MIRACLE WATER

(Published on April 7, 2006 in The Nassau Guardian's special supplement on religion, "A Measure of Faith in The Bahamas")

Copyright ã by Christian Campbell

In August 2005, Bishop Lawrence Rolle of The International Deliverance Praying Ministry, better known as “The Singing Prophet,” announced to the Bahamian public that God instructed him in a vision to pray over bottles of water that would heal people of illness. This water which, according to Mindell Small in The Nassau Guardian, included 12 ounce bottles of “Crystal Select, Arctic, Zephyrhills, Aquapure and Chelsea's Choice. . .” (“‘Dead Man’ Report Fiasco,” September 9, 2005) was sold for $5, $2 or $1 depending on your source of information. And this was at least part of the problem— the wildfire ‘storyin’ about the details of the Miracle Water incident. As Small reports, Rolle boldly proclaimed the miracles as if they were modern-day parables: “A man testified that a brain tumour, as big as a chicken egg, disappeared out of his head. A girl had a slipped shoulder disc and couldn't lift her arm and was crying in pain. The power of the Lord came down and they were healed.”

In a press release sent by the Golden Gates World Outreach Ministries and signed by its senior pastor, Ros Davis, it was alleged that a man was raised, Lazarus-style, from the dead after being anointed with Rolle’s Miracle Water. According to Small, this report was completely inaccurate: “Bishop Rolle admitted that the information he received on the incident was second hand as he did not see the man on the street, nor was he at the hospital where the anointing reportedly took place.” Davis gave the same confession. After the deluge of Miracle Water had covered The Bahamas, Rolle (and Davis, by association) lost all credibility when it was revealed that they were relaying sensationalised misinformation. Many accused them of being charlatans, televangelist-style ‘false preachers’ primarily interested in status and financial gain. On September 18, 2005, Bahamasuncensored.com reported that “Bishop Lawrence Rolle, the so-called Singing Prophet, has now confessed that he made some $50,000 so far on his holy water.” Rolle’s justification to the media was that the proceeds from the water were donated to the poor. How is it that Rolle could be at once the laughingstock of The Bahamas and a “Christ Figure” for thousands of Bahamians seeking out his Miracle Water? More than the drama of the incident in and of itself, the complexities and contradictions of the “Miracle Water” fiasco allow me to attend to the intersections of religion, power, social relations and culture in Bahamian society.

A recent commercial to promote national pride features a classroom of schoolchildren, who appear to be about 6 years old, declaring what is unique and beautiful about The Bahamas. After the obligatory excitement about our ‘sun, sand and sea’ and (gasp!) our culture, a little girl explains, almost in the voice of a preacher, “We are a CHRISTIAN nation!” And finally the whole class shouts, “The Bahamas is the best country in the WORLD!” From so-high to old-and-gray, Bahamians have an acute awareness of the centrality of Christianity to Bahamian society. Judeo-Christian values and codes of conduct permeate every aspect of Bahamian life. The preacher and the politician, who borrows the rhetorical mode of the preacher, have the most powerful voices in this society. More specifically, a certain brand of Christianity, Christian fundamentalism, is the most pervasive ideology and public discourse in The Bahamas. That is, I am distinguishing between Christianity generally and fundamentalism, which shapes the dominant religious discourse, institutions and figures in The Bahamas. I understand Christian fundamentalism in The Bahamas as having to do with the fundamental infallibility of the Bible; it is a document that should be taken literally and as law, as opposed to seeing it as a spiritual-historical text that requires contextual interpretation. Christian fundamentalism prioritises evangelism, though in The Bahamas the work of spreading the Gospel often becomes authoritarian in its consistent intervention into formal political processes. Christian fundamentalism is also anti-intellectual in that it views faith, not as an ongoing process of reasoning and spiritual development, but as an unchallengeable dogma, a state of sanctimonious perfection, a finished process.

