Racist Graffiti Sprayed on Adventist Church in Ontario
August 16, 2017: Hateful graffiti was discovered on an Adventist church in Guelph, Ontario last week.
On August 9, church leaders discovered the words “i hate n—— and god i am Black Jesus” spray painted on the roof of the Guelph Seventh-day Adventist Church building.
“I was horrified when I saw it,” said Pastor Selburn Fray who heads up the congregation. He said the crime took place between August 5 and 9.
The church is multi-ethnic and has about 40 members. Fray is originally from Jamaica and moved to Canada from England where he had also been in church leadership.
Opoku Adjei-Afriyie, the head youth leader of the church told the Guelph Mercury Tribune that he believed the vandalism was related to racial tensions and heightened neo-Nazi activity in the United States.
“Racism has no borders,” said Adjei-Afriyie.
Fray echoed this sentiment: “I believe that what happened here to us has been influenced by what’s been happening in the United States, where people think it is OK to do this thing, and once they do it then fine, nobody will say anything.”
He added that the Ontario Conference (regional headquarters) of the denomination is now looking at installing cameras at all their churches around the province.
Guelph has a population of 131,794. The city has low crime rates and generally has a high standard of living. It is consistently rated as one of the best places to live in Canada.
Image: Flag of Ontario