Divinity Atlas

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Jamaica

Also Known As Jamaican
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Jamaica is overwhelmingly Protestant, with Seventh day Adventist, Pentecostal and Church of God congregations dominating a landscape often said to hold more churches per square mile than anywhere else. It is also the birthplace of Rastafari, which emerged in the early 1930s among followers of Marcus Garvey who read the coronation of Haile Selassie I in Ethiopia as the fulfilment of prophecy, and which developed the Nyabinghi, Bobo Ashanti and Twelve Tribes of Israel houses along with an Ital diet, the locks, and the ritual use of cannabis. Rastafari were persecuted for decades, most severely in the Coral Gardens incident of 1963. Older African derived traditions persist in Revival Zion and in Kumina, brought by post emancipation Kongo indentured labourers, while obeah, first criminalised in 1760, remains an offence under the Obeah Act of 1898; a 2013 amendment removed flogging from its punishments but did not repeal the law.

Facts
Law and State
Establishment Status
No Establishment 3
The constitution guarantees freedom of religion with no established church.
State Funding Mechanism
Jamaica funds religious schools without funding religion. Churches, chiefly Catholic and Protestant, along with the Islamic Council of Jamaica, operate a number of public schools that draw government funding, but the money comes with conditions rather than favor: a church-run school taking public funds must admit students of every faith and follow the Ministry of Education, Youth and Information's ordinary curriculum and staffing rules, and the government extends no special treatment on the basis of a school's religious or denominational affiliation. The arrangement dates from the 1870 disestablishment of the Anglican church, which ended the direct state subventions it had drawn as Jamaica's official religion and left every church body to run its institutions on the same secular, per-pupil funding basis as any other school. 3
Apostasy or Blasphemy Law
Blasphemous libel remains a live common law offense in Jamaica, inherited from English common law and never separately abolished. A 2008 government committee recommended repealing the common law offenses of criminal libel, including blasphemous, obscene and seditious libel, and a joint parliamentary committee endorsed that recommendation in 2011, but neither was enacted. Jamaica's Defamation Act of 2013, which replaced the 1851 Libel and Slander Act and abolished ordinary criminal defamation, left the distinct common law offense of blasphemous libel untouched. 3
Registration or Recognition Regime
Registration is not mandatory, but a congregation that wants to hold land, sue or be sued in its own name, or send clergy to visit prisoners needs incorporated status. Most apply to the Companies Office of Jamaica with a standard form and a fee of 24,500 Jamaican dollars, the same route an ordinary nongovernmental organization uses, and must then file annual reports and financial statements to keep it. A group may instead petition parliament for incorporation by its own act, which carries the same practical benefits but, unlike the Companies Office route, comes with no annual reporting duty or ongoing regulation. 3
Ban or Official Watchlist
The Obeah Act of 1898, descending from prohibitions first enacted in 1760, criminalised African derived religious practice; its repeal was legislated in 2013. 3
Concordat BasisSourced to the subject's own account
Jamaica holds no concordat with the Holy See. Paul Fouad Naim Tabet served as Apostolic Pro-Nuncio to Jamaica from 9 February 1980, placing the diplomatic relationship in place by that date, and the Apostolic Nuncio to Jamaica, ranked as ambassador, resides in neighbouring Trinidad and Tobago rather than in Jamaica itself, serving both nations from the one post. No bilateral treaty has accompanied over four decades of relations. 4
Geography
Latitude
18.1 degrees north 2
Approximate reference point, rounded to one decimal place; a country's extent has no single center, so this coordinate is conventional, not a survey measurement.
Longitude
77.3 degrees west 2
Approximate reference point, rounded to one decimal place; a country's extent has no single center, so this coordinate is conventional, not a survey measurement.
Status
Legal Status
The constitution guarantees freedom of religion with no established church; the Obeah Act of 1898, descending from prohibitions first enacted in 1760, criminalised African derived practice and its repeal was legislated in 2013. 3
Demographics
Religious Composition
Around 68 per cent Christian and predominantly Protestant, with Seventh day Adventist and Pentecostal churches the largest; Rastafari are about 1 per cent by census self identification, a figure widely held to understate the movement's cultural reach (Pew Research Center, Religious Composition of the World, 2010-2020; Statistical Institute of Jamaica). 1
Government
Capital
Kingston 2
Government Type
parliamentary democracy (Parliament) under a constitutional monarchy; a Commonwealth realm 2
Sovereignty Status
Sovereign UN member state 2
Established Year
1962 2
6 August 1962 (from the UK)
Location
Location of Jamaica Afghanistan Albania Algeria Angola Argentina Armenia Australia Austria Azerbaijan Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Benin Bhutan Bolivia Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana Brazil Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burundi Cabo Verde Cambodia Cameroon Canada Chile China Colombia Costa Rica Croatia Cuba Cyprus Czech Republic Democratic Republic of the Congo Denmark Dominican Republic Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Estonia Eswatini Ethiopia Federated States of Micronesia Fiji Finland France French Polynesia Gabon Georgia Germany Ghana Greece Guam Guatemala Haiti Honduras Hong Kong Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Iran Iraq Ireland Israel Italy Ivory Coast Jamaica Japan Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya Kuwait Laos Latvia Lebanon Libya Lithuania Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Mali Malta Mauritius Mexico Moldova Mongolia Morocco Mozambique Myanmar Namibia Nepal Netherlands New Zealand Nigeria North Macedonia Norway Oman Pakistan Palestine Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru Philippines Poland Portugal Puerto Rico Qatar Romania Russia Rwanda Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Samoa Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia Sierra Leone Singapore Slovakia Slovenia Solomon Islands South Africa South Korea South Sudan Spain Sri Lanka Sudan Suriname Sweden Switzerland Syria Taiwan Tanzania Thailand Tonga Trinidad and Tobago Tunisia Turkey Uganda Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom United States Uruguay Uzbekistan Vanuatu Vatican City Venezuela Vietnam Yemen Zambia Zimbabwe
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Religion and History in Jamaica

