Suspected arson attempt at Claxton Bay church

RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­[email protected]

A sus­pect­ed ar­son at­tack on the Sa­cred Choice of Heav­en Mt Lebanon Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tist Church in Clax­ton Bay has left mem­bers of the con­gre­ga­tion shak­en but res­olute af­ter quick ac­tion by fire­fight­ers pre­vent­ed ma­jor dam­age on Fri­day night.

The 81-year-old church, lo­cat­ed in Spring­vale, had been se­cured ear­li­er in the week. Around 10 pm, a church dea­con re­ceived a call re­port­ing flames in­side the prayer area. The blaze was swift­ly ex­tin­guished, and sev­er­al plas­tic bot­tles con­tain­ing gaso­line were lat­er dis­cov­ered in­side the build­ing, rais­ing strong sus­pi­cions of ar­son.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, neigh­bour Gree­ta Brown, 83, said she was alert­ed to the fire by her daugh­ter.

“I was asleep and my daugh­ter called to say there was a fire. I called the fire am­bu­lance,” Brown said.

De­spite be­ing in close prox­im­i­ty to the church, Brown said there was lit­tle they could do to stop the flames.

“It was two young ladies and me. I am 83, we could not do any­thing,” she said.

Brown, whose fam­i­ly has deep ties to the church, said the build­ing holds sig­nif­i­cant sen­ti­men­tal val­ue.

“The church be­longed to my grand­moth­er, so if it had burnt, it would have been very dis­tress­ing,” she said, adding that while she was bap­tised there, she no longer at­tends due to long­stand­ing is­sues over the land. She es­ti­mat­ed that on­ly about five mem­bers now wor­ship there reg­u­lar­ly.

In a state­ment, Bish­op Claudette To­by Greene de­scribed the in­ci­dent as “deeply dis­turb­ing” and point­ed to the church’s long-stand­ing role in the com­mu­ni­ty.

“Found­ed in 1944 by our for­mer pas­tor Samuel To­by, and lat­er guid­ed from 1970 to 2009 by our over­seer, the late Arch­bish­op Charles To­by, our min­istry has stood for over eight decades as a bea­con of faith, love, and spir­i­tu­al en­light­en­ment,” she said.

Greene said the church has been in­volved in com­mu­ni­ty out­reach, in­clud­ing back-to-school dri­ves that sup­port­ed more than 200 chil­dren be­fore the pan­dem­ic, an­nu­al food dis­tri­b­u­tions, and as­sis­tance to fam­i­lies in need.

“Our min­istry is a sa­cred space, one of peace, refuge, and uni­ty. To have that sanc­tu­ary threat­ened in this man­ner is deeply dis­tress­ing,” she said.

She thanked the Fire Ser­vice for its swift re­sponse, which en­sured there were no in­juries or fa­tal­i­ties, and con­firmed that the ex­tent of the dam­age is still be­ing as­sessed.

“We are ful­ly co­op­er­at­ing with au­thor­i­ties as in­ves­ti­ga­tions con­tin­ue and urge any­one with in­for­ma­tion to come for­ward to as­sist law en­force­ment,” Greene said.

The bish­op al­so ap­pealed for sup­port to re­store the church, par­tic­u­lar­ly as the Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tist com­mu­ni­ty ap­proach­es Palm Sun­day and marks its 75th Ju­bilee year.

“While this in­ci­dent has shak­en us, it has not weak­ened our faith. For 81 years, we have en­dured tri­als with stead­fast faith, ris­ing stronger each time through the grace of God. This mo­ment will be no dif­fer­ent,” she said.

Greene al­so of­fered a mes­sage of for­give­ness, say­ing the church prays that who­ev­er is re­spon­si­ble “will be moved to re­pen­tance, guid­ed by God’s mer­cy and truth.”

“Though the flames may touch the build­ing, they can­not con­sume the spir­it of God with­in His peo­ple. We re­main cov­ered, we re­main called, and we will con­tin­ue in love.”