A Preamble Committed to Christian Values in the Bahamas

This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.

The constitution's preamble explicitly commits the Bahamian people to what it calls Christian values as a foundation of the nation's freedom, a passage that stops short of naming any established church but sits more openly on the side of Christianity than most Commonwealth Caribbean constitutions, which typically invoke only the supremacy of God in general terms. Article 489 of the Penal Code separately makes it an offense to publish or sell obscene or blasphemous material, punishable by up to two years' imprisonment, but exempts opinion on religious matters expressed in good faith and decent language, and the provision is traditionally unenforced.

The Bahamas holds no concordat with the Holy See, and diplomatic relations run through a nunciature that has never had its own resident nuncio, the title instead held by the prelate serving Trinidad and Tobago, so the country's formal legal treatment of religion runs through a distinctly Christian constitutional preamble rather than through any negotiated relationship with a specific church.