| Total population | |
|---|---|
| approx. 1,960,000 | |
| Religions | |
| Baptist, Seventh-day Adventist, Roman Catholic, Anglican | |
| Languages | |
| Main languages spoken are English and Jamaican Patois. |
Christianity was introduced by Spanish settlers who arrived in Jamaica in 1509. Thus, Roman Catholicism was the first Christian denomination to be established. Later, Protestant missions were very active, especially the Baptists, and played a key role in the abolition of slavery. [1]
Anglicanism was introduced by the British in 1664. The first church was built on the spot of the Spanish Church of the Red Cross in Spanish Town, and is the oldest Anglican cathedral outside the British Isles and the oldest place of continuous worship in the western hemisphere. By the early nineteenth century, abolitionism had propelled other denominations to the forefront, and threatened the established Anglican church. Thus, in 1824, the Diocese of Jamaica, which also included Belize and the Bahamas, was established. In 1861, the Bahamas became a separate diocese, and, in 1891, the same happened to Belize. During the 1960s, the Cayman Islands were added, and, in 2001, the diocese was renamed the Diocese of Jamaica & the Cayman Islands. [2] Today, the diocese is part of the Church in the Province of the West Indies. [3]
In 1783 George Liele, a freed African who was once enslaved in America, introduced the Baptist denomination to Jamaica. Liele, born in Virginia became a Christian in Georgia, and then became the first African American to be ordained within the Baptist Church, at First Baptist Church Savannah. He later pastored both black and white Christians in the American South. On gaining his freedom he travelled to Jamaica and became the first 'unofficial' missionary - before Carey and before Judson. In Jamaica he first preached at the Race Course in Kingston, where people of all races came to hear him. He pioneered Baptist tradition in Jamaica, establishing the first Baptist Church - the Ethiopian Baptist Church. Despite having a church membership of over 450 enslaved Africans in 1791 and 3,000 by 1806, he together with his colleague George Baker began to correspond with the Baptist Missionary Society in England, as a means of developing the work in Jamaica, as it was under constant persecution from the Colonial Government and the established Anglican Church. At the forefront of standing up for the truth of the Gospel in pre-emancipation Jamaica, he died in 1828, but not before he had influenced many, such as the revolutionary Sam Sharpe and other Baptists involved in the 1831 'Baptist Wars' which proved to be the final death knell for slavery. He also passed on the baton to Baptist missionaries from the UK - particularly his colleagues William Knibb and Thomas Burchell, who not only learnt from him, but continued his work, and lived to see what he could only have hope for - the abolition of slavery, the freeing of the enslaved, and the establishing of the then-largest mainline Christian denomination in Jamaica - the Baptist Church. [4]
The Presbyterians and Methodists have made significant contributions to education. [1]
The Moravian Church was the first denomination that seriously undertook the teaching of Christianity to the slaves. In 1754 two wealthy plantation owners living in England invited the Moravians to send missionaries to their estates in Jamaica. They are still active today especially in the parishes of Manchester, Saint Elizabeth, and Westmoreland.
Introduced by Spanish settlers in 1509, Peter Matyr ordered the building of the first church in Sevilla Nueva {now known as Saint Ann's Bay and was completed in 1526 a monastery was set up by the request of the Spanish king in an effort to convert Arawaks. The effort to convert to the Arawaks failed as they rapidly died from disease. In 1655, a Protestant English force captured Jamaica and Roman Catholicism was removed until 1837.
Today Jamaica is organized as the Archdiocese of Kingston in Jamaica, which also includes Belize and the Cayman Islands. [5] Of the four suffragan dioceses, two, the dioceses of Mandeville and Montego Bay cover parts of Jamaica. [6] [7]
The story of the Seventh-day Adventists in Jamaica, is one of rapid growth and development over more than a century. In 1891, at the request of James Palmer of Kingston, the Tract Society (Seventh-day Adventist) in the United States of America mailed literature to Jamaica. He gave one to Mrs. Margaret Harrison who is said to be the first Adventist in Jamaica. Her plea to a General Conference session in Battle Creek, Michigan, resulted in the arrival of the first missionaries to the island, Pastor A J. Haysmer and his wife, on 26 May 1893.
