Patriarch Wayne Jones believes all Spiritual Baptists in the country need to unite and work together to propel the faith forward, as they plan to construct a $50 million cathedral.
This was part of his message during Spiritual Baptist Liberation Day celebrations at the Spiritual Baptist Administration Building, Balmain, Couva on Saturday.
Speaking to reporters after his address, he said the plans have already been drawn up to utilize the 10 acres in Balmain for the cathedral and funds are being raised.
“This cathedral that is building, although you’re talking to the National Congress, it’s for the entire Spiritual Baptist diaspora and the diaspora goes as far as the Caribbean and North America.”
However, in getting the project completed and to aid in moving the faith forward, Jones said all Spiritual Baptist groups need to unite.
“It’s just to come together as one body not to join or to form a new organization. It is to understand that we must sit together, come let us reason together...so that when we speak, we speak as one voice.”
He described the Spiritual Baptist movement in TT as being the “mecca” of the faith with regional and international eyes looking to it for guidance. This, he said, enhances the need for unity.
“It is not just a cathedral alone we want. We want to develop the Spiritual Baptist so much that there are a number of other projects. Just across the road we have 10 acres of land for a cemetery and we divide it into, I think it should be, 3,000 graves and we also want to do a crematorium.”
“We have a lot of things to do and we do a lot of outreach programs. We assist right now in the fight against crime by having our wayside meetings and so forth.” Jones was unable to say how much money had been raised for the cathedral.
In 2020, Prime Minister Dr Rowley said the government would donate $10 million to aid Spiritual Baptists and during the PNM’s Spiritual Baptist celebration on March 23, he said Cabinet is to consider another $10m grant.
Addressing the hundreds of celebrants, Youth Development and National Service Minister Foster Cummings said the government’s donation of land and funding to the Spiritual Baptist community was a way of making up for the 1917 Shouter Prohibition Ordinance.
“If you want to call it reparations you can call it that,” he said. “I say it is correcting and making amends for the wrong that was done to the Spiritual Baptist people in the country.”
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