Motty and his God

Martin Henry, Contributor

Wilmot 'Motty' Perkins, the dropout trainee Anglican priest, is now closer to being able to check his theological reflections against any objective reality of God that might exist or not exist. As humans, we all have theological reflections, and in due course will arrive at Motty's place.

Unfortunately, whatever his findings, Motty, the investigative journalist, won't be able to file any news reports from his new location.

Motty told The Gleaner in an interview republished on Page A2 last Sunday, "I don't know what happens after people die." That professed ignorance does not, of course, affect in the least bit what happens, if anything, after people die. What is certain is that all the contending views of what happens after people die - eternal sleep, sleep until resurrection, reincarnation, off to hell or heaven or nirvana, or wherever else - cannot all be right.

One of the writers in a collection of books that Perkins considers only great literature boldly claims as fact: "... It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment." (Heb 9:27) And a disillusioned wise man in that same collection of books, who had foolishly tried everything and found it vanity, futility, emptiness, falsity, vainglory, drew a substantially different conclusion from the wise man Perkins. The writer of Ecclesiastes calls upon humans to: "Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, including every secret thing, whether it is good or whether it is evil." (Ecc 12:13 & 14)

Contradictory argument

In the dazzling intellectual acrobatics so characteristic of generations of 'wise' guides like Wilmot Perkins, Motty can claim in the course of one interview flatly contradictory things: "I am inclined to be, I hope, a rational person. I deal with what it is possible to know. What I cannot know, I leave alone." And by knowing Motty means scientistic empiricism based purely on natural observation. "I am not in the realm of metaphysics ... . Regarding [the Bible] as the authoritative source of what God has to say, I don't believe that."

But then Motty launched into a theological exposition on the nature, actions, and desires of God which is completely outside his declared incapacity to know some things by the only means of knowing which he is willing to allow: empirical naturalism. His claim, "I think one of the true things is that God created man in his own image", cannot possibly be known by any amount of observation of the Creation.

Motty believes from a line of reasoning based upon his own personal desires that God does not wish to be worshipped. "I would not want to be worshipped ... . It is not a question of whether (God) is worthy of worship. It is a question of whether that is what he wants. I think He is bigger than that. I think if you were to ask Him, He would say it is a colossal waste of time."

To the contrary, not only are normal humans extraordinarily fond of adoration, and often outright worship (sometimes forcing others to worship them, as the later Roman Caesars did), the "thoughtful men" (in Perkins' words) who wrote the Bible insist from Genesis to Revelation that God requests and accepts human worship. How would Motty, often vilified in life, have reacted to the outpouring of near-worshipful adoration in death?

For years I had stopped listening to 'Perkins On Line', not merely out of the inconvenience of listening to work-time talk radio which affects all programmes in the same time slot, or because of disagreements with Motty's theology, but because of the unrelenting negativity and attacks upon anything remotely representing authority. I would only infrequently hear the programme in snatches, and by accident. It was relentlessly consistent in content year after year, week after week, day after day. If you have heard one programme, you have basically heard the storyline of them all. I have often wondered how Motty could remain sane repeating the same basic - and negative - lines ad nauseam.

Journalism has set itself up as the watchdog against the abuse of power, particularly the power of government, but with its own considerable 'power without responsibility' largely exempt. If journalists are watchdogs, Motty was the most rabidly obsessive of watchdogs.

Diet of negativity

Let me immediately concede warm admiration for Motty's monumental intellect, vast learning, and genuine fearlessness. And for his defence of human freedom and dignity, of self-reliance and the value of intelligent work, and his defence of justice, matters on which we stood in one accord. This country owes this journalist and freedom scholar a debt of gratitude as one of a handful of influential Gleaner columnists in the 1970s - The Gleaner left out Morris Cargill in its eulogy last Monday - who resolutely stood against the encroachments of democratic socialism upon the freedoms of the Jamaican people and its negative impact upon the country's economy and society.

But Perkins has made his own distinguished contributions to some of the negatives in Jamaican society. Nobody has done more for longer in media to paint the politician as crook and to subvert reasonable respect for authority.

The media, pursuing their watchdog role, are generally disregardful of the sacrifices and achievements of politicians. Stories like the January 22 Observer's 'Life outside the Cabinet', detailing the challenges of former ministers of government, who have not left office rich from the public purse, to readjust to making a living as private citizens, are rare. In the political climate of Jamaica, a former Cabinet minister and any politician without his or her own business is virtually unemployable after office, except perhaps in academia, if he or she is so qualified.

'Rubbish' as legacy

Motty has been highly and widely praised in death for listening to, empathising with, and defending the 'little man'. Very few have had the honesty and courage to point out his disdainful disregard for legitimate authority which he used his influential talk show to teach the little man and to encourage him in. From his crude designation of the UWI as an intellectual ghetto to his relentless savage attacks upon P.J. Patterson in the office of prime minister, Motty was the supreme compulsive iconoclast. But when all icons are indiscriminately smashed, all that is left is a pile of "rubbish", to redirect one of Motty's favourite invectives.

The simplistic Motty Doctrine had strong anarchistic undertones. Life would be better if we chased the crooks out of office and do government ourselves. His massive sense of freedom and justice was severely undermined by his undermining of lawful authority, a lifelong weakness of character manifested in his school and work history.

Dual calling

That book "written by thoughtful men" urges Christians to pray for, to respect and to be subject to the authorities when they do not demand that believers disobey God, the authorities being ordained of God. Motty repudiated the Christian faith of his youth; but how do 'Christian' journalists, who may be in a clear majority in 'Christian' Jamaica, regard and handle their dual calling?

In my few interactions with Perkins on air, always at his invitation to discuss something I had written, I have found the assessment of his fellow theology student at St Peter's College, Canon Weeville Gordon, to be substantially correct: "Motty believes he is always right. He is never wrong."

Motty would seek to set me up as the fall guy for whatever contrarian discourse he wanted to launch into wielding the Socratic Method, which I also thoroughly understand and know very well how to counter. On one occasion I had to forcefully tell him that if I, as an invited guest, would not be allowed to speak in defence of my own view which was the proposed subject of discussion, I was going to hang up. In a huff, he retorted, "OK, sir, go ahead and say what you want to say." He stopped responding and the 'conversation', which he could no longer control - and twist to his advantage - quickly petered out.

Double life

In one of his more recent programmes, he had my "sensible" views on education reform read out on air (so the producer told me when he called to invite me for another programme on Power 106). When my daughter produced for him as a media intern, she found him off air to be a fatherly and pleasant human being without the media bulldog façade on air. Public actors have their public and private persona. But from all appearances, Motty lived a double life for most of his 80 years.

Brilliant, learned, rational Motty in his wisdom, like so many other sophisticates before him, declared Jesus "a great historical asset", who lies buried in some unmarked grave in Palestine, since the resurrection, he authoritatively declared, is in the "realm of fancy".

C.S. Lewis, that great Christian intellectual and apologist (an Oxbridge professor and an Anglican like Motty started out) and once an atheist, answers in Mere Christianity. Discussing the radical claims that Jesus made about Himself, Lewis went on, "I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God' ... . A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic ... or else he would be the Devil of Hell ... . Let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that option open to us. He did not intend to."

Martin Henry is a communication specialist. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and medhen@gmail.com.