It was with broken hearts that we watched the carnival-like atmosphere of disingenuous statements, fabrications, distortions and deliberate untruths these last two weeks of debate on the gambling bill in the House and Senate.
Irrelevant comments
During the debate, we heard the ungracious and irrelevant comments from Prime Minister Perry Christie that "no religious leader can give him a passport to Heaven". What does going to Heaven have to do with this public debate? Why did the prime minister not instead focus on giving the Bahamian people a credible explanation for ignoring the results of the gambling referendum?
Obnoxious statements
Deputy Prime Minister Philip Brave Davis, on the other hand, inexplicably stooped to the lowest level and tried to cast aspersions on the pastors leading the charge against gambling by questioning whether we had numbers accounts, if we had received money and if the real concern was "whether gambling proceeds make it into the collection plates".
To these obnoxious, repugnant and uncalled-for statements we state again emphatically and categorically that we, individually and collectively, have not and do not have financial dealings with any gambling web shop or operators of gambling web shops. We have publicly called upon the prime minister and his deputy to likewise go on record, as we have, and tell the Bahamian people whether or not they personally and/or their party have received any financial donations or other benefits from any of these gambling web shops or the people who run them. To date, they have been curiously silent. So we now call upon the Bahamian press, the fourth estate, to press the honorable prime minister and his deputy to respond to this reasonable request.
Biblical illiteracy
During the debate, Minister of Education Jerome Fitzgerald said the Bible says nothing about gambling, and in so doing he demonstrated how little he understands about the Bible. Minister Fitzgerald clearly believes that the Bible is some kind of code book, where we can find exact commands for every sinful act that we must not do and every righteous act that we must do; however, the Bible is not such a book.
For example, there is no scripture that specifically says "Thou shall not beat thy wife". However, the Bible gives many positive commands about how husbands are to treat their wives, one being, "Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her". Based on this single positive command, we can conclude that it is wrong for a man to beat his wife.
Similarly, although there is also no scripture that specifically says "Thou shall not gamble," there are many positive biblical commands that call us to love our neighbor, to work for a living and to be content with what we have. Gamblers violate all of these commands because they seek to profit at the expense of their neighbors who must lose in order for them to win (a lack of love), they seek to earn money through chance (rather than work) and they demonstrate discontentment with what they have by their greedy willingness to incur the certain risk of financial loss in order to get a chance of winning much more, despite the fact that the odds against winning are stacked up against them. Therefore, we again say to Minister Fitzgerald, and others who share his view, that the Bible has much to say about gambling - and it is all negative!
Justifying the unjustifiable
It was also shocking and disappointing to hear Mr. Fitzgerald, who in many respects is the chief educator of Bahamian children, say that the operators of the illegal numbers houses are not criminals but businessmen and entrepreneurs. We cry shame on Mr. Fitzgerald because he is well aware that these numbers men are engaged in illegal gambling activities, because if their activities were legal, there would have been no need for the gambling referendum nor a need for his government to pass legislation to legalize their activities. Further, Mr. Fitzgerald knows that one of the numbers men whom he was undoubtedly referring to was convicted of the crime of illegal gambling and had almost $1 million of his gambling assets seized. Therefore, the minister, in an attempt to justify the unjustifiable, is being factually dishonest and he should remember that children are watching and listening. Then he went off the scale with distasteful and irresponsible statements by calling those opposed to the legalizing numbers gambling racist and attempting to keep black men down. We again cry shame on the minister of education for these disgraceful words.