The church was able to host a meeting of all workers in the West Indies from 5 to 15 November 1898 at Text Lane, in Kingston, Jamaica. By February 1899, there were six organized churches and 15 other congregations, with a total of 502 members and about 100 other Sabbath-keepers. The records show that by May 1902, this number had grown to 18 churches and 13 other congregations. At its 35th meeting in Oakland, California, in March 1903, the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists voted to receive the Jamaica Conference into the fellowship. Rapid church growth followed although ordained ministers were few, but the lay members shouldered much of the work.
In the building of the Seventh-day Adventist denomination, education and health were essential planks. With the work growing in Jamaica, the need for an Adventist school to train new converts as ministers and church workers for the region became apparent. In 1906, suitable land was acquired at Bog walk and then Riversdale, St. Catherine, for this venture, and the West Indian Training School was established. Its policy of work-study helped students to work while studying in order to assist with the cost of their education. In 1919, the school was relocated to its present home in Mandeville and later became the West Indies College, now Northern Caribbean University (NCU), with enrollment averaging over 5,000. The Union has grown to cover evangelistic, health, education and youth programs, involving 10 high schools, 22 elementary schools and numerous basic schools, in addition to the ever-expanding NCU.
In 1912, the Adventists opened the “Massage and Hydropathic Treatment Rooms” in Kingston. As demand for its services grew, there were calls for a hospital, and in 1945, the “Andrews Memorial Hospital and Missionary Clinic” was established. Along with the facility, a nursing school was started. Today, Andrews Memorial Hospital provides a facility, with cutting edge medical services such as CT Scan, ultrasound, liptotriptor, surgery, maternity care, dental care and a pharmacy. It collaborates with NCU in training nurses.
Throughout its history the expansive of the work of the Jamaica Union Conference has been underpinned by the publishing ministry, with its army of faithful 'colporteur' door to door book selling evangelists.
At the 1936 Adventist worldwide General Conference session, Elder A.C. Stockhousen was moved to report: "Jamaica is one of the largest conferences of Seventh-day Adventists in the world.... Today there are 5,335 baptized believers...A more loyal and serious band of believers it would be hard to find anywhere."
Today, this continues to be true, and there are currently 5 local conference organizations in Jamaica, but now with 324,747 members (as of 30 June 2020).
| Affiliation | Percentage [8] |
|---|---|
| Church of God | 24% |
| Seventh-day Adventist | 12% |
| Pentecostalism | 10% |
| Baptist | 7% |
| Anglicanism | 4% |
| Roman Catholicism | 2% |
| Reformed | 2% |
| Methodism | 2% |
| Jehovah's Witnesses | 2% |
| Moravian | 1% |
| Brethren [ which? ] | 1% |
| Christian total | 99 |
| No affiliation | 21% |
| Other | 10% |
| Unstated | 6% |
| Total | 100% |
The majority of the population of the Turks and Caicos Islands are Christian. They include Protestant 72.8%, Baptists 35.8%, Church of God 11.7%, Roman Catholics 11.4%, Anglicans 10%, Methodists 9.3%, Seventh-Day Adventists 6%, Jehovah's Witnesses 1.8%, and Other 14%
The Parish of Manchester is a parish located in west-central Jamaica, in the county of Middlesex. Its capital, Mandeville, is a major business centre. Its St. Paul of the Cross Pro-Cathedral is the episcopal see of the Latin Catholic Diocese of Mandeville.
Protestantism in Puerto Rico officially was introduced in 1872 when the first Protestant church in the Anglican tradition was established on the island. Before the islands of Puerto Rico came under United States sovereignty in 1898, Protestantism was suppressed under Roman Catholic Spanish rule.
The Archdiocese of Kingston in Jamaica is an archdiocese of the Roman Rite within the Roman Catholic Church. Its area is the majority of Jamaica, including its capital, Kingston. The ecclesiastical province has three suffragan dioceses: Belize City-Belmopan, Mandeville and Montego Bay, as well as the Mission Sui Iuris of Cayman Islands. They and the archdiocese are members of the Antilles Episcopal Conference.
Northern Caribbean University (NCU) is a private, liberal-arts institution owned and operated by the Jamaica Union Conference (JAMU) and the Atlantic Caribbean Union Mission (ACUM) of Seventh-day Adventists, and is located in Jamaica. With its main campus only 2 miles south of Mandeville town, in Manchester, and three other campuses situated in Kingston, Montego Bay and Salem Runaway Bay, St. Ann, the university offers a number of professional, pre-professional and vocational programmes in a spiritually wholesome and aesthetically pleasing atmosphere. Established in 1907, NCU currently enjoys an average yearly enrollment of over five thousand students, from up to 35 countries.