Jamaica is overwhelmingly Protestant and unusually dense with congregations, dominated by Seventh day Adventist, Pentecostal, Church of God and Baptist churches rather than by the Anglican establishment the colony began with. The Baptist share has a specific origin: the first Baptist preaching in Jamaica was done by George Liele, a formerly enslaved man who arrived from Georgia in the 1780s, and the Native Baptist churches that grew from that work were led by Black preachers a generation before the English Baptist Missionary Society arrived. Those churches were central to the Baptist War of 1831 led by the deacon Samuel Sharpe, the rebellion that is generally credited with hastening emancipation.

Beneath and beside the churches run African derived traditions. Revival Zion, which emerged from the religious excitement of the 1860s, combines Christian scripture and hymnody with spirit possession, drumming and healing, and its bands are led by a shepherd or mother with a distinctive dress and a consecrated yard. Kumina is more directly Kongo in origin, brought by indentured labourers recruited from Central Africa after emancipation, and retains an African derived ritual language, drum rhythms and ancestral possession.

Obeah is the practice of harming or protecting through spiritual means, and it has been treated in law as a crime rather than as a religion since the eighteenth century, a status rooted in colonial fear of what enslaved people could organise. Prosecutions have continued into recent times and the standing of the legislation has been repeatedly debated in parliament; the atlas does not state the current position here because it could not be confirmed to the standard this project requires.

Rastafari, from Coral Gardens to an Apology

Rastafari began in Jamaica in the early 1930s, among people formed by Marcus Garvey's movement, who read the coronation of Ras Tafari Makonnen as Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia in 1930 as the fulfilment of prophecy. Leonard Howell was among the first preachers and established the Pinnacle community in the hills, which the colonial authorities raided repeatedly and finally destroyed.

The movement developed houses rather than a church. The Nyabinghi order is the oldest, centred on the grounation drumming assemblies. Bobo Ashanti, founded by Prince Emmanuel Charles Edwards, is a disciplined communal order with its own dress and observances. The Twelve Tribes of Israel, founded in the 1960s, is the most internationally dispersed and is the house Bob Marley belonged to. Common to most is the Ital diet, the wearing of locks, the reasoning session as the form of theological discussion, and a language shaped by deliberate substitution, most famously the use of I and I in place of the first person.

Persecution was severe and official. The worst episode was at Coral Gardens near Montego Bay in April 1963, when an incident at a petrol station led to a police and military operation in which Rastafari were killed, and many more were rounded up, beaten and had their locks forcibly cut. The Jamaican government issued a formal apology for Coral Gardens in 2017 and established a trust fund for survivors.

Haile Selassie visited Jamaica in 1966 to enormous crowds, an event Rastafari still date from. He did not accept the divine identification made of him, and the movement's response to his death in 1975 varies by house, which is one of the genuine internal differences within it.

Cross-Tradition Connections

Associated With

This source names Jamaica directly: "served as Apostolic Pro-Nuncio to Jamaica from 9 February 1980, placing the diplomatic relationship in place by that date, and that the Apostolic Nuncio to Jamaica, ranked as ambassador, resides in..."

Source Apostolic Nunciature to Jamaica (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names Jamaica directly: "Jamaican singer, songwriter and guitarist, born Robert Nesta Marley on February 6, 1945 in Nine Mile, Saint Ann, Jamaica, and died May 11, 1981 in Miami, Florida."

Source Bob Marley (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names Jamaica directly: "The Jamaica Information Service's own account of the 22 April 1978 One Love Peace Concert at the National Stadium in Kingston, documenting Bob Marley joining the hands of Prime Minister Michael..."

This source names Jamaica directly: "oral history collected in Ethiopia, Jamaica, Ghana and the United States, traces the Rastafari movement's return to Africa from the Caribbean, the United States and Britain, situating the Twelve..."

