Time to take God out of nat'l anthem

THE EDITOR, Sir:

When it comes to the Olympics, I am a patriotic Jamaican. I am also very careful about the things I utter.

Most national anthems across the world have religious references in them, and we can understand how that was possible. For Jamaica, though, I think it is time that the anthem be amended. It's a nice hymn, but outside of church, it's really meaningless and out of place.

Some might argue that it should remain, and we should just ignore it, but the mention of God in the anthem is not trivial; it has real social and political consequences.

I heard that the governments of Switzerland and a handful of other countries are looking into amending their national anthems from being god-centric, to more neutral ones. I applaud their progress.

The religious demographics of Jamaica are changing rapidly. I hope we will follow these countries and change our anthem soon.

Dwayne Pryce