George Liele was an African American and emancipated slave who became the founding pastor of First Bryan Baptist Church and First African Baptist Church, in Savannah, Georgia (USA). He later would become a missionary to Jamaica.
The Church in the Province of the West Indies is one of 40 member provinces in the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church comprises eight dioceses spread out over much of the West Indies area. The present position of Archbishop and Primate of the West Indies is held by the current bishop of Jamaica, Howard Gregory. Gregory was elected as the thirteenth Archbishop of the Province by clergy and laity attending the 40th Synod of the CPWI at the Cascadia Hotel, in Port of Spain, Trinidad in May 2019. The position was previously held by John Holder who retired in 2018. Drexel Gomez was the primate before Bishop Holder until 2009. The church is also part of the Global South.
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Montego Bay is a Latin suffragan diocese of the Roman Catholic Church located on the northwest part of the island of Jamaica, in the Caribbean ecclesiastical province of the Metropolitan Archdiocese of Kingston, yet depends on the missionary Roman Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples.
Protestants in India are a minority and a sub-section of Christians in India and also to a certain extent the Christians in Pakistan before the Partition of India, that adhere to some or all of the doctrines of Protestantism. Protestants in India are a small minority in a predominantly Hindu majority country, but form majorities in the north-eastern states of Meghalaya, Mizoram& Nagaland and significant minorities in Konkan division, Bengal, Kerala& Tamil Nadu, with various communities in east coast and northern states. Protestants today trace their heritage back to the Protestant reformation of the 16th century.
The United Theological College of the West Indies (UTCWI) is an ecumenical seminary training male and female clergy in Kingston, Jamaica, for Anglican and Protestant denominations throughout the Caribbean.
Protestantism is the dominant religion in Jamaica. Protestants make up about 65% percent of the population. The five largest denominations in Jamaica are: Church of God, Seventh-day Adventist, Baptist, Pentecostal and Anglican. The full list is below. most of the Caribbean is Catholic, Jamaica's Protestantism is a legacy of missionaries that came to the island in the 18th and 19th centuries. Missionaries attempted to convert slaves to varying Protestant denominations of Moravians, Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians to name a few. As missionaries worked to convert slaves, African traditions mixed with the religion brought over by Europeans. The Protestant church was associated with black nationalism in Jamaica, aiming to improve the lives of blacks who were governed by a white minority during colonial times. Today, the church plays an important role in society by providing services to people in need.
The Hyacinth Chen School of Nursing was officially opened on August 10, 2008, on a location directly across from the Northern Caribbean University campus across from NCU's Dental Centre located in Mandeville, Jamaica.
The Anglican Diocese of Belize was established in 1883. The current bishop is Philip Wright.
Sir Patrick Linton Allen is a Jamaican statesman and former Seventh-day Adventist pastor, who has served as the 6th and current governor-general of Jamaica since 26 February 2009.
The Anglican Diocese of Jamaica and the Cayman Islands is a diocese of the Church in the Province of the West Indies. It was originally formed as the Diocese of Jamaica, within the Church of England, in 1824. At that time the diocese included the Bahamas and British Honduras ; in 1842, her jurisdiction was described as "Jamaica, British Honduras, the Bahamas". The Bahamas became a separate Diocese in 1861 and British Honduras in 1891. In 2001, the title of the Diocese of Jamaica was extended to include ‘and the Cayman Islands’ to recognise the growth of the Anglican Church in those islands, which had become part of the diocese of Jamaica in the 1960s.
Religion in Jamaica, according to the census of 2011, consists of a breakdown of 69% Christian.
The Seventh-day Adventist Church is a major Christian denomination with a small presence in Turks and Caicos Islands with a reported 3,864 members as of June 30, 2020.
The Jamaica Baptist Union is a Baptist Christian denomination, affiliated with the Baptist World Alliance, founded in 1849 in Jamaica. The headquarters is in Kingston, Jamaica. The president of the union is Rev. Dr. Glenroy Lalor.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Jamaica refers to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its members in Jamaica. In 1980, there were 85 members in Jamaica. In 2019, there were 6,718 members in 18 congregations.