7 News Belize

Church Senator Selection Under Scrutiny
posted (November 13, 2015)
And while those ministers work out their executive office politics - the Council of Churches has its own internal politics to deal with. As you saw earlier, Reverend Ashley Rocke is the new Senator for the Churches. But some church leaders say his selection for that post is illegitimate because he was not selected by a sufficiently wide cross section of churches. That's because Pastor Howell Longsworth who is the president of B-A-E-C has - depending on who you listen to - either expelled or dis-invited out district churches loyal to Pastor Scott Stirm. That leaves Stirm and his loyalists saying that a small group of Belize City church leaders excluded 30 national executive members and 200 plus churches so they could get their Senator. We asked Senator Rocke about it today:...

Jules Vasquez
"10 churches hijack what 200 plus churches should have decided and the suggestion is that you are an illegitimate choice, because they didn't have input of the whole cross section of Christian churches. What's your response to that?"

Hon. Ashley Rocke, Senator for Churches
"I am not aware of that. What I do know is that the Evangelical Association of Belize is a legally registered organization and the people who represent it were the ones who decided on my choice - me as the choice. I am not concern about it. I believe that the issue that is before us, while it's a grave one, it's not a undoable situation where we can sit down and work out the differences that is surrounding us. One of the things that as a Christian and as a part of the Christian community, my responsibility is to make sure there is peace among us and be it as it may, if there is no intention for peace, I don't know what will happen, but my thing is peace. I hope that we will peacefully settle this matter."

Stirm and his group promised a press release but none has been forthcoming.

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