The Roots of Rebellion and Rasta Theology in Jamaica

Abstract

This essay is taken from the text of a public lecture that was given by the author at The Queen's Foundation for Ecumenical Theological Education on April 13, 2005. It formed part of an annual "Black Theology Consultation" at Queen's, at which Noel Erskine was the principal speaker that year. This piece builds upon Erskine's groundbreaking research detailed in his seminal Decolonizing Theology, in which he outlined a Jamaican/Caribbean perspective on liberation theology that draws upon the hybridity of Caribbean identities and the plurality of their religious sensibilities; moving from the practices of the Afro-Jamaican Christianity, to Garveyism and, later, Rastafari. This essay outlines the religious dimensions of rebellion against White colonial rule in Jamaica, which provides the antecedents for the religio-cultural doctrines and practices of Rastafari. Further details of this work can be found in From Garvey to Marley.

Skin Bleachers’ Representations of Skin Color in Jamaica

“…Blacks are the only people who have a human image of God that is at variance with their Black physicality (W. Cross, personal communication, October 18, 2004). The Creole religions Pocomania and Revivalist, and the African religions Rastafarianism, Myalism, and Obeah are anathema to religious respectability (Alleyne, 2005;Austin-Broos, 1997;Erskine, 2007;Niaah, 2003). However, the Mormons, who only first accepted Blacks to the priesthood in 1978 (Kendall & White, 1995), and who practice racial endogamy (Kendall & White, 2000), are accepted among Christians.…”

Mapping Black Theology Globally

“…What deserves emphasis, however, is the interpretive continuity of the basic elements of this theology with the method of ‘decolonization’ which has emerged in Jamaica as one important contribution to black theology today. Noel Erskine, a leading proponent of this approach, has shown the importance of this history for contemporary Jamaican theology (Erskine 1998, 2007). Erskine sees the history of black religious protest in Jamaica in terms of the motif of decolonization.…”