Pastor John I. Cline in a Facebook live post today, Thursday, August 1, 2024, spoke to the trials and tribulations from enslavement to freedom which is being celebrated today. He however warned that as prosperity is ever increasing for the people, godliness seems to be decreasing. Photo: Facebook

As a people, crime, violence and idleness must not become the norm and something that everyone is comfortable with, Pastor Cline continued. Photo: Team of Reporters

Pastor Cline, in a Facebook live post on Wednesday, July 31, 2024, spoke to the trials and tribulations from enslavement to freedom, which is being celebrated today. He warned; however, that as prosperity is ever-increasing for the people, godliness seems to be decreasing. 

Money won’t solve our problems- Pastor Cline 

He warned his viewers saying, “We think we don’t need God but we need God, money don’t make you happy and money certainly is not going to solve our social problem, our crime problem. We need to go back to our godly ways.”

Pastor Cline also shared the view that many Virgin Islanders are raising families who do not attend church. He said when church becomes “an option for you, it becomes a non-essential for your children and your grandchildren”. 

Children raised without a godly foundation he claimed are being left for the “prison system to raise”.

Bishop Cline's comments come on the heels of recent gun violence in the territory.

Slipping away from being godly, slipping politically

“I want to remind us today that righteousness exalts a nation, the Bible says, but sin is a reproach to any people. Our sinful ways, our ungodly ways, our forsaking God has become a reproach to these Virgin Islands,” Pastor Cline warned. 

He said not only are Virgin Islanders slipping away from their foundation, which is being godly, but are also slipping politically. 

“Partisan politics takes precedence over everything else. People’s party is more important than their religion these days. That’s what happens when election time comes. People you worship with will turn against you just for their party,” Pastor Cline explained. 

These things need to stop, he said as “we were never there”. 

'Cry out to God'

Pastor Cline pleaded for a return to that godly foundation. He said he is not speaking only in his capacity as a Pastor or Bishop but as a “concerned citizen [and] nation builder of these Virgin Islands”.

Pastor Cline also said the next economic strategy, or political party, or next election is not enough to build the nation without rebuilding the godly foundation which is essential to realising the full potential of the VI.

“I am begging to you, for us to cry out to God…and ask him to have mercy. Cry out to him earnestly, cry out to the God of our salvation, the God of our weary years, the God who has brought us a mighty, mighty long way,” he said.