RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Even as he faced pub­lic back­lash for break­ing the law and for wish­ing COVID-19 death on po­lice of­fi­cers, head of the El Shad­dai De­liv­er­ance Min­istries Lin­coln Doughty says he has no re­grets and no apolo­gies.

 Doughty came un­der fire from the head of the In­ter-re­li­gious Or­gan­i­sa­tion Dean Knol­ly Clarke who de­scribed his be­hav­iour as ‘sick­en­ing and sad.”

Doughty had led his flock to pray for the na­tion at the Har­ris Prom­e­nade, in San Fer­nan­do, in con­tra­ven­tion to pub­lic health reg­u­la­tions.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Doughty was asked whether he had any re­grets for break­ing the law.

“No re­grets, no apol­o­gy nei­ther. I on­ly fear God,” he said.

Asked whether he be­lieved that COVID is re­al and could harm his flock, Doughty said, “ Man cre­at­ed COVID. It is re­al”

He added, “A lot more per­sons are go­ing to die in this coun­try un­der COVID.”

Asked why he put his flock in harm’s way, Doughty said no­body in his con­gre­ga­tion could get COVID.

“ The Lord tell me to go there (Prom­e­nade). I even ques­tioned God. I am no mad man. I know it is peo­ple lives we deal­ing with.”

Asked whether he would breach the Pub­lic Health Reg­u­la­tions again, Doughty said, “ I obey the voice of God and not the voice of man. If the Lord sends me, I will go be­cause I fear God and not man. That is why I can stand and tell the po­lice to lock me up.”

He said be­fore they went to the Prom­e­nade, he wrote to Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and Pres­i­dent Paula Mae-Weekes ask­ing for a cur­few from 6 pm to 6 am.

 “ I want the Prime Min­is­ter to take me in­to any one of the in­sti­tu­tions where COVID is ram­pant. Send me by the worse pa­tient and I will go with­out a mask. I will not get COVID,” he said.

Doughty said he formed his church four years ago and had a mem­ber­ship of about 75 to 100 peo­ple.

He al­so added that he does not have a crim­i­nal record but used to hang out with “bad boys.” Since he formed his church, Doughty said po­lice have al­ways been knock­ing on his door ac­cus­ing him of sell­ing drugs. Asked why he wished the po­lice of­fi­cers would get COVID and die, Doughty said he did not re­gret what he said he his Lord told him three times to say it.

Mean­while, the pres­i­dent of the In­ter-Re­li­gious Or­gan­i­sa­tion, Dean Knol­ly Clarke, de­scribed Doughty’s be­hav­iour as sick­en­ing.

“You could pray in your home. I haven’t had church since the time they asked us to lock­down. I don’t have to go on the Prom­e­nade or any place else to pray. Pray at home,” Clarke said.

Re­spond­ing to Doughty’s be­hav­iour, Clarke said, “That is very sick­en­ing. You can­not be a re­li­gious leader and tell peo­ple you will get COVID and die. That is very very sad. Most un­kind.”

He said the re­stric­tions were meant to pro­tect the health of the na­tion.

Gen­er­al sec­re­tary of the Sanathan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha Vi­jay Ma­haraj al­so said wor­ship should be done at home. He said while prayers were im­por­tant this could be done via Zoom. He de­clined to com­ment on Doughty’s be­hav­iour ex­cept to say that if he did, it would be “un­savoury.”

Both Arch­bish­op Ja­son Gor­don and pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer of the AS­JA Imam Raf­fa­ic Mo­hammed have called on their flock to abide by the Pub­lic Health Reg­u­la­tions.

Mean­while the pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Coun­cil of Evan­gel­i­cal Church­es Rev Dr Desmond Austin dis­as­so­ci­at­ed his or­gan­i­sa­tion from the El Shad­dai De­liv­er­ance Min­istries.

In a state­ment, Austin said the TTCEC "notes with alarm the at­ti­tudes of var­i­ous in­di­vid­u­als pur­port­ing to be Chris­tians in videos post­ed on so­cial me­dia, which were not in align­ment with the Word of God or re­flec­tive of the Chris­t­ian Com­mu­ni­ty."

"These videos clear­ly show, amongst oth­er con­trary be­hav­iour­al char­ac­ter­is­tics, a lack of ad­her­ence to the Covid-19 Pub­lic Health Reg­u­la­tions," Austin said.

He added, "We have there­fore dis­as­so­ci­at­ed our­selves from these events and any oth­er that goes against the laws of the land."

Though these times are chal­leng­ing for the church, Austin ap­pealed to all mem­bers to ad­here to the reg­u­la­tions at this time.

"The Word of God re­minds us in Ro­mans 13:1-2 ‘Let every soul be sub­ject to the gov­ern­ing au­thor­i­ties. For there is no au­thor­i­ty ex­cept from God, and the au­thor­i­ties that ex­ist are ap­point­ed by God. There­fore, who­ev­er re­sists the au­thor­i­ty re­sists the or­di­nance of God, and those who re­sist will bring judg­ment on them­selves."

He said, "As mem­bers of the Body of Christ, we are to re­spect the au­thor­i­ty of gov­ern­ment which has been in­sti­tut­ed by God. In every­thing let us use God­ly wis­dom and use our in­flu­ence to draw peo­ple clos­er to God dur­ing this time. "