ABSTRACT
In mid-nineteenth-century St. Vincent, in the south eastern Caribbean, an African-inspired belief emerged which would later become known as the Spiritual Baptist Faith. In addition to African influences, Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, Hinduism, and Kabbalistic traditions have also influenced the Faith. Through migration, this Faith became globalised, growing rapidly outside the eastern Caribbean in places such as the United States, Canada and with members also in South Africa, West Africa, and Europe (Glazier 2003, 151). After providing an overview of the Spiritual Baptist Faith, this chapter will examine the ways in which cosmopolitanism practices and ideas are articulated within the Faith. It will examine the cosmopolitan practices and outlooks evident in spiritual travel, physical travel within the eastern Caribbean, as well as sensibilities evident in the UK, in order to complicate three assumptions of cosmopolitanism.
