CHARLES KONG SOO

charles.kong­soo@guardian.co.tt

The Bap­tist com­mu­ni­ty in Trinidad and To­ba­go is bet­ter off to­day than they were in the past. Its mem­bers are al­so reach­ing out to the faith­ful in the di­as­po­ra in the new “land” of so­cial me­dia util­is­ing 21st-cen­tu­ry tech­no­log­i­cal skills.

Rev Dr Hazel Ann Gibbs De Peza, Doc­tor of Ed­u­ca­tion in Ed­u­ca­tion­al Lead­er­ship and a re­cent­ly re­tired as­sis­tant pro­fes­sor at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go said that even af­ter the 72nd an­niver­sary this year since the 1917 Shouter Pro­hi­bi­tion Or­di­nance un­der which Bap­tists suf­fered le­gal per­se­cu­tion and pros­e­cu­tion was re­pealed in 1951, mem­bers of the faith still face prej­u­dice, dis­crim­i­na­tion, stig­ma­ti­sa­tion, dif­fer­ences in doc­trine and di­vi­sive pol­i­tics.

But, Teacher Hazel, as she is known in the Bap­tist com­mu­ni­ty, said the ad­ver­si­ty, tri­als and tribu­la­tion that fol­low­ers of the faith faced have on­ly served to “re­fine” and make them stronger just like gold, sil­ver and iron were re­fined in a fur­nace.

Speak­ing to WE on Spir­i­tu­al Shouter Bap­tist Lib­er­a­tion Day, De Peza said, “Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tists are bet­ter off to­day than days gone by. Even though the sit­u­a­tion has changed some­what, it’s not as bad as it used to be. The Bap­tist so­ci­ety has grown, the num­ber of mem­bers has ma­tured and peo­ple are more aware of their faith.

“There is more ac­cep­tance and in­te­gra­tion by so­ci­ety to­day, but we’re still not ful­ly ac­cept­ed. There are still some peo­ple who look down on the faith, they look askance at you when you say you’re a Bap­tist or see you in Bap­tist clothes.”

She said there were still peo­ple with the per­cep­tion that Bap­tists were dev­il wor­ship­pers, un­civilised and un­e­d­u­cat­ed de­spite all that they had ac­com­plished over the last 72 years.

A woman of strength and per­se­ver­ance, she shared that her church in Cou­va was bull­dozed in Oc­to­ber 2011, and it took four years of labour­ing in the le­gal vine­yard to win the case.

De Peza, chair­man of the Ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal Coun­cil of the Na­tion­al Con­gress of In­cor­po­rat­ed Bap­tist Or­gan­i­sa­tions re­count­ed sev­er­al ex­am­ples of prej­u­dice she had ex­pe­ri­enced over the years as a Bap­tist who al­ways wore her head tie and long clothes.

She re­lat­ed an ex­am­ple of dis­crim­i­na­tion that many Bap­tists ex­pe­ri­enced sev­er­al years ago when she and oth­er mem­bers were do­ing an open-air ser­vice in Port-of-Spain on the pave­ment in front of a build­ing that housed a Chris­t­ian church up­stairs.

They could see the con­tempt on the new-age Chris­tians’ faces, she said, as they brought down speak­ers to the pave­ment and start­ed blast­ing Chris­t­ian mu­sic at full vol­ume to drown out the Bap­tists’ ser­vice.

De Peza said they called the po­lice who told the group to re­move their speak­ers as the Bap­tists had per­mis­sion to be there.

The prin­ci­pal of the Her­man Par­ris Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tist School of The­ol­o­gy said de­spite chal­lenges such as this, the faith was grow­ing in mem­ber­ship in both the old and young. And she has a firm yet gen­tle hand in mould­ing and ed­u­cat­ing the younger gen­er­a­tion.

De Peza, a di­rec­tor of the Foun­da­tion for the Aca­d­e­m­ic Ad­vance­ment of Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tist Youth (FAAS­BY), ex­plained that while many se­nior peo­ple were com­ing to Christ and the Bap­tist faith, the foun­da­tion al­so has a sol­id youth move­ment, the church­es have youth groups, and there are youth coun­cils in some of the dio­ce­ses.

She not­ed that two fac­tors con­tributed to the grow­ing aware­ness by mem­bers, the Her­man Par­ris Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tist South­land School of The­ol­o­gy trained min­is­ters as well as mem­bers of the con­gre­ga­tion as well as the avail­abil­i­ty of in­for­ma­tion and read­ing ma­te­r­i­al on the Bap­tist faith.

De Peza added that the two-year pro­gramme con­sist­ed of Bap­tist his­to­ry, tra­di­tion and doc­trine, the Bible, com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills and oth­er top­ics.

The se­nior mem­ber of the faith not­ed that there was more read­i­ly avail­able in­for­ma­tion on the Bap­tist faith and its prac­tices to­day, and she has al­so writ­ten a book, My Faith-Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tist Chris­t­ian on the sub­ject as there was an ab­sence of writ­ten records of those ear­ly years of the Pro­hi­bi­tion Or­di­nance that fa­cil­i­tat­ed the per­pet­u­a­tion of mis­con­cep­tions about the faith.

The church is al­so not be­ing left be­hind when it comes to tech­nol­o­gy. She al­so wrote an e-book Cor­rect­ing Mis­con­cep­tions, a book of po­ems-C’est Cre­ole and edit­ed Call Him by his name Je­sus and the Bap­tist Min­is­ter’s man­u­al.

 The pan­dem­ic in­flu­enced mem­bers of the faith to adapt to the sit­u­a­tion and em­ploy tech­nol­o­gy to con­duct ser­vices, pro­grammes and meet­ings on­line via Zoom.

De Peza said that mem­bers can now spread the mes­sage of God, and con­duct sem­i­nars via the dig­i­tal realm and the school’s the­ol­o­gy class­es on Zoom cur­rent­ly has stu­dents from around the world such as Eng­land, Cana­da, USA, Bar­ba­dos, Grena­da and To­ba­go and mem­bers in the di­as­po­ra are ex­pect­ed to grow.  

A moth­er of three, who has six grand­chil­dren, and one great-grand, De Peza, 71, said FAAS­BY pro­vid­ed schol­ar­ships to pri­ma­ry, sec­ondary and ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion stu­dents.

The foun­da­tion held oth­er ac­tiv­i­ties and events through­out the year, a thanks­giv­ing ser­vice was held on March 19, East­er camp has start­ed, an Au­gust camp is be­ing planned, and then there is a Christ­mas get-to­geth­er for the chil­dren.

De Peza said one of the crit­i­cisms of the church was that there is a lack of uni­ty in the faith be­cause of its ori­gin, as they did not start as a unit­ed body.

The Pro­hi­bi­tion Or­di­nance, she said, pre­vent­ed them from func­tion­ing as a unit­ed body and to sur­vive, each group had to op­er­ate in­di­vid­u­al­ly, ful­ly au­tonomous and small.

De Peza said, how­ev­er, as mem­bers can now wor­ship with­out fear of pros­e­cu­tion and per­se­cu­tion, af­ter the phys­i­cal and spir­i­tu­al hard­ships they’ve en­dured, they can re­joice, make a joy­ful noise and sing praise to the Lord as they’re now to­geth­er as one–bridg­ing the gap be­tween old and young.