By Billy Hall, ContributorEVERY 10 Years, by international agreement, countries worldwide have a census. Unlike a poll, which is based on sampling, a census is a total response. But precisely because a census involves everybody - the total population - significant details suffer. Such details derive more from 'rider' questions, added to the main overall purpose of a population count (2,595,262). This is certainly the case in relation to the 2002 census on Jamaica, as it reports on religion.
Director of Census Valrie Nam assures, therefore, concerning the accuracy of the figures relevant to religion. She affirms quite rightly, that the data concerning religions and religious adherents are accurate in that they represent the responses of the persons interviewed and that is useful very useful although for several other purposes, limited.
It is this limited aspect of the census data that launches discussion on the issue of the rise and decline, or vice versa, of Christianity and other religions, and between one Christian denomination and another.
The discussion has hit a 'sensitive nerve' it seems, when the observation is made, comparing census data on religion as reported in the census of 1960 and the census of 2002. The sensitivity arises over the observation that the Anglican Church, which was reported in the l943 census to have 318,643 members, in the 2002 census, has 93,612 members.
HIGHEST PERCENTAGE OF MEMBERS
Other churches have declined significantly, but none as sharply, even dramatically, as the Anglicans, which in 1960 had the highest percentage of members any religious body has ever had, just under 20 per cent.
Even the Seventh Day Adventist, the single denomination with the greatest number of reported members in the 2002 census has just 10 per cent of the population.
Even if all three clearly identified types of 'Church of God' (COG/Jamaica, COG/Prophecy/, and New Testament COG) were to be grouped, their combined numbers would make them number one for members (401, 321), way beyond the SDA (281, 353). Yet, even that combined Church of God number would represent (15.45 per cent) and so less than the 19 per cent the Anglicans enjoyed at about the time Jamaica became independent.
The decline of the Anglican Church, therefore, ought to be as much a concern, to any keen observed of the social scene, as the rise of the Church of God churches or the Seventh Day Adventist denomination. For that reason, the focus of this article is on the Anglican Church, even though there are good reasons to focus on others, and this will be done. The long, privileged advantage of the Anglican Church enhances reasons for this focus on the Anglican Church. It was the official religion of the English Government that colonised Jamaica and charged the first Governor in 1661 to establish the Church of England.
Regrettably, more than 150 years after, a member of the British House of Commons observed, "The Anglican Church was founded for the benefit for the white population alone. It was no more calculated for the Negro than the brute animals that share his toils."
(House of Commons Debate, March 16, 1824).
The Anglicans took over from the Catholics, followed in 1754 by the Moravians. However, the three Moravian missionaries who came and the few that followed, made little progress with their Gospel work among the slaves. One reasons was that they kept slaves, and were culturally inflexible, as well as geographically limited in their efforts. Therefore, it was not until the arrival of the Baptist George Liele, in 1783, that the Gospel was preached to the slave population. Before this date, at best, the attempts were neither serious, nor systematic, nor extensive.
SLAVE SYSTEM
During the time that the Baptists, supported by the Moravians, and joined by the Methodists, and Presbyterians, 'waged war' against the slave trade (1808) and the slave system (1834-1838), the Anglicans were largely obstructionists, opposing the 'non-conformists'.
In England, the evangelical movement within the Anglican Church (The Clapham sect) did magnificent work in the struggles for the abolition of the slave trade, but slackened in zeal for the abolition of slavery. In Jamaica, the Anglican Church, as the religious arm of the 'establishment', had clergy paid like civil servants from state funds, until disestablished (1870), and so placed on the same footing as the other denominations for financing church and social work.
When under the leadership of the then Canon William Gibson (Later Bishop Gibson, the first black Bishop of the Anglican Church in Jamaica) established Kingston College in 1925, the concept was a significant ploy to strengthen the Anglican Church by reaching down to a lower middle class, by providing a potential pool for priests, and recruits for the 'Church Army', the evangelistic wing of the Anglican Church. Kingston College has emerged as the most successful undertaking of the Anglican Church in Jamaica, but regrettably, the Anglican membership 'slide', which began before 1960, might have slowed but was not staunched.
NEW CHURCHES
In fact, graduates of Kingston College provided leadership for many of the other churches that have flourished 'at the expense' of the Anglican Church. Yet, the Anglican Church, which still has the potential to sweep Jamaica, has failed thus far to realise that potential because of not adapting better to the winds of social change that have been blowing across the world, over the Caribbean, and in Jamaica, from the latter half of the twentieth century.
Theologically, the Anglicans hold to the Apostles' Creed, which stands as a bulwark test of orthodoxy, but it has been much more recited than explained. The Thirty-Nine Articles have been virtually 'lost' and the revised Book of Common Prayer is largely hidden except for the priests and the devout
Several of the new churches have articulated and promoted their beliefs among their members, and in simple, popular form. As well they repeat and inculcate their members with their teaching.
Consequently, in the marketplace, where communication effectiveness counts, commercially and religiously, the average Pentecostal member could easily embarrass an Anglican counterpart on the issue of 'speaking in tongues'. The same would happen for the Anglican and the Seventh Day Adventist concerning worship on Saturday rather than Sunday, and the Baptist concerning 'immersion', rather than 'sprinkling', and the Brethren on 'conversion' rather than 'confirmation'.
Nevertheless, all would concede the edge to the Anglicans for the conducting of rituals involving infants, couples, and the dead. The Anglican order is even copied often, and adapted, by the many Christian groups. The decline of the evangelistic Church Army has hurt Anglican witness in Jamaica. Many still remember the witness of the Anglican 'Captains of Salvation' of the 1960s and 1970s. Two come to mind, Captain Ernest Cousins, and Captain Julius Creary. Furthermore, the Anglicans have neglected to 'log on' to the mass media, specifically the electronic media, particularly television.
Nevertheless, the work of Anglicans in terms of the evangelisation or 'Christianisation' of the society is second to none. Personally, although the Anglican Church is established, their 'officiating' work, for lack of a better word at this this, is impressive and unmatched, despite new substituting religionists. The Anglican conducting of state funerals, saying of Prayers in Parliament, officiating in the affairs of institutions, as Chaplains, and on special occasions for sports and other public events has order and dignity, colour and beauty, as well as simplicity and sanctity, unmatched in combination, by any other church group. In terms of cultural adaptation, the Anglicans have been turning, but too slowly. Yes, new sounds and sights are now affecting Anglican ritual but much more work needs to be done.
In education, the work of the Anglican Church is impressive. As Table 1 indicates. However, while educational institutions are good for evangelisation work, they are not automatically good for evangelism - persuasiveness that secures confession of Christ with the mouth as the Apostle Paul so clearly enunciates (Romans 10: 9, 10).
Too many Anglicans, baptised by faith into Christ, have never completed their spiritual journey with 'confirmation'. In Anglican schools, this failure to engage in persuasive Gospel proclamation to effect confirmation is perhaps the single most significant failure of the Anglican Church to maintain its leadership in independent Jamaica.
For the recovery, and advance of the Anglican Church, more accurately recognised as, 'The Church in Jamaica and the Cayman Islands in the Province of the West Indies', there must be much more emphasis on the preaching of the Gospel that requires a personal decision to trust Christ as Saviour.
