The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

Pride Bahamas organiser Alexus D’Marco told the two major dailies that her organisation’s LGBTQI+Pride 2020 will go on as planned, albeit virtually, due to the social distancing requirements brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.

One of the topics to be discussed will be “LGBTQI+ social interaction and church and spirituality.” D’Marco spoke about reaching out to the Bahamas Christian Council with the aim of starting a dialogue concerning homosexuals in the congregations of Christian Council members.

The Christian Council acts as the de facto mouthpiece of the entire Bahamian Christian community, although many of the congregations throughout the country are acephalous, from a denominational standpoint at least.

All of the views expressed by that body are not necessarily those of the entire church. Having said that, I see no point in engaging D’Marco and other Pride Bahamas officials in a dialogue, unless they’re willing to reform by submitting to the biblical injunctions regarding human sexuality. Until then, the chasm between the Bahamas Christian Council and Pride Bahamas will remain unbridgeable.

Like Martin Luther at the Diet of Worms in 1521, the conscience of the Christian Council is to be captive to the Word of God. Homosexual intercourse between consenting adults was legalized in The Bahamas in 1991. Consequently, the LGBTQI community is well within its so-called constitutional rights to transgress the biblical laws against homosexuality, with eternal ramifications after death. The church is not attempting to replace our Westminster system of parliamentary government with a theocracy. What we are attempting to do is to permeate all facets of Bahamian society with the gospel of Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. The Bahamian Constitution gives us the right to openly express our faith, which also entails voicing opposition to any behaviour or practice condemned by the Scriptures.

While Christians must honour the King (1 Peter 1:17) by submitting to him (1 Peter 2:13-14; Romans 13:1-7), we must follow the example of the early church in Acts 5:29 by not subverting biblical law by obeying man-made laws.

First Corinthians 6:9-10 reads: “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.” Romans 1 :26-27 says: “For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections; for even their women did change the natural use into that which goes against nature. And likewise the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet.”

The foregoing New Testament passages are just one of the reasons why the Christian Council cannot entertain any thoughts of either capitulating to or compromising with D’Marco and Pride Bahamas. Both passages are unambiguous in their condemnation of homosexuality. For example, in the Corinthians passage, the English word effeminate comes from the Greek word malakos, which means soft. The idea here is that men are supposed to be masculine, not feminine. The Greek word for abusers is arsenokoites. This word was also used in 1 Timothy 1:10 in reference to homosexuals. The Bible considers same-sex activity to be physically and psychologically detrimental to its practitioners, as has been confirmed by the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention. In closing, it would be remiss of me if I do not state the fact that I intentionally quoted from the King James Bible. LGBTQI apologists have repeated the centuries-old lie of King James being a closet homosexual. This is untrue. King James has been dead now for 395 years. He is not here to defend himself.

King James I was Scottish. His ethnicity was frowned upon by the British, much the same way xenophobic Bahamians look down on Haitians. When James ascended the English throne in 1603, it angered many in England, including one Anthony Weldon, who was fired by the King in 1617 for his racist attacks on the Scottish people in his A Perfect Description of the People and Country of Scotland. It was Weldon who first alleged that King James was gay, without any ironclad evidence to back up his claim. People have simply echoed Weldon’s lie, as a way of attempting to discredit the Bible. But even if King James was gay, that would have no bearing on the divine status of the Bible. We must bear in mind that the King James Bible was translated by 47 Protestant Bible scholars, not King James. In any event, I would hope that D’Marco appreciates the Christian Council’s unwillingness to dialogue. Concerning the matter of homosexuality, there can be no compromise.

KEVIN EVANS

Freeport, Grand Bahama,

September 29, 2020.