From missionaries to Rastafari

FOR YEARS, there has been the saying that Jamaica has the highest number of churches per square mile, according to The Guinness Book of World Records. I am yet to see for myself that record.

A quick search of the Internet, including the Guinness Book of World website did not turn up the evidence. Answer.com, however, says, Malta has 365 churches in 121 square miles, which is equal to 2.99 churches per square mile, and that Jamaica has 2.75 churches per square mile.

Whether first or second, Jamaica’s religious landscape is dotted with churches and other places of worship. From grand structure with flattering edifices to ramshackle tarpaulin tents, there is a church in every nook and cranny of this fair isle, which many Jamaicans claim to be a Christian country.

But, how did Jamaica come to be teeming with so many churches?

It started with colonisation and plantation slavery. In his book, The Story of Jamaican Missions, Lloyd A. Cooke writes, “ The first coming of Christianity to Jamaica in the ‘New World’ was as a part of Columbus’ expedition … “Both Columbus in his time and Lord Cromwell, in 1655, were possessed of similar motives in their expedition of conquest, which eventually brought Jamaica into European subjugation: the spreading of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”

He says that as early as 1504 three Roman Catholic bishoprics were established on Hispaniola, but it wasn’t until 1512 that Christian evangelism began in Jamaica.

“The first three missionaries were Franciscan Friars, part of a group of 40 who had been sent to evangelise the Greater Antilles. The friars remained in charge of the Church until 1515 when the colonists increased to the number 500 … and the ecclesiastical progress demanded a prelate, instead of the missionary friars …,” Cooke quotes one of his sources.

The Spaniards were driven out of Jamaica eventually by the British, who did not tolerate worship among the enslaved Africans, who had replaced the Tainos as the main source of free labour. Yet, the British enslavers themselves set up churches in which they worshipped with great fervour and reverence. They even used The Bible, the holy Christian book, to justify slavery. But, there were missionaries abroad who believe the enslaved were wretches, whose souls needed to be saved.

The missionaries came with a zeal that were not pleasantly met by the colonists, who were wary of what conversion could do to the minds of the enslaved. However, The enslaved Africans, Christian converts or not, were still clandestinely carrying out their own spiritual rituals, including ancestral venerations. Embedded within their heads was their own cosmology, a conviction of where they came from in this unfolding universe, and why, and their hereafter. The ‘heaven’ and ‘hell’ messages of their Christian enslavers did not totally expunge their religiosity.

And, that’s why it was not difficult for the ‘Great Revival’ of 1860-1861 to talk flight.

Emancipated people now were using the Christian church to cover their own beliefs and this practice evolved into a syncretisation of African spirituality and European Christian philosophy.

In Jamaica, Revivalism is now a popular folk religion that has pervaded the land, mainly comprising grassroot people who regard it as a way to express their spirituality, to bare their soul, to communicate with ancestral energies, and to seek solace in the bosom of an eternal father.

Revival churches and Revival people are easily identifiable, away and apart from other Christian churches and people. They are a significant party of Jamaica’s religious ethos. And, the world has noticed. Last year, the ‘Revival Pilgrimage to Watt Town’ was officially inscribed on UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. The Zion Headquarters and Jerusalem Schoolroom is located in Watt Town, St Ann.

Jamaica’s has also given the world Rastafariamism, another folk religion. It has its roots in St Thomas, and is said to have started by Leonard Howell, a Garveyite who eventually set up a Rastafarian commune at ‘Pinnacle’ in St Catherine, where Rastafarians lived their lives independent of the mainstream social, religious, economic and political systems. After years of persecution and prosecution, Rastafarianism has evolved into a worldwide movement, capturing the imagination of people from all races.

Jamaica has produced two folk religions that have enriched our heritage, impacted the world, and are co-existing with established Christian denominations. This is a long time from when even the drum, a significant instrument in Revivalism and Rastafarianism, was banned.

There is much religiosity in our heritage.

The series continues next week with ‘Enslaving and saving souls’, to be followed by ‘A Revival

in my soul’. It concludes with ‘Overstanding Rastafari’.