Good Evening,
President Burrows, clergy, delegates, brothers and sisters, good evening.
Thank you for your gracious invitation and for the witness of the Zion United Baptist Convention across our islands.
For generations, the church has carried far more than Sunday worship. The church has carried families through loss, communities through hardship, young people through uncertainty, and this nation through seasons when faith was the only thing holding many people together. When public life grows noisy, the church still has the power to call a people back to conscience, back to mercy, and back to God.
Your theme, The Race We Must Win, reaches beyond any campaign, beyond any slogan, beyond any single political season.
It speaks to the race of character.
The race of endurance.
The race of faith.
The race to remain a people whose hearts stay anchored even when the winds around us begin to rise.
And these are days when the winds are rising.
We are in an election season. Emotions are high. Loyalties are strong. Every day can bring another argument, another accusation, another effort to pull Bahamians farther apart.
In such a season, a country can lose its balance. A people can lose their gentleness. A nation can forget itself.
That is why this hour calls for more than campaigning. It calls for maturity. It calls for restraint. It calls for spiritual discipline. It calls for leaders and citizens alike to reach for a better version of ourselves.
Because politics must never become a license for cruelty.
Politics must never become a reason to despise one another.
Politics must never persuade us that winning matters more than who we become in the process.
There is a saying that offers a warning all of us would do well to hear: an evil man will burn his own nation to the ground to rule over the ashes.
That is a hard saying. Yet it carries truth.
There are those so hungry for power that they would leave a country wounded, bitter, and broken, so long as they get to sit at the top of the rubble.
There are voices that will poison the public square, scar the national spirit, and set citizen against citizen if they believe it serves their ambition.
We must reject that spirit.
We must reject the politics of ashes.
We must reject the belief that a country must be torn apart so somebody can claim victory over what is left.
The Bahamas is our home. This sweet chain of islands is our inheritance. This land holds the memory of those who came before us, the prayers of our mothers, the labor of our fathers, the hopes of our children.
We speak of no distant place. We speak of our country. We speak of the place that raised us, formed us, fed us, and still calls us to duty.
So we must be careful how we speak about The Bahamas.
We must be careful how we speak about one another.
A people who curse themselves long enough may begin to believe the curse.
A people who tear at each other long enough may forget how to heal.
A people who make contempt a habit may one day wake up and find that they have handed their children a colder country than the one they received.
That must never be our legacy.
After election day, we still have to live together.
We still have to see each other in church.
We still have to meet each other in the food store.
We still have to work side by side.
We still have to raise children in the same neighborhoods.
We still have to bury loved ones, celebrate milestones, rebuild after storms, and pray for the future under the same Bahamian sky.
That truth should humble every one of us.
This election, like every election, will come and go.
Yet the country remains.
The people remain.
The obligations remain.
The call to love thy neighbour remains.
The call to guard the soul of the nation remains.
So tonight I say to all of us, let us resist the temptation to win at all costs.
Let us resist language that wounds too deeply.
Let us resist the urge to treat fellow Bahamians as enemies because they wear a different colour or hold a different view.
Let us resist the dark satisfaction that can come from mockery, humiliation, and public cruelty.
Those things may stir a crowd for a moment. They can never build a nation.
And let me say this, too.
Strength and restraint belong together.
A grown man does not need rage to prove his power.
A grown woman does not need bitterness to prove her conviction.
Real leadership carries calm in the middle of noise.
Real leadership keeps its footing when others lose theirs.
Real leadership remembers that the office one seeks must never become smaller than the behaviour used to gain it.
I want to do my part to keep the country steady in this hour. I will defend what I believe. I will make my case to the Bahamian people. I will stand on record, on principle, and on vision.
Yet I will also work to keep the temperature of our public life from rising beyond repair.
Because a Prime Minister must do more than answer critics.
A Prime Minister must help hold a nation together.
That is the duty of leadership.
The church understands this better than most. Scripture teaches us that the tongue has power.
Words can bless and words can wound. Words can heal and words can divide.
Words can call forth courage and words can awaken fear.
Once released, words travel far. They settle into homes. They settle into hearts. They settle into the imagination of children who are watching adults for cues on how to live.
So what are we teaching them?
Are we teaching them that every disagreement deserves hatred?
Are we teaching them that public life is a place where conscience goes to die?
Are we teaching them that faith belongs inside the sanctuary, yet leaves us the moment we step into politics?
Or are we teaching them that there is still such a thing as dignity, still such a thing as self-command, still such a thing as speaking firmly without losing one’s soul?
I pray that we teach them the better way.
I pray that they see in us a people capable of passion without malice.
I pray that they see in us a people capable of disagreement without division.
I pray that they see in us a people who love country more than conflict.
Because this nation needs that witness.
There are young Bahamians searching for examples. There are citizens weary of the constant anger. There are families longing for a politics that feels humane again. There are believers all across this country who want to know whether faith still has a place in how we conduct our public affairs.
Tonight, from this sacred gathering, let us answer yes.
Yes, faith still matters.
Yes, character still matters.
Yes, how we speak still matters.
Yes, the spirit we carry into public life still matters.
And yes, even in an election season, the call of God upon our conduct still remains.
My brothers and sisters, the race before us is larger than ballots and banners. It is the race to keep this country decent. It is the race to keep our public life from coarsening beyond recognition. It is the race to preserve a Bahamas where strong conviction can still live beside grace, where competition can still live beside love of country, and where the struggle for office never becomes an excuse to wound the nation itself.
And let us remember this, too.
This election will come and go. Campaigns will rise and fall. Crowds will gather and then fade. Headlines will change. Arguments will pass. The date of May 12 will arrive, and it will leave.
Yet above every campaign, above every party, above every earthly contest, there remains one unchanging truth: regardless of what happens after May 12, God is on the throne.
God is on the throne when the crowd cheers.
God is on the throne when the count is finished.
God is on the throne in victory.
God is on the throne in disappointment.
God is on the throne before the first vote is cast, and God will still be on the throne after the last ballot is counted.
That truth should steady us.
It should quiet arrogance. It should calm fear. It should remind every leader and every citizen that political power is temporary, but the judgment of God is higher.
And because God is on the throne, we must carry ourselves in a way worthy of His sight, worthy of this country, and worthy of the generations who will come after us.
I pray –
We guard our tongues.
We guard our hearts.
We refuse the politics that leave only smoke, ruin, and ashes.
I pray we leave this election season with our democracy intact, our people at peace, and our country still worthy of the prayers that built it.
May God bless you, and may God bless the Commonwealth of The Bahamas.