Dear Editor,

That recent ruling in Belize about the unconstitutionality of Belize’s anti-same-sex laws should not be seen as a threat by our churches and church-led organisations throughout the region. Indeed, our churches should see that ruling as an opportunity to make them become more in tune with today’s realities.

There are a lot of people who continue to see the church more of a social stumbling block than anything else — and this hasn’t been the case since recent times.

When the issue of slavery abolition came up, centuries ago, some sections of the church moved with the times then. However, many sections of the church refused to change, often quoting Bible passages to justify the need for slavery. As a result of that, the church lost some of its relevance.

Then, when many of our societies realised that excluding women from leadership positions was no longer doing more good than harm, again, some sections of the church accepted the social change. However, many sections resisted, again quoting Bible passages. Even today we still find many sections of the church wishing to see our women in their ‘rightful place’. As a result of this stance, the church has lost and is losing even more relevance.

Now many of our societies are seeing another change — the tolerance of homosexuality. Most of our societies in the Caribbean have yet to become fully tolerant of this lifestyle. However, as that court ruling in Belize and other happenings have shown, it seems only a matter of time.

Again the church is resisting.

It seems strange that with all of the church’s resistance to social change over the centuries, it simply has not learned anything; that with resistance comes a loss of prestige and relevance.

The church, however, is a very interesting body. When it does finally comes around to accepting new social norms it always finds a way to either find forgotten scriptures or reinterpret old ones to justify its acceptance of the new norms. It did so with slavery, the role of women and other things, and I am sure, it will do so with this homosexual lifestyle sooner or later.

However, the Belize court ruling has given our churches a golden opportunity to ‘jump the gun’, to start finding new scriptures, or reinterpret and re-word old ones to accept homosexuality sooner rather than later. Failure to do so may make the church even more irrelevant and outdated to the point that it will be seen as a social fossil.

Michael A Dingwall

michael_a_dingwall@hotmail.com