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FIRST CITY BAPTIST CHURCH
11th May, 1995
I write on
behalf of the First City Baptist Church, East London.
We are grateful for
the opportunity of expressing our views on the drafting of the new
constitution.
There are two major concerns which we have
:
1. The serious decline of moral standards within our country.
We believe that this trend is being accelerated by the liberalising of official
standards relative to public decency.
2. The preservation of
religious liberty for all. Many of our people are troubled by reports that
our religious practice will be curtailed or controlled by the state in some
way. As Baptists we have always stood for religious liberty for all people and
groups.
In relation to particular issues :
- We
oppose abortion on demand, and uphold the present legislation and its
application.
- We
reject pornography as an assault on personhood, in particular on women and
children, and urge that the freedom of speech and expression under section
15
be interpreted in the light of section 10 viz. the respect for human
dignity.
- Whilst
we are sympathetic towards people with a homosexual orientation, we do not
believe that unnatural lifestyles and practices should be
specifically protected by the law. The general protection which every
individual enjoys under the law is adequate.
- We
oppose any legal restriction on our religious liberty to worship,
evangelise or conduct our practices according to the dictates of conscience. Of
course, this applies to other religions
as well as
Christianity.
We wish you well in your mammoth task of
re-writing the constitution. Anything done in a good cause is worth doing
well!
REV. PETER HOLNESS
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