Yes­ter­day’s solemn ob­ser­vances of Good Fri­day and to­mor­row’s joy­ous com­mem­o­ra­tion of the Res­ur­rec­tion of Je­sus Christ, the main events on the na­tion­al cal­en­dar even amid an in­tense elec­tion cam­paign, prove that faith still holds a place of promi­nence in our sec­u­lar so­ci­ety.

Ac­tiv­i­ties cen­tred on the cru­ci­fix­ion, death, bur­ial and res­ur­rec­tion of Je­sus Christ are long-held tra­di­tions in this na­tion, where Chris­tian­i­ty is the largest re­li­gion.

Al­though this is a di­verse re­li­gious land­scape with a wide spec­trum of prac­tices and be­liefs, Chris­tian­i­ty still ex­erts a ma­jor in­flu­ence on T&T cul­ture and so­ci­ety.

So, it was not un­usu­al for the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) to host a prayer event on the Bri­an Lara Prom­e­nade in Port-of-Spain on Holy Thurs­day.

The TTPS reg­u­lar­ly hosts church ser­vices and oth­er re­li­gious ac­tiv­i­ties, in­clud­ing ec­u­meni­cal gath­er­ings, to cel­e­brate sig­nif­i­cant oc­ca­sions. Usu­al­ly, a well-known re­li­gious leader would be the one to lead the ser­vice and give the ser­mon.

How­ev­er, Thurs­day’s TTPS Wor­ship, Word and War­fare ser­vice was dif­fer­ent be­cause the main preach­er was dressed, not in cler­i­cal robes but the kha­ki uni­form of a se­nior po­lice of­fi­cer.

Act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (CoP) Ju­nior Ben­jamin at­tract­ed more at­ten­tion than he would by con­duct­ing his reg­u­lar du­ties at the helm of the TTPS, when he put on the hat of pas­tor, shar­ing the sto­ry of how he had risen from the “gut­ter-most to the up­per-most.”

His ser­mon at that open-air event was part of a col­lab­o­ra­tive ef­fort by all arms of law en­force­ment to en­cour­age the pub­lic to pray more.

Ben­jamin is an or­dained min­is­ter who reg­u­lar­ly preach­es at his home church, the Cathe­dral of Ex­cel­lence. Still, he raised eye­brows re­cent­ly, be­fore he got the act­ing ap­point­ment as CoP when he wore a bul­let-proof vest to preach a mes­sage where he waxed prophet­ic as he de­clared he was go­ing to be CoP.

This time around, his ser­mon in­clud­ed an ap­peal to T&T to turn to God in the fight against crime—a mes­sage that is like­ly to elic­it some strong re­ac­tions from the wider pub­lic.

The last time a CoP high­light­ed the need for di­vine in­ter­ven­tion to bat­tle this coun­try’s crime scourge was in March 2023, when Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher told mem­bers of the Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce that with­out di­vine in­ter­ven­tion, her an­ti-crime strate­gies, in­clud­ing re­duc­ing mur­ders, will be doomed to fail.

The mes­sage was not well re­ceived by the wider pub­lic on that oc­ca­sion and Ben­jamin, for all his good in­ten­tions and strong re­li­gious con­vic­tions, isn’t like­ly to fare any bet­ter.

His ser­mon, de­liv­ered days af­ter the State of Emer­gency end­ed, came against the back­drop of the fa­tal shoot­ing of Arkim Quashie at the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port just hours ear­li­er, send­ing the mur­der count for the year to 115.

The re­al­i­ty is that even in this pre­dom­i­nant­ly Chris­t­ian na­tion, faith-based ex­hor­ta­tions from the act­ing top cop are of lit­tle com­fort to a pop­u­la­tion that has been pray­ing for years for a turn­around in the crime sit­u­a­tion and see­ing no re­sults.

The onus, there­fore, is now on the preach­ing CoP to back up his ser­mon with ev­i­dence of a sig­nif­i­cant break­through in crime. If in the com­ing days and weeks, there are signs of a re­duced mur­der rate and more crim­i­nals are tak­en off the streets, faith will be re­stored in the TTPS.