The University of the West Indies Global Campus, will, this evening be hosting the annual independence lecture.
This year’s lecture will focus on the church and, Christianity in particular in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
Dr. Cleve Scott, Vincentian historian and lecturer in history at the UWI, in an interview with WE FM News, said an aim of this lecture would be showcase just how ahead of its time, the spiritual Baptist faith was in decolonizing Christianity.
‘We want to take the conversation about independence on the church and Christianity in particular in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. Independence is a milestone in the decolonization process. Having gained independence as in the case of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines in 1979, the next challenge is to decolonize the country. In part of this process is decolonizing the mind. We want to show people the spiritual Baptist church which the government recently announced a holiday in honour of, how the spiritual Baptist church was way ahead of its time in the mid 19th century to decolonize Christianity.’
Dr. Scott also spoke about the panellists scheduled for this evening’s lecture and what their presentations will entail.
‘We’re going to have presentations from myself, Dr Michael Dennie, who is a history professor in the US at St. Mary’s College. He would be speaking on the liberation theology of the enslaved. I would speak on the origins of the spiritual baptism and for the sake of those who don’t know, I’m a lecturer in history at the University of the West Indies Cave Hill Campus in Barbados. Then we’ll have Dr Arnold Thomas, who would speak on East Indians and the fact that East Indians were Hindus when they came to St. Vincent and then they moved to Christianity. And finally, we would hear from Dr Adrian Fraser, who was a publisher book on the spiritual baptism, and he would speak on the ban on the spiritual baptists around 1912 and how the spiritual Baptist church expanded right up into the mid 20th century up to today.’
The annual independence lecture will be held at the UWI Global Campus site, at 7 PM this evening Thursday October 17th.