Troubled and disappointed
As believers in Jesus Christ, we were most troubled by and disappointed with Minister Melanie Griffin - a minister in the government and the church, whom many believed would have absented herself from the vote, as she evidently did with the vote on the Value-Added Tax Bill. Yet, to our utter dismay and grief, she voted yes and tried to justify doing so. Minister Griffin's ministry (social services) already feels the effects of irresponsible living, and this reckless act will precipitate the further destruction of many homes that will overwhelm her ministry. Minister Griffin is old enough to know of the horror visited on this country during the reign of the Hobby Horse Racetrack! To our beloved sister in Christ we say that this gambling bill was a principled matter worth resigning over, if need be - as was demonstrated by the late Carlton Francis, who, like her, was a minister in the government and in the church. Minister Griffin, you missed a very public moment to show the country that you were a Daniel controlled by your convictions and not by your circumstances.
Shocking admission
The prime minister admitted in the House of Assembly that the government accepted money from the operators of illegal numbers houses to help to pay for the gambling consultants. While we recognize that this is not the first time that the government or its agencies have received money from illegal gambling proceeds, we cry shame on the prime minister because he has yet again involved the country in the proceeds of crime and obvious money laundering. Already suffering from the unprincipled, immoral decision to go against the people's will (although he declared repeatedly that he would abide by their wishes), the prime minister added insult to injury with this shocking acknowledgement of wrong doing.
Grabbing at straws
In the Senate debate, two government senators grasped at straws, as they tried to imply that, because the Anglican and Roman Catholic Churches allow for raffles and bingo, these churches are in support of legalized gambling. We take this opportunity to remind them that on May 24, 2010 Archbishop Patrick Pinder added his church's opposition to those already stated by other religious leaders (including Bishop Laish Boyd of the Anglican Diocese) when he stated as the leader of the Roman Catholic community in The Bahamas that he does not support a change in the current law which would allow for the legalization of web shop gambling. Therefore, this sleight of hand argument by the two senators is like comparing and equating low dose aspirin with morphine. Yet, in their desperate attempt to try to justify the unjustifiable, the best these senators were able to come up with was false comparisons.
A poor example
One religious minister (one of those who the press mockingly dubbed the "gambling pastor"), not satisfied with disgracing himself in standing on the wrong side of the referendum, morality and history, misled the nation in declaring that most religious leaders are for legalizing web shop gambling. The nation heard and witnessed pastors from virtually every denomination declare their opposition to gambling - and they were in the vast majority! Yet one senator cited this man's views as though he is credible.
Constitutional betrayal
Prime Minister Christie, regrettably you and your government are in violation of our national mission statement expressed in the preamble to our nation's constitution, which states that we believe our freedoms will be guaranteed by "a national commitment to industry, unity, loyalty and an abiding respect for Christian values and the rule of law". There is no industry in gambling; there is no loyalty or unity, and there are clearly no Christian values - like protecting the poor, weak and vulnerable and not putting stumbling blocks or temptations before them - being promoted. What is worse is that, rather than respect Christian values, you and your government have aggressively attacked pastors and others who are the teachers of those self-same values and cast aspersions on them. Further, you have abused your God-given authority to make righteous laws under which everyone would be enabled to live soberly and righteously.
Prayer for divine justice/judgment
During the months leading up to the referendum, we educated the voting public and prayed for God to intervene, and he did. We had limited resources, financial and personnel, but God heard our prayers, and the people responded with an overwhelming no vote. We say again to the prime minister and his party who have conveniently over the years stated that "the voice of the people is the voice of God": you are now defiantly opposing the voice of God and the will of God for this nation, and if you do not recant, you will most assuredly answer directly to him for your defiance.
Mr. Prime Minister, we believe God has waited for you and your government to either abandon your reckless course of action or to store up his wrath against your unprincipled and immoral decision to ignore the voice of the people, despite your solemn promise to heed it. However, you and your government have decided to store up God's wrath against yourselves. Accordingly, we state for the record that you have not gotten away with this heinous act; God will have the last say in this matter. We leave you to his righteous judgment, and judge he will!
"Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people." (Proverbs 14:34)
Allan Lee is pastor emeritus of Calvary Bible Church, Cedric Moss is senior pastor of Kingdom Life Church and Lyall Bethel is senior pastor of Grace Community Church.

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