‘Honor Your Father And Your Mother’ -McGill Responds to Hailstorm of Outrage for Building Mother’s Grave

A critical section of the Liberian populace has greeted with extreme anger the burial pictures revealing what appears to be a luxurious mausoleum in which State for President Affairs Minister Nathaniel F. McGill buried his mother recently. Many wondered why an official in a government struggling to improve the lot of the ordinary people in destitution would demonstrate extravagance amid widespread poverty. But the man who is in the center of the criticism, Chief of Office Staff for President George M. Weah has responded unusually calmly and unemotionally to his critics, saying he had to build the mausoleum in adherence to Biblical edict which requires a child to honor his mother and father. He made his rather modest position clear in a Facebook Post over the weekend, as The Analyst reports.

Heavens nearly broke loose recently when video footages spread in the social media world showing the mother of Mr. Nathan F. McGill, Minister of State for Presidential Affairs, being buried in a lavish vault in Margibi County.

A number of citizens have vented their outrage over the ceremonies and the seemingly luxurious mausoleum which they believe is wasteful, extravagant and an affront to poverty-stricken Liberians.

But the Chief of Office Staff to President Weah has kept his cool in amid the vociferous criticism.

While others may have expected a collateral response from him as he had often done, he took to the Facebook and release a message alluding, as a justification of his action, to the Fifth of God’s Ten Commandments which requests children to obey and honor their mother and fathers.

Mr. McGill wrote: “This commandment is so important that it is one of the only commandments in the entire Bible that gives a reason for observing it: “That your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.”

He indicated that many people have read that part of the Fifth Commandment as a reward, and that while it may be regarded as a reward, the fact remains that the reason primarily is that, “If you build a society in which children honor their parents, your society will long survive. And the corollary is: A society in which children do not honor their parents is doomed to self-destruction.”

Mr. McGill further said: “In our time, this connection between honoring parents and maintaining civilization is not widely recognized. On the contrary, many of the best-educated parents do not believe that their children need to show them honor, since ‘honoring’ implies an authority figure, and that is a status many modern parents reject.”

In addition, he further said, “many parents seek to be loved, not honored, by their children. Yet, neither the Ten Commandments nor the Bible elsewhere commands us to love our parents. This is particularly striking given that the Bible commands us to love our neighbor, to love God, and to love the stranger.”

According to him, the Bible understands that there will always be individuals who, for whatever reason, do not love a parent; therefore, it does not demand what may be psychologically or emotionally impossible. But it does demand that we show honor to our parents. And it makes this demand only with regard to parents. There is no one else who the Bible commands us to honor.

“There are many ways to honor parents,” the Minister of State for Presidential Affairs asserted. He added: “The general rule is this: They get special treatment. Parents are unique; so they must be treated in a unique way.

“You don’t talk to them in quite the same way you do anyone else. For example, you might use expletives when speaking to a friend; but you don’t with a parent. You don’t call them by their first name. And when you leave their home and make your own, you maintain contact with them. Having no contact with parents is the opposite of honoring them.”

He said emphatically: “And, yes, we all recognize that some parents have behaved so cruelly — and I mean cruelly, not annoyingly — that one finds it morally impossible to honor to them. There are such cases. But they are rare. And remember this, if your children see you honor your parents, no matter how difficult it may sometimes be, the chances are far greater that they will honor you.”

“I can only thank God for giving me such a loving mother, whom I will forever miss and whom we can never replace. But I also thank the Lord for making me honor her the way I did. Thanks to all those who stood by us as we honored mama. May God bless you all bountifully,” the Minister for State indicated, concluding that “Honor your father and your mother and let the promise of God work for you. Happy Sunday everyone. God bless.”