Thusians extend best wishes of God’s love

Tue, Jan 10. 2012

Editor: We, the members of the Thusian Institute for Religious Liberty Inc., extend wishes of God’s love to you for a happy and safe 2012.

May this love help you to have a greater appreciation for the inalienable rights and freedoms with which God has created you – The Right to Religious Liberty, the Right to Life and the Right to private property.{{more}}

Let it not be a mere tradition of “ringing in the new year” with pleasant wishes after church at midnight (on December 31) or when the fireworks go up or as you travel along the streets on New Year’s Day and the days that follow. How sincere is it to wish your neighbour a happy new year, but you wait until a couple nights later when you know that he or she is asleep, break in and stab him or her to death? OR You wish your employees or subordinates a happy new year, but should one of them dare challenge a wrong decision that you made – he or she is fired or transferred. Can these actions cause anyone to be happy?

It is respect for rights and the freedoms that come with them, that brings about the safety and happiness we enjoy day by day, week after week, month after month and certainly year after year. So, for 2012, let your actions really prove your words to be genuine when you say “Happy New Year.” Respect your neighbour’s freedom of thought, belief, opinion, conscience, choice, expression, speech and movement, like you’ve never done before.

In so doing, you will do no harm to your neighbour, which is proven in Romans 13: 10 “Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.”

These principles, though simple, are the recipe for a happy society; the ideal for a fair country. For 2012, let our hills and vales beam with a people who love and respect the rights and freedoms of the crowning act of God’s creation – human beings. These are the principles which, if applied by all, will put an end to the shootings, stabbings, ‘chopping-up’, rapes and robberies which tainted the memories of 2011.

For 2012, let us make the knowledge of rights and freedoms the foundation of a truly free and happy St Vincent and the Grenadines. Let us apply this in greater measures to bring about more rights-friendly business practices, a rights-sensitive education system, rights-based medical standards, rights-based economic policies, rights-sensitive environmental relations, higher levels of civility in our society, higher levels of social and religious tolerance, mutual respectful interpersonal relations, and effective systems and standards of justice for the benefit of all of us.

May God help you to put these principles into action; and remember to love your neighbour as yourself, respect his rights for 2012.

Thusian Institute for Religious Liberty Inc.