Ministries International said the <span style="font-weight: bold">reverend has decided </span>not to preach in light of the allegations against him.

The meetings will be held at the Merl Grove High School Auditorium in Kingston between Friday and Sunday as well as Montego Bay, St. James from August 19 to 21.

The statement noted that the meetings were planned before the allegations and would have been difficult to cancel.

According to Dove Ministries, the meetings will continue with other scheduled speakers.

Reverend Lewis, a Jamaican-born American evangelist, is due to face the court on September 4 to answer the charge of sexually assaulting two teenaged girls in a Westmoreland hotel.

[kia027]

Re: Lewis removed from women's conference

what a way jamaica a distance demselves from claiming this guy eh?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Reverend Lewis, a Jamaican-born American evangelist</div></div>

and yes he needs to lay low in shame minimally

[evanovitch]

Be wise as serpents, harmless as doves


Be wise as serpents, harmless as doves



Sunday, August 16, 2009

The Reverend Paul Lewis may well be, as many have been arguing, innocent of the allegations that he sexually molested two minors during the course of an evangelical mission here earlier this year.

Indeed he is - at least from a purely legal perspective - presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

However, we shudder to think what Dove International Ministries, organisers of the religious convention scheduled to take place in Kingston and St James between yesterday and next week, were contemplating in keeping him on the line-up of speakers till the very last minute.

According to yesterday's edition, &quot;the sponsors, wilting under mounting public outcry, announced hours before the 6:00 pm start of the event that Lewis had been pulled&quot;.

Given the fact that Mr Lewis is currently on $1 million bail and island arrest - so to speak - pending the disposal of the case which is due to come up in court in September 4, did they really think he made for an appropriate representative of the message they are promoting?

Was there no one within the camp who saw things from the public's perspective?

Let's face it. We are living in cynical times which demand the utmost transparency from those who seek to lead and represent.

Even when said individuals present a squeaky clean exterior, they still - being flawed humans like the rest of us - aren't above question.

How much more a man who compromised himself in the way Mr Lewis has?

The Bible juxtaposes the need to be as wise as serpents and harmless as doves with good reason.

For it is axiomatic that when it comes to the business of leading by example, image is everything. And without imputing guilt in any way whatsoever to Mr Lewis, we feel justified to opine that the image he has portrayed of himself in connection with this scandal so far, is not a pretty one.

As a purported man of the cloth, he should have stepped down as soon as the proverbial fan got hit. That would have been the decent, unselfish thing to do and it would have brought much more goodwill in the court of public opinion where things like this really matter, than his stubborn bid to stay on the show did.

We use the word show because that's how the organisers portrayed the convention with their explanation as to why Mr Lewis was not pulled earlier.

&quot;The meetings were planned prior to the allegations and would have proved difficult to cancel. Dove Ministries regrets that the advertisement issued was not amended earlier, and apologies to all. The meetings will proceed, however, with the other speakers, as was planned.&quot;
Disgraceful!

Having failed to do the principled thing from the get-go, the organisers - or whoever is advising them - didn't think it fit to give the public an unqualified apology.

No, they had to spoil it with a spurious explanation that pointed to a lack of sincerity at best and a brazen display of selfishness at worst.

We're particularly disappointed in the way things proceeded on this one, because we feel sure that the convention has much to recommend it by way of substance from the mouths of the other speakers.

And we're sure that the reasonable among us will look past this scandal and give the event a listening ear for what it's worth.

Unfortunately, we can't speak as confidently for the unreasonable, the cynical, the faction that would stand most to benefit from this endeavour.

[evanovitch]

Innocent until proven guilty says Umbrella Church Group


Church Umbrella Groups in Jamaica have joined associations commenting on the Dove Ministries sponsored women's conference, which should have featured Jamaican-born preacher Reverend Dr. Paul Lewis.

Reverend Lewis, who is before the courts on sexual offence charges, had originally been listed as a speaker but following concerns raised late last week, he withdrew.

According to the group, which comprises the major church organizations in the country, while it is aware of the serious nature of the charges, it supports the principle of law that one is considered innocent until proven guilty and it therefore awaits the court process.

However, it noted that based on the public's concern that the organizers were being insensitivity, Dr. Lewis will not be speaking at the event.

The group urged the organizers to reconsider the content of the advertisement for the event as it could mislead the public.

The meetings which started on Friday at the Merl Grove High School Auditorium in St. Andrew end Sunday and will move to Montego Bay, St. James from August 19 to 21.

