By TANYA SMITH-CARTWRIGHT

ts-cartwright@tribunemedia.net

BAHAMAS Christian Council wants churches to reopen next month under strict guidelines to keep congregants safe from contracting the deadly coronavirus. “We have a letter we would have written to the Prime Minister about our phased approach to opening and so we just await the date,” said Bishop Delton Fernander, president, Bahamas Christian Council.

“It’s a letter on what we would do in terms of seating, sanitising stations, no gathering, or welcoming or touching. Once we get a start date, we will then start our denominational training for churches.”

Bishop Fernander said the letter was sent to the Prime Minister on Monday, but the Council has not yet received a reply. “We know he is considering opening the churches and when he decides on the date he is planning opening then he will communicate that to us. All that is depending on the numbers (of COVID-19 cases) and how the country is going. We need to determine if it’s community spread or it’s institutionally spread. Both of them have different connotations and I don’t want to put that out there, but those two parameters will determine whether we can open sometime in May.”

The Council’s letter to the Prime Minister made it clear its members were aware of the importance of preventative measures.

“… We propose the phased re-opening of our churches for corporate worship during the month of May, 2020. We are not ignorant to the fact that we all will have to coexist with the virus for the foreseeable future and therefore a new operational normal has to be established. The normal must incorporate the introduction and enforcement of new sanitation procedures as well as adherence to physical distancing protocols,” the letter notes.

The council’s proposed operational guidelines for churches are: operating with a maximum occupancy of 30 percent of a church’s normal seating capacity to allow for social distancing; provide markings along the pews so that there is clear delineation of the required spacing between individuals; worship spaces with chairs will be required to arrange seating so that physical distance standards are maintained; sanitisation stations placed at every entrance to the facility and congregants will be asked to wear masks when entering churches.

The Council says it believes with the introduction of these new operational standards, churches will be able to maintain their civic mandate as the “moral standard bearers” for The Bahamas while fulfilling its divine mandate as “heaven’s representatives” on the earth.

On March 18, Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis announced churches had agreed to temporarily suspend services in an effort to stop the spread of COVID-19.

At the time, religious leaders encouraged the public to continue to worship at home and to follow online worship services in the short-term.

Churches were expected to reopen in early April, but that changed due to rising COVID-19 infections.