Clement Gayle Candour, Consistency and Commitment

 

United Theological College of the West Indies

On March 5, 1927, Clement Hugh Lester Gayle was born in Cave Mountain in the civil parish of Westmoreland. As a child, he attended the Grace Hill Baptist Church where he received his early spiritual formation. He received his early education at the Kentucky Elementary School, where he passed the Jamaica Local Examinations.

Gayle’s initial formation for pastoral ministry was at the Calabar Theological College, whose beginnings are traceable to 1843 in what appeared, at first, an insignificant ministerial training project initiated by Baptists of Jamaica at the Hanover Street Baptist Church in Kingston. In 1966, the Calabar College was united with Union Theological College and St. Peter’s College to form the United Theological College of the West Indies.

Gayle’s achievements leading to graduation from Calabar College in 1954 signalled the likelihood of the Jamaican church community benefiting from the contribution of one who would combine interest and scholarship in Church History and Worship for the benefit of both church and society. Clement Gayle became a formidable contributor to the cultivation in many ministerial students of an acute sense of the importance of the history of the church in the Caribbean and beyond.

Gayle’s love of history was cradled in his years at Calabar College where he was exposed to writings of his fellow Jamaica Baptists who took time to reflect on the history of the Jamaica Baptist movement and to publish their findings. These writers included R. A. L. Knight (1924), George Edward Henderson (1931), John T. Dillon (1938), Daniel Allen (1949), and David A. Morgan (c. 1949). Gayle was also familiar with the numerous works on the Baptist movement in Jamaica by British Baptist missionaries who served in Jamaica during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries – for example, James Phillippo, P. H. Cornford, John Clarke, Walter Dendy (1865); Philip Williams (1914); Leonard Tucker (1915); and Ernest Price (1930).

Gayle undertook studies as an external student at the University of London, at Union Theological Seminary in New York and at Colgate Rochester Divinity School, one of the oldest theological education institutions run by Baptists in USA.

During his enrolment in the post graduate programme at Colgate Rochester – now Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School, Gayle knew that that university housed the extensive Archives of the American Baptist Historical Society, now available at Mercer University’s Cecil B. Day Campus in Atlanta, Georgia. While a student at Rochester, Gayle took the opportunity to scour the Archives in search of historical information on the subject he addressed in the dissertation he presented in 1973 with the title, The Church and Slavery in Jamaica.

Clement Gayle

It surprises no one familiar with his background that Gayle’s lasting scholarly contribution is connected to his elevation of George Liele, a formerly enslaved African American, to a place of distinction in the history of international Baptist Christian mission. Liele planted Baptist witness in Jamaica in 1783, fully ten years before Englishman William Carey preached the Gospel in India and earned among Baptists the title of “father of Baptist missions.” In 1983, when the Jamaica Baptist Union (JBU) was marking the bicentenary of Baptist witness in Jamaica, JBU published Gayle’s book entitled, George Liele: Pioneer Missionary to Jamaica. The influence of this work is entirely out of proportion to its small size. Gayle’s book triggered the development of a vast literary corpus as people increasingly realized George Liele’s significance in international missional terms.

Gayle’s academic scholarship was primarily as a church historian. Vocationally, however, he understood himself to be a minister of the Gospel. Gayle served as pastor of groups of churches in the civil parishes of St Catherine and St Ann and as moderator of the New Haven Baptist Church in St Andrew. His outstanding contribution to the JBU includes his service as President, 1966-1968 and as Baptist Warden/Tutor at United Theological College of the West Indies (UTCWI) from 1975 to 1991.

 

Gayle’s pastoral experience taught him the important function of corporate worship in the formation of Christian character and the sustenance of the vitality of Christian community life. His conviction that locally-produced liturgical material is needed as an aid to those in pastoral service led him to produce a Manual for Ministers and Church Leaders and a Worship Handbook, both of which are still in use today.

Gayle’s overall stewardship includes his contribution as a Vice President and a teacher of Church History and Homiletics at UTCWI. In 1983, Gayle joined Methodist minister, biblical scholar and outstanding preacher William Watty, in producing, The Caribbean Pulpit: An Anthology. According to the editors, the publication documents “what congregations are actually hearing (or forbearing) from pulpits in the Caribbean…. It provides examples for those who are called to preach of what to do and what to avoid.”  It also provides “an idea of how the pulpit is responding to the contemporary situation.” The volume features sermons by fourteen preachers from eight Christian communions in seven Caribbean countries.