[evanovitch]

Questions for the Gathering of Prophets

Questions for the Gathering of Prophets

HEART TO HEART

With Betty Ann Blaine

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Dear Reader, This past week my own organisation, Hear The Children's Cry, was forced to call for a boycott of a conference dubbed, 'The Gathering of Prophets Conference', in light of the fact that the host and the obvious &quot;main attraction&quot; was going to be Reverend Paul Lewis, the very same man who is now on sex charges here in Jamaica.

According to a recent media report, Lewis, based in Brooklyn, United States, spent several days in the Savanna-la-Mar police station lock-up after being charged with sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl.

The report continued, &quot;Allegations against the pastor are that in June he met the 15-year-old at a convention in Little London, Westmoreland, where he was a guest preacher. He reportedly exchanged telephone numbers with the girl and, in a subsequent meeting, took her and a 14-year-old female companion with him on a trip to Clarendon.&quot;

It went on to say that, &quot;On their return to Westmoreland, the girls stayed with him at his Negril hotel. It was during that night that the alleged sexual encounter took place as her companion watched.

Persons became suspicious when they saw the pastor with the girls and alerted the police. Lewis was subsequently arrested and charged based on statements from the girls.&quot;

In a press release, Hear The Children's Cry expressed &quot;shock and disbelief that the accused could be allowed to go ahead with the high-profile hosting of a Christian conference while facing charges of such a heinous nature&quot;. In that same release the question was asked, &quot;What kind of blatant disregard is this for the welfare of our children?&quot;

The children's advocacy group further stated that, &quot;Attending this event, whether in Kingston or Montego Bay, under these circumstances, is tantamount to saying one does not care about the welfare of Jamaican children or the value of our child protection laws.&quot;

Even before the boycott was demanded, public opinion had been mounting against the &quot;overt&quot; manner in which the accused was advertising himself and his conference. A plethora of television as well as newspaper ads began hitting the public space with such frequency that people began to take note and the calls began to flood talk radio questioning the appropriateness of the promotion and the event itself.

People were asking how was it that a pastor on a $1 million bail, and charged with carnal abuse and indecent assault involving a 14- and 15-year-old, could be featuring so prominently in the media, especially marketing a Christian conference?

By midday Friday past, and under intense pressure, a statement was issued by the organisers, Dove Ministries International Jamaica, informing the public that Rev Paul Lewis would be pulled from the roster of speakers at the conference. For Hear The Children's Cry a victory had been won.

The children's lobby group is still asking, &quot;What exactly is Paul Lewis' role, and will he be speaking in the second leg of the conference this week?&quot;
The persona of Lewis aside, what is equally astounding is that the Jamaican churches by and large remained silent on the matter until public pressure intensified. Actually it's worse than that. I'm told that even now there are local churches that continue to support the accused sexual offender's public appearances. Some of the church folk have been stressing the point that a person is innocent until proven guilty. To that we say yes, we understand that to be so, and we're not pronouncing the man guilty.

What we are saying, instead, is that with the serious and damning charges hanging over his head, and as a 'man of the cloth', we expect Paul Lewis to be less flamboyant. If nothing else, Paul Lewis has a moral obligation to appear humble about the charges against him.

There is no doubt in my mind that the saga of Paul Lewis has brought the church in general, and the Jamaican church in particular, into question and sharp focus. I am puzzled as to how a star-studded slate of prophets and prohetesses from overseas could have been satisfied with appearing alongside a man on sex charges involving minors. Could any of them claim ignorance when the story had been plastered all over the local and overseas media, including the Internet?

But even more shameful are those local churches which, we're told, partnered and sponsored the event, knowing full well of the case. How is it that they never saw anything wrong in promoting Paul Lewis as the main attraction? And to use the excuse that the promotion had been planned long before, is even more embarrassing. Are the organisers telling us that from the time that Paul Lewis was arrested and charged and now, over eight weeks altogether, that they did not have sufficient time to pull him from the event and make the necessary adjustments?

<span style="font-weight: bold">I suggest that some of those in the Christian community heed the words of the prophet Malachi who, in the Bible, declared, &quot;It is you, O priests, who show contempt for my name. But you ask, 'How have we shown contempt for your name?' - You place defiled food on my altar... Then you shall again discern between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve Him.&quot;</span>
With love,
[email protected]

[Derek]

Re: call for boycott of di pastor whe deh pon chrg conventio

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: evanovitch</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><span style="font-weight: bold">Gathering of the Prophets. </span> </div></div>

Sure they don't mean Gathering of the Profits?

[evanovitch]

Re: call for boycott of di pastor whe deh pon chrg conventio