One of the distinctive characteristics of Caribbean Christianity is the racial and ethnic diversity of its adherents. A high proportion of the people of the region is either black or African American (mixed African and non-African descent). Although a large proportion of the black population was exposed only superficially to Christian teachings during the period of slavery beginning in the sixteenth century and continuing into the nineteenth, and despite extensive disillusionment with the historical churches in the decades immediately after emancipation, Christianity has continued to spread widely in the region. The long and close relationship between religion and sociopolitical doctrine in the societies from which the dominant class in the colonial period came has persisted in many parts of the Caribbean to the present day.

The Early Years

The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries have been called the missionary centuries in...