“The  government has  facilitated the  moral decline of the country with Carnival.” This is the firm position Pastor Cedric Moss of Kingdom Life Church.  The Pastor’s statement   comes  just days before the three-day Carnival Experience, scheduled for this coming weekend in New Providence.  He said that  although the Free National Movement  government  is not funding the event, it is still facilitating moral and social decline in the country.

The outspoken Pastor said,” in a few days, barring divine intervention,  the moral sensibilities of an overwhelming majority  of Bahamians will be  assaulted by the public  nudity,  brazen vulgarity and unbridled debauchery of carnival.

“Thousands  are planning to descend on our streets and in our public  spaces, determined to be on their worst behaviours, as they debase themselves without any regard for the  young or respect for the old. And  once again, they will put on pornographic  parades and shows in breach of our public decency laws, as the police look helplessly on.”

“No doubt, in a few days Minister  Michael Pintard will be gloating over the fact that the FNM has been far more fiscally prudent than the PLP in minimizing the financial cost of carnival to the nation. But what about the moral cost to the nation? 

“I guarantee he will be silent on that. Yet, the moral cost far outweighs the fiscal cost, because while we can recover from the fiscal damage of carnival, recovering from the moral damage of carnival is not so easy,” Pastor Moss said. 

The pastor  in a Letter to the Editor of this Journal, said that “the FNM government is still in fact funding carnival with thousands of dollars in kind through free advice to the so-called private owners of carnival, free police security, and free clean up of the mounds of garbage that will be left on our streets and on Clifford Park and Arawak Cay—garbage that should be cleaned up by the so-called private owners of carnival”.

Pastor Moss’ letter indicated that the Free National Movement is no better than the Progressive Liberal Party. 

“While the Minnis-led FNM government can rightly say that it has separated itself from the Christie-led PLP government and its fiscal irresponsibility regarding carnival, the same claim cannot be made about the moral irresponsibility of carnival. 

“Regarding the moral irresponsibility of carnival, Peter (the Minnis-led FNM government) is no better than Paul (the Christie-led PLP government). Both of them see nothing wrong with groups of men and women frolicking in our streets and public spaces and engaging in sexually degrading and lewd conduct. 

“Both of them see nothing wrong with the government promoting and facilitating an environment of excessive alcohol consumption and disregard for public decency laws, where virtually naked women erotically wine, gyrate, and have virtual sex in public with characterless men inflamed with lustful passions. 

“Yes, regarding the moral irresponsibility of carnival, Peter is no better than Paul,” Pastor Moss said.

Several listeners who called into  the Love 97 Issues of the Day  show, agreed with the pastor.

“It is facilitating that indeed, I want to applaud Mr. Moss for taking a stand; I wish he had a bigger mic. It is so preposterous and hypocritical of us as Bahamians to condone this kind of thing and I applaud the government for not funding it as well. 

“When you look at the level of rape and all these other social ills that come about as a result of things like this and it goes further to the television what the children are seeing, so I want to applaud him.  

“I am surprised that the Christian Council is not being vocal as they should be in issues such as this,” the caller said. 

One caller said that he considered Carnival “pure evil”. 

“Jesus told us to beware of covetousness, because a man’s life, and that goes for country, consists not in abundance of the things which we possess. We grow up in a country where you couldn’t even see a woman’s leg and even in your house you couldn’t look on your parent’s nakedness or even your sister. 

“So, for children to be viewing those types of things, in our country and parading on the road like that, that is outrageous,” the caller said. 

Yet another caller added that most Bahamians do not support Carnival.

“When it first came out, I remember they were trying to have this conservative type of uniform where you were well covered, but I knew that in a matter of time it was going to change, to that of Trinidad or Brazil. 

“See because the nature of the beast, it could not be tamed. The word Carnival comes from the word carnal, which means fleshly, and the nature of the beast cannot be made moral,” the caller said. 

However, not all callers to the show agreed with Pastor Moss’ contention that Carnival will bring a moral decline. 

“I am just appalled at are hypocrisy in this matter and many other matters. I think it is becoming cultural, that we seek to choose the things that we want to and the things that we don’t want to which  may be equally as bad or even worse. We put under a bushel. 

“We have ministers  speak against the Carnival, yet in this same beautiful country, where it is better in The Bahamas, we have so many things that are going on that are biblically immoral and it states in plain in big bold letters in the Bible that we shouldn’t do, yet they either harness it, host it or don’t speak out about it,” the caller said. 

In closing to the letter, Pastor Moss urged that, “Those of us who belong to Jesus Christ need to pray that God will give us and our leaders a true sense of national, godly shame that we should have about carnival and other evidences of moral decay in our nation”.

Bahamas Carnival is scheduled for this weekend, May 4-6.