A Trinidadian Spiritual Baptist patriarch on Wednesday said that he would like to baptise Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves and all the other Members of Parliament in a river.
Archbishop Wayne Jones expressed his wish as he spoke at a worship service at Victoria Park to mark the inaugural national holiday in St. Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) in honour of the nation’s Spiritual Baptists.
Jones, who said Spiritual Baptist is the only religion ordained by God, said he would like the baptism to take place on Saturday.
He said that in Trinidad and Tobago, they always say that they are proud to be Spiritual Baptist
“… Spiritual Baptists are the only religion that is ordained by God and we have some powers that we don’t even know about,” Jones said.
“But I want to tell you, St. Vincent the Grenadines, for years, I’ve been coming here and I’ve been hearing a cry coming from you. But when we leave here today, by Saturday morning, the Honourable Prime Minister of St. Vincent the Grenadines, we should be taking him to some river and baptising him,” Jones said to some cheers.
“And we’re not going to leave it like that. We’re not going to baptise Gonsalves alone. We will baptise the Leader of the Opposition, too. We will baptise every member of parliament, because great is the Spiritual Baptist faith. And we shall overcome. We shall triumph, because we are God’s people,” he said.
Jones was speaking at a service addressed by Gonsalves, a Catholic, and St. Clair Leacock, another Catholic, who is MP for Central Kingstown but spoke on behalf of Opposition Leader Godwin Friday, an Anglican.
Jones said Wednesday’s inaugural holiday marked “a really dynamic day” in the history of SVG.
“Today, we bring you greetings from Trinidad and Tobago. We bring you greetings from our government, from our Spiritual Baptist diaspora, and we welcome you to be able, just like us, to celebrate a day that is our own and that we must give God praise for,” he told the service, which also included contingents from Barbados, Grenada, the United States and the United Kingdom.
He thanked the government of SVG for granting a public holiday in recognition of the faith.
“And together, it is not just about you, but it’s about the rest of the Caribbean celebrating with you,” Jones said.
He said he had “so much” that he wanted to say but noted that he was asked to bring greetings.
“And the greetings that I bring to you is to say to you as my people, … the word of God said, ‘If my people, which are called by my name, shall only humble themselves, turn, pray, and then only, then I will begin to heal their land’,” the cleric said.
“I want to implore you as a people, join together as one band. We may come from different tribes, we belong to different tribes, but we are all one father’s children, and so we must remember that.”
In his comments, Gonsalves recognised, among other Spiritual Baptist leaders, the presence of Vincentian archbishop Johnny Jones of Mount Carmel Spiritual Baptist Church.
“You may not know this, I am one of the godparents of Mount Carmel Spiritual Baptist Church,” Gonsalves, said, adding, “He say he waiting to baptise me. It is true that he anointed me on two occasions,” the prime minister said.
On Aug. 27, 2024, Parliament passed, with bipartisan support, a law declaring May 21 a public holiday in honour of the Spiritual Baptist faith, which historians say was founded in SVG.
A colonial law passed on Oct. 1, 1912, outlawed Shakerism and it remained in place until March 22, 1965, when it was repealed by the Legislative Council, led by Ebenezer Theodore Joshua, the country’s first chief minister.
However, on May 21, 1951, a case filed against Spiritual Baptists in Georgetown who were represented by Robert Milton Cato, who became the first prime minister, failed.
Since then, members of the faith have held May 21 as the date of their liberation, although their persecution might have continued even after the case.
It is so nice to know that the spiritual Baptist has been granted a public holiday in St Vincent and the Grenadines