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.
In Montaña, Aguadilla, a group called "Los Bíblicos" met clandestinely under the direction of Antonio Badillo. Many freethinkers and Protestants belonged to Masonic lodges, as many in the older generation still do. In 1872, the first Protestant church was established in Puerto Rico, when Bishop William Walrond Jackson, from the Anglican Diocese of Antigua provided for the creation of the Holy Trinity Anglican Church in Ponce, followed several years later by All Saints Anglican Church in Vieques. [1]
Soon after the change of sovereignty, United States Protestant denominations agreed to divide the island in order to facilitate missionary penetration. The two existing Anglican churches in Ponce and Vieques served as the basis for a new diocese of the Episcopal Church of the United States [2] which has since had seven diocesan bishops. Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, Congregationalists and Disciples of Christ started the missionary work. While the President appointed the governors, these denominations were influential in government policies. After the 1940s this changed; nevertheless Protestantism kept growing, particularly Pentecostalism, which grew mostly among the poor and the rural.
Mainline Protestants started educational and health institutions. Presbyterians founded in 1912 the InterAmerican University, [3] with 11 campuses and 40,000 students, and established in 1904 the Ashford Presbyterian Hospital [4] in San Juan. Seventh-day Adventists founded Adventist University [5] in 1961 and Bella Vista Hospital [6] in 1954 near Mayagüez. In 1907, the Episcopal Church established St. Luke's Hospital in Ponce, [7] the centerpiece of a multi-hospital health services organization today. [8] An interdenominational Seminary, Seminario Evangélico de Puerto Rico [9] was begun in 1919. There is a Council of Churches, founded by the cooperating denominations of the original community agreement. [10]
In 1940, Juanita Garcia Peraza and her followers founded the "Mita" congregation, the only Protestant religion of Puerto Rican origin. [11]
Estimates of the Protestant population vary greatly. The CIA World Factbook estimates that 85% of the population is Roman Catholic while the remaining 15% are Protestants and other religions. Pollster Pablo Ramos stated in 1998 that the population was 38% Roman Catholic, 28% Pentecostal, and 18% were members of independent churches, which would give a Protestant percentage of 46% if the last two populations are combined. Protestants collectively added up to almost two million people. "The conclusion is that Puerto Rico is no longer predominantly Catholic." [12]
Another researcher gave a more conservative assessment of the proportion of Protestants: "Puerto Rico, by virtue of its long political association with the United States, is the most Protestant of Latin American countries, with a Protestant population of approximately 33 to 38 percent, the majority of whom are Pentecostal. David Stoll calculates that if we extrapolate the growth rates of evangelical churches from 1960-1985 for another twenty-five years Puerto Rico will become 75 percent evangelical." [13] Guatemala and Honduras have similar proportions of Protestants, with Guatemala probably being the highest.
In Anglican Christianity, the low church wing of one of the Anglican churches includes those who give relatively little emphasis to ritual, sacraments, and sometimes the authority of clergy. The term is most often used in a liturgical context. "Low church", in a contemporary Anglican context, denotes a Protestant emphasis, and "high church" denotes an emphasis on ritual, often as Anglo-Catholicism.
Religion in Trinidad and Tobago, which is a multi-religious nation, is distributed as follows: The largest religious group is Christianity with 63.2 percent of the population. This includes Protestant Christians with Anglicans, Presbyterians, Methodists, Evangelicals, Pentecostals, Shouter or Spiritual Baptists and regular Baptists as well as Roman Catholics. Hindus are 20.4 percent, Muslims 5.6 percent. There is an Afro-Caribbean syncretic faith, the Orisha faith with 1 percent and there are Rastafaris with 0.3 percent. Other Religions account for 7.0 percent and "None/not shared" for 2.5.
Protestant denominations arrived in the Philippines in 1898, after the United States took control of the Philippines from Spain, first with United States Army chaplains and then within months civilian missionaries.
