The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

AM I the only one who is waiting for a response from the Christian community or its leaders on the remarks made by the Honourable Alfred Virginias Gray when he expressed our “need”  of  the Chinese investors in language that surprised many of us.

This “outburst” could be expected of many other  sitting MP’s, but Mr Gray has a particular qualification as a supposedly card-carrying Christian who hails from a Family Island where people know it means to express their need of God and not man.

He added fuel to the fire because the Chinese Government and its leaders have shown an historical disinterest in “the things of God”. They worship “many deities” unlike us who worship just One; and even this fact brings up the issue of why the Bahamas is so closely tied to China if we claim to be who we say we are.

Perhaps we should be demanding some answers or at least a response from the current leadership of the Progressive Liberal Party who seem reluctant to question their own involvement with the People’s Republic of China. Why do I say question? When we   shout “PLP all the way”, not too many Bahamians know where the “All the way” slogan comes from. It is lifted from Deuteronomy 8:2. The larger part of the verse states that, “All the way the Lord shall lead us”. 

Has the Lord led this nation or the current leadership into such an intimate relationship with a nation that has set up restrictions on its own people serving the One true God? Maybe we need a statement from the Bahamas Christian Council in this regard also.

It seems like our politicians have forgotten who God is.

They give Him lip service by going to Churches, concerts, funerals, speaking at conventions and giving Crown land to Pastors, and, many Pastors are not far behind with their tendency to speak to their Members of Parliament before they speak to God, but they may just be exercising their faith in the object of their belief.  Their political leaders have told them that “they have to come through them anyway”. The late Paul Adderley once warned the “man of God” to be careful about how he went about doing his duty in the country when it comes  into the political arena, but we forget that if it were not for the “man of God”, the PLP would have never come to prominence.

The fact that the party turned its back on these Church leaders  seems to have been forgotten by some of the present Church leadership. Maybe the spokesman was right during the Carlton Elijah Francis saga when he reminded the then Prime Minister that Francis was speaking for himself, when Francis stood alone on the Gambling issue. The PLP had promised to let the current licenses expire as we went into nationhood after 1973.

My concern right now is how is God going to respond? Is He going to show up or is He just going to let this all slide? I have had some strange thoughts of Baha Mar sliding into the sea or the new Republican administration taking exception to such a large entity owned by the People’s Republic of China just off their eastern seaboard; but regardless of what happens it is safe to say that we are really in it now.

EDWARD HUTCHESON    

Nassau,

November 14, 2016.