Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves has knocked some persons in the pulpit for trying to turn churches into places of entertainment.

He said in NBC Radio last Wednesday, December 28 that the church has a vital role to play in spreading the Gospel and helping to uphold treasured values in Vincentian society.

However, rather than preaching the good news of salvation, Gonsalves chided some religious leaders for using the pulpit to gain “cheap popularity.”

These leaders, he observed, are also the ones who are “trying to turn the church into a place of entertainment.

“Sometimes I go to a church and I hear a pastor, or somebody who is leading say, ‘make some noise’.

Well I hear the places of entertainment- the soca artiste say that,” Gonsalves remarked.

“In the church, they say make some noise, and then the next part of it is-for the Lord, they added for the Lord.

“Some churches, or some pastors in some churches, they think that the church, the pulpit is a locale for generating entertainment rather than spiritual upliftment,” the Prime Minister said.
While acknowledging that God has to be celebrated, the Prime Minister insisted that this form of celebration “has to be spiritual,” and should not “degenerate into entertainment by another name.”

Not all religious leaders are guilty of this transgression, as the prime minister pointed out that “there are overwhelmingly very good solid pastors, preachers, priests, and so too, churches.”

Gonsalves said there is a greater proliferation of churches “now, than at any time in our history” but wondered that with the many ills in our society today whether “ the church is seeming to have less influence.”

He therefore made a call for churches to become “self critical in assessing their own role in the community.”