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Gambling addiction
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Dear Editor,
It is very interesting to hear that some Jamaicans who support casino gambling have discovered that they need to establish a counselling department for gamblers who have become addicts. I am very disappointed with some leaders in Jamaica who are not reading widely and fail to realise that South Korea has a chronic problem with regard to gambling.
Research has shown that 12 per cent of problem gamblers in the USA have serious chronic psychological experiences because of gambling addiction. The suicide rate has increased in various counties in Canada, so much so that whenever one occurs the Canadian police visit a casino, first to investigate.
The government in the Netherlands is interested in copying the South Korean model of treating psychotic gamblers. I am not surprised that some church leaders have allowed their "souls" to be "sold" on the altar of casino gambling, because they are now being invited to dine with the new planter class, as they have been seduced by the ideology that wealth is the answer to the plight of the poor. The prophetic voices of some churches have been coerced, enslaved and assimilated.
Therefore, the biblical interpretation is also undermined to suggest that because the word casino (gambling) is not in the Bible, therefore the incorrect stewardship of money ought not to be criticised. This is what I term "bullfrog theology" .
Revd Canon Ernle Gordon
St Mary's Rectory
Cowper Drive
Kingston 20
gordfm@yahoo.com
Gambling addiction
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Dear Editor,
It is very interesting to hear that some Jamaicans who support casino gambling have discovered that they need to establish a counselling department for gamblers who have become addicts. I am very disappointed with some leaders in Jamaica who are not reading widely and fail to realise that South Korea has a chronic problem with regard to gambling.
Research has shown that 12 per cent of problem gamblers in the USA have serious chronic psychological experiences because of gambling addiction. The suicide rate has increased in various counties in Canada, so much so that whenever one occurs the Canadian police visit a casino, first to investigate.
The government in the Netherlands is interested in copying the South Korean model of treating psychotic gamblers. I am not surprised that some church leaders have allowed their "souls" to be "sold" on the altar of casino gambling, because they are now being invited to dine with the new planter class, as they have been seduced by the ideology that wealth is the answer to the plight of the poor. The prophetic voices of some churches have been coerced, enslaved and assimilated.
Therefore, the biblical interpretation is also undermined to suggest that because the word casino (gambling) is not in the Bible, therefore the incorrect stewardship of money ought not to be criticised. This is what I term "bullfrog theology" .
Revd Canon Ernle Gordon
St Mary's Rectory
Cowper Drive
Kingston 20
gordfm@yahoo.com
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