Christianity is so complex, particularly for people of African descent, because while it has historically been one of the primary tools of our oppression, it has also become a source of resistance and renewal. But what is important for us in this moment (and here I mean all Bahamians of all races) is to distinguish the ways in which Christianity can be and has been oppressive. In The Bahamas, the Christian Church (represented by ‘dominant Christianity,’ its most powerful figures and institutions), the Government and the United States of America (as neo-coloniser) make up a kind of trinity of the power structure. In The Bahamas, dominant Christianity effectively works in concert with formal politics, tourism and (neo-)colonial values particularly because it demands obedience from Bahamian people; authority should not be challenged and the power structure should not be questioned.

As the Miracle Water fiasco illustrates, faith in the context of dominant Christianity has more to do with self-deception than anything else, rooted in a ‘What you don’t know can’t hurt you’ mentality. We believe what we need to believe. If it sounds good or looks good, it is unquestionably good. Artifice matters most, which points very directly to our aspirations and, more so, to our desperation. It is as though we create a kind of mirage of the world that we want and shun anything that challenges or complicates that image. The abundance of “flam artists” (with fake degrees, for instance) in the Church and in The Bahamas generally is a case in point. It’s almost as though we value artifice so much and are so desperate that, as a Bahamian explained to me, we will patronise the more elaborate frauds, even when we suspect that we are being duped.

Again, we believe what we need to believe. If we need to deceive ourselves into thinking The Bahamas is a Christian nation, that we are a rich country, that we aren’t a part of the Caribbean, that America cares about us, that those Bahamians that identify as ‘white’ have no African ancestry, that there are not many gay and lesbian Bahamians, that many of us do not have Haitian ancestry and so on, we will do so. If we need to believe that a bottle of Chelsea’s Choice water will fix all of our problems without any work on our part, we will do so. If we need to believe that a newly-minted Bahamian millionaire will pay off our mortgage and other bills, we will do so. We are such a desperate people.

Another problem with dominant Christianity in The Bahamas is that it encourages a surrendering of individual responsibility. Do we only pray that God will take care of it or do we pray and use our will and divine gifts to address our many challenges? We have a serious messianic complex when it comes to leadership. We give our pastors too much power. But most of all we give politicians too much power. And this is certainly a Pan-Caribbean problem. Think of the Biblical names that we bestow on them—Pindling became Moses, Manley became Joshua, etc. When will we realise that they will not and cannot save us? Not Ping, not Perry, not Portia, not Panday. The ominous return of Hubiggity will not save us. They are humans and, in fact, public servants. Sustainable social transformation can only come from communities of people that hold themselves and each other accountable for their given community.

The anti-intellectualism and artifice of dominant Christianity indeed shapes public discourse generally. The language of the Church has become a rhetorical trump card, particularly for politicians. If we say ‘pray’ or ‘Jesus’ or ‘Christian nation,’ then our arguments will fly no matter what we say. In fact, they will become unchallengeable. The words of the little girl in the commercial are no accident; our national motto is actually “We are a Christian nation.” This statement, a reiteration of the power of this religion, completely disavows and miraculously erases the numbers of Bahamian Rastafarians, Jews, Hindus, Muslims and so on. In the discourse of ‘dominant Christianity,’ they disappear, POOF, into thin air.

Dominant Christianity is so powerful in The Bahamas that most politicians campaign within certain churches. Moreover, the Bahamas Christian Council has become a frightening entity that operates like an apparatus of the State and as the voice of the people. The Bahamas Christian Council, our very own ‘Morality Militia,’ speaks from a place of self-righteousness, supremacy and deep hypocrisy. It is an actual and obvious manifestation of the way in which dominant Christianity serves as a kind of disciplinary order and fuels the conservative politics of Bahamian governments. The recent banning of the film, Brokeback Mountain, by the Bahamian Plays and Films Control Board under recommendation from the Christian Council is also a horrifying and dangerous example of the power of dominant Christianity in The Bahamas. Only in non-democratic dictatorships can an organisation so blatantly violate the rights and freedoms of an entire people.

Indeed, the miracle that we need is not in the quick fix of prayed-over Aquapure. It is in coming to terms with our complex realities and using the divine gift of will, and more specifically our critical faculties, to make powerful choices in the world. That amazing grace, the miracle of the power we have been given, the miracle of our own possibilities, is what will help us to begin to see.