As has be­come the norm since the pub­lic hol­i­day was de­clared in 1996 to recog­nise the le­git­i­ma­cy of the Spir­i­tu­al Shouter Bap­tist faith, the mem­bers of this his­toric group of wor­ship­pers through­out the coun­try, came out in their large and colour­ful num­bers yes­ter­day to mark this lib­er­at­ing oc­ca­sion.

The end of the pro­hi­bi­tion of the faith and pub­lic wor­ship-first en­act­ed by the colo­nial gov­ern­ment in 1917 as a re­sult of the ig­no­rance of the cul­tur­al mores of a peo­ple and their need for a form of wor­ship which al­lowed for free ex­pres­sion-came on­ly in 1951.

That is but a sec­ond in time over the long his­to­ry of our ex­is­tence here in Trinidad and To­ba­go. Nev­er­the­less it seems time enough for the faith to be­gin the process of ma­tu­ri­ty to take its place along­side the many re­li­gions that have come out of our rich mul­ti-cul­tur­al past. Per­haps to a greater ex­tent than oth­er re­li­gious bod­ies, the Spir­i­tu­al Shouter Bap­tists have been sub­ject to po­lit­i­cal pa­tron­age and ma­nip­u­la­tion, one gov­ern­ment af­ter the oth­er us­ing the mem­bers of the faith as part of their elec­toral stock.

The Bap­tists, anx­ious to gath­er recog­ni­tion and re­sources, have been vul­ner­a­ble to the kind of po­lit­i­cal ma­nip­u­la­tion for which politi­cians are fa­mous, per­haps in­fa­mous. This has prob­a­bly con­tributed to the slow­ness, at best, of the Bap­tists to tru­ly es­tab­lish them­selves in the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty as a re­li­gion, in­de­pen­dent and pro­gres­sive, and one that will earn the re­spect of all seg­ments of the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty. The groups of the faith along with the Orisa, were grant­ed a 25-acre plot of land by the Bas­deo Pan­day ad­min­is­tra­tion at the time of the pub­lic hol­i­day, the in­ten­tion be­ing to de­vel­op a spir­i­tu­al park, places of wor­ship and a pri­ma­ry school on the land. All of these projects were set out as means of spread­ing the faith and de­vel­op­ing the ca­pac­i­ty of the ad­her­ents and their chil­dren and grand­chil­dren.

Un­for­tu­nate­ly, 15 years af­ter the grants were made, the groups have not been able to get ahead with the stat­ed projects.More­over, too of­ten there has been in­ter­nal bick­er­ing and in­fight­ing amongst the groups which make up the Spir­i­tu­al Shouter Bap­tist re­li­gion. And what­ev­er rea­sons may be ad­vanced by mem­bers of the faith for the fail­ure to con­vert the new-found re­spect and ac­tu­al phys­i­cal prop­er­ty in­to es­tab­lished in­fra­struc­ture, the re­al­i­ty is that there re­mains an ab­sence of schools and a na­tion­al wor­ship cen­tre at a head­quar­ters for the mem­bers of the Bap­tist com­mu­ni­ty.

On­ly re­cent­ly, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, recog­nis­ing the in­abil­i­ty of the Bap­tist com­mu­ni­ty to con­vert the open land in­to the school and oth­er ameni­ties, promised that the Gov­ern­ment would build the pri­ma­ry school for the ed­u­ca­tion of the chil­dren of Shouter Bap­tists and the prop­a­ga­tion of the faith.

Based on the promise then, we shall have to take as a giv­en that soon­er rather than lat­er the school will be con­struct­ed. But that will amount to no more than a build­ing; and as is well known, a build­ing does not a school make.

The Bap­tists there­fore have a chal­lenge in front of them af­ter the build­ing has been con­struct­ed to go out and make it in­to a school. It can­not be that they will then again sit back and wait for a Gov­ern­ment to do all else that is re­quired to have a func­tion­ing school and not do their part. Sure, like in the cas­es of all of the de­nom­i­na­tion­al schools, salaries of teach­ers, an­nu­al grants for up­keep of the school and oth­er forms of sup­port will be grant­ed to the Spir­i­tu­al Shouter Bap­tists by the Gov­ern­ment. How­ev­er, it will be large­ly up to the lead­ers of the var­i­ous Bap­tists re­li­gions and as­sem­blies, to ad­vance their cause and de­vel­op the re­li­gion left be­hind by their an­ces­tors.