This source names Jamaica directly: "The Jamaica Information Service's own account of the Chevannes Ganja Commission documents the National Commission on Ganja's 2001 report to the government, chaired by anthropologist Barry Chevannes..."

Around 68 per cent of the population and predominantly Protestant, with Seventh day Adventist and Pentecostal churches the largest.

Source Religious Composition of the World, 2010-2020Pew Research Center

This source names Jamaica directly: "two decades, from his 1932 return to Jamaica preaching Haile Selassie's divinity through his 1937 founding of the Ethiopian Salvation Society to his establishment of the first Rastafari community in..."

This source names Jamaica directly: "Emperor Haile Selassie's 1966 visit to Jamaica, one of the most significant dates in the Rastafari calendar."

Source Rastafari (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names Jamaica directly: "from Selassie's own 1966 visit to Jamaica already recorded here into the religious and political organizing recorded in Jamaica's 2015 sacramental ganja legalization also already recorded here."

This source names Jamaica directly: "The Jamaica Gleaner's report on Jamaica's Culture Minister Olivia Grange disputing Saint Kitts and Nevis's claim to be the first Caribbean nation to recognize Rastafari in law, citing Jamaica's own..."

John King, Figures

This source names Jamaica directly: "knighted and appointed governor of Jamaica, and took a self-described protective, organizing role at seances, directing raps, levitations and other physical phenomena."

Source Man, Myth and MagicRichard Cavendish (ed.)
Kumina, Pantheons

Its own cited description places Kumina in eastern Jamaica.

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

This source names Jamaica directly: "Reliable for the date of Emperor Haile Selassie I's state visit to Jamaica, 21 April 1966, and Planno's role persuading the Emperor to disembark at Kingston's Palisadoes Airport after thousands of..."

Source Mortimer Planno (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names Jamaica directly: "The National Library of Jamaica's Digital Collection preserves this photograph, taken by Daily News photographer Alvin Jones, documenting the crowd waiting to view Bob Marley's body at the National..."

This source names Jamaica directly: "The Jamaica National Heritage Trust, the government body responsible for protecting Jamaica's cultural heritage sites, records that Leonard Howell founded the first Rastafari community of roughly..."

This source names Jamaica directly: "The Jamaica Information Service's own published text of Prime Minister Andrew Holness's statement to Parliament, delivered 4 April 2017, apologising for the violence against Rastafari at Coral..."

Source PM Holness Apologises For The 1963 Coral Gardens Incident (Jamaica Information Service)Jamaica Information Service; statement by Prime Minister Andrew Holness
Rastafari, Religions

Rastafari emerged in Jamaica in the early 1930s, reading the coronation of Haile Selassie I as prophetic fulfilment, and was persecuted for decades, most severely at Coral Gardens in 1963.

Source Religious Composition of the World, 2010-2020Pew Research Center

This source names Jamaica directly: "The article draws on The Guardian's Alexis Petridis (2004) and the Jamaica Forum for Lesbians, All-Sexuals and Gays for corroborating detail, and notes the movement has no central authority..."

This source names Jamaica directly: "covering Rastafari's origins in 1930s Jamaica, its theology centered on Haile Selassie, and its development into a global movement."

Source Rastafari: A Very Short IntroductionEnnis B. Edmonds

This source names Jamaica directly: "Barry Chevannes was a Jamaican sociologist, and this academic book, published by Syracuse University Press, traces the historical origins and development of the Rastafari movement in Jamaica..."

Source Rastafari: Roots and IdeologyBarry Chevannes

This source names Jamaica directly: "A November 4, 2012 Jamaica Gleaner "In Focus" feature reporting the Statistical Institute of Jamaica's 2011 Population and Housing Census results on religious affiliation, including a count of..."

This source names Jamaica directly: "The Jamaica Observer's own retrospective account of the One Love Peace Concert, documenting the political tensions between the People's National Party and the Jamaica Labour Party that the concert..."

This source names Jamaica directly: "own page recounting the history of the Jamaica Rastafarian Development Community (JRDC) School, from its 1975 origin as home schooling for six children through its formal registration in 2002 to its..."

Source The Shashamane Foundation: JRDC School HistoryThe Shashamane Foundation

This source names Jamaica directly: "a crisis of faith among Rastafari in Jamaica, documenting the movement's belief in Selassie's divinity as the two hundred twenty fifth descendant of King David through Solomon and the Queen of..."

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Sources
1. Religious Composition of the World, 2010-2020
Pew Research Center, Pew Research Center, 2025View the Source
2. The World Factbook (Central Intelligence Agency)
Central Intelligence Agency, Central Intelligence AgencyView the Source
3. International Religious Freedom Report
United States Department of State, Office of International Religious Freedom, US Department of State, 20232023 Report on International Religious Freedom: Jamaica, education sectionView the Source
4. Apostolic Nunciature to Jamaica (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia contributors, WikipediaView the Source
The Oxford English Dictionary, 3rd edition
Oxford University Press, Oxford University Pressdemonym / adjectival formView the Source
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