Protestantism in Brazil began in the 19th century, and grew in the 20th century. The 2010 Census reported that 22.2% of the Brazilian population is Protestant, while in 2020 the percentage was estimated to have risen to 31% of the population, meaning over 65 million individuals, making it one of the world's largest concentrations of Protestants. Brazilian Protestantism is primarily represented by Evangelical Protestant and Pentecostal churches, and a smaller proportion of Baptists. The remainder is made up of Lutherans, Adventists, Presbyterians and other mainline Protestant traditions.
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 Revolution of the 16th century and Ancient Christianity in the Indian Subcontinent.
Christianity is the most prevalent religion in the United States. Estimates suggest that between 65% to 75% of the US population is Christian. The majority are Protestant Christians and Roman Catholics and other minorities of Mormons, Orthodox and Jehovah's Witnesses. The Public Religion Research Institute's "2020 Census of American Religion", carried out between 2014 and 2020, showed that 70% of Americans identified as Christian during this seven-year interval. In a 2020 survey by the Pew Research Center, 65% of adults in the United States identified themselves as Christians. They were 75% in 2015 70.6% in 2014, 78% in 2012, 81.6% in 2001, and 85% in 1990. About 62% of those polled claim to be members of a church congregation. The United States has the largest Christian population in the world and, more specifically, the largest Protestant population in the world, with nearly 230 to 250 million Christians and, as of 2019, over 150 million people affiliated with Protestant churches, although other countries have higher percentages of Christians among their populations. The modern official motto of the United States of America, as established in a 1956 law signed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, is "In God We Trust". The phrase first appeared on U.S. coins in 1864.
Protestants in Thailand constitute about 0.77% of the population of Thailand. Protestant work among the Thai people was begun by Ann Judson in Burma, who evangelized Thai war captives who were relocated to Burma. Protestantism was introduced to the country of Thailand in 1828 through the work of Karl Gutzlaff and Jacob Tomlin, the first two resident Protestant missionaries in Thailand.
Christians have made myriad contributions in a broad and diverse range of fields, including the sciences, arts, politics, literatures and business.
The Episcopal Diocese of Puerto Rico is a diocese of the Episcopal Church in Puerto Rico.
Ordination is the process by which individuals are consecrated, that is, set apart as clergy to perform various religious rites and ceremonies such as celebrating the sacraments. The process and ceremonies of ordination varies by denomination. One who is in preparation for, or who is undergoing the process of ordination is sometimes called an ordinand. The liturgy used at an ordination is sometimes referred to as an ordinal.
Protestants and Evangelicals are two of the most numerous religious associations in Mexico after the Roman Catholic majority. In Mexico, there are many denominations from virtually all doctrinal backgrounds, the largest of which are: Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist, Pentecostals and a group of unaffiliated non-denominational charismatic congregations. In the census, some of these congregations and their followers are grouped as "Neo-Charismatic", others are grouped as "Evangelicals".
Protestantism is the largest grouping of Christians in the United States, with its combined denominations collectively comprising about 43% of the country's population in 2019. Other estimates suggest that 48.5% of the U.S. population is Protestant. Simultaneously, this corresponds to around 20% of the world's total Protestant population. The U.S. contains the largest Protestant population of any country in the world. Baptists comprise about one-third of American Protestants. The Southern Baptist Convention is the largest single Protestant denomination in the U.S., comprising one-tenth of American Protestants. Twelve of the original Thirteen Colonies were Protestant; Maryland was the only Catholic one.
Taiwan has a Christian minority, making up about 3.9% of its population. Roughly half of Taiwan's Christians are Catholic, and half Protestant. Due to the small number of practitioners, Christianity has not influenced the island nation's Han Chinese culture in a significant way. A few individual Christians have devoted their lives to charitable work in Taiwan becoming well known and well liked for example George Leslie Mackay (Presbyterian) and Nitobe Inazō.
The Caribbean Conference of Churches is a regional ecumenical body with 33 member churches in 34 territories across the Dutch, English, French and Spanish speaking territories of the Caribbean. It was founded in 1973.
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