While he was pastor of the Zion Hill circuit in St Andrew, from 1954 - 1959, Clement Gayle and Ruby Perry got married at the East Queen Street Baptist Church where Rubye was a member. In his wife,  Gayle found a strong supporter of his ministry which saw him serving also in the following  circuits of Baptist churches – St. Ann’s Bay in St Ann, 1959-1975,  and the New Haven Church in St Andrew, where he was Moderator. After completing his tenure at UTCWI, he offered service as pastor of the Walkerswood Baptist circuit in St Ann from 1991-1998,  and, after retirement in 1999, he became a member of the Ocho Rios Baptist Church.

In 2020, when he died, Gayle left a legacy worthy of Christians who are serious about their stewardship in God’s service.

 

Three common strands threaded through the several tributes, remembrance and sermon at the thanksgiving service for the life of the late Clement Gayle. They were his candor tempered with mindfulness; his consistency and depth of Christian character; and his commitment to selfless service.

 

The service, moderated by the president of the Jamaica Baptist Union, Rev. Norva Rodney, was held on Saturday, June 27, 2020, at the Ocho Rios Baptist Church.

 

Offering the tribute on behalf of the JBU, General Secretary Karl B Johnson chronicled the over 44 years of service given by Gayle as an ordained minister of the JBU, underscoring his critical leadership roles as Baptist Warden/Tutor at the United Theological College of the West Indies (UTCWI); two terms as JBU president, service in the pastorate and in several other ministries.

 

Rev Johnson also spoke of Gayle’s unmistakable love for the Church, declaring that “he riveted in us the need to respect and serve the people whose sacrificial giving afforded us the opportunity of a first-class education. He impressed upon us the need to respect our institutions, traditions and those who represented them while being fearless in defending our convictions.” “Rev Gayle” he said, was “a model of sober judgement and unswerving conscientiousness. Virtues such as discipline, reliability and Christian loyalty were but some of the hallmarks of his character. He viewed frank and honest speaking as critical and many only learned to appreciate that in hindsight,” Johnson said.

 

Difference-making ecumenist

 

In his tribute on behalf of UTCWI, Rev Dr Oral Thomas, president of the College, told attendees that Gayle distinguished himself as a revered tutor and a Caribbean ecumenist, even while maintaining the principles and beliefs of his own denomination. Thomas shared stories of how Rev Gayle exercised care and protection of those under his supervision, especially in sensitive situations.

 

On behalf of Ocho Rios Baptist Church, Deacon Linton Francis pointed to the difference Gayle made in people’s lives locally and internationally. He described Gayle as “a reference for Christian living, a stickler for discipline and punctuality; always available as a teacher, preacher and trainer.”

 

Lover of God and family

 

Dr Vilma Davis, Gayle’s niece added that not only was her uncle a stickler for punctuality, but he was also a no-nonsense, straightforward person whom they all revered as their hero; one who had “carved and carefully tended to the legacy” he wanted to leave for his family.

 

Gayle’s adopted son, Clement Jr., stated that he wanted the world to remember his father as “a pastor, counsellor, author, educator; a no-nonsense but compassionate person, forgiving and generous… full of wisdom and seeing beyond the surface; loving husband and lover of family and a community person; committed servant of God, labouring in the vineyard and pointing souls to repentance and the acceptance of Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour.”

 

In his sermon, inimitable retired JBU pastor, the Rev Dr Burchel Taylor used Rev Gayle’s life as the hermeneutical lens through which to interpret John 15: 15 & 16. According to the preacher, a life called into the service of God is a life of service with a difference. Taylor stressed that Gayle’s life was a practical example of this principle; but not only that, the preacher asserted that Gayle’s life was an interpretation of biblical teachings that have been made “more comprehensible, practical, impactful and more compellingly challenging to all Christians…” He further opined that many had derived and would continue to receive invaluable blessings and benefits from Rev Gayle’s life.

 

In 2020, when he died, Gayle left a legacy worthy of Christians who are serious about their stewardship in God’s service. Gayle was the consummate Christian steward.