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CARIBBEAN ECUMENISM Joop Vemooij This Contribution Wants To

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CARIBBEAN ECUMENISM Joop Vemooij This Contribution Wants To CARIBBEAN ECUMENISM Joop Vemooij This contribution wants to give an evaluation of the history and the actual situation of ecumenism in our region, the Caribbean. We will give special emphasis to the development of the CCC, the Carribean Conference of Churches (since 1973). It is a strange story of people with a European and African background (black slavery) and a mixed culture of East and the West (indenture labor from the East), the North and the South. The history of the Christian churches in the Caribbean dates from the beginning of the Conquista and the times of slave trade and slavery. This combination makes the position of the Christian churches in the region remarkable: they were connected with the colonial powers and the masters of other of human beings, with the inheritance of the discord and rivalry among the Christian churches of Europe. The Caribbean is defined by the history of slavery: to the colonial powers of Europe the region became known as the West Indies. Some- times scholars also include parts of Venezuela and Central America and parts of the Southern United States of America: the extended beaches of the Caribbean sea. Mostly the region consists of areas with Spanish, English, French and Dutch relics, but in the American Virgin Islands the people spoke, apart from negro-Dutch, also negro-Danish. The region has become a melting pot of cultures especially since cargoes of indentured labourers from the East came to work on the plantations after the abolition of slavery (England 1834, France 1848, The Netherlands 1863 and Cuba 1880). The region is a mosaic of small islands and countries, peoples of mixed races in the shadow of and related to the United States of America, and even more to the early colonial powers of Europe and so without doubt part of the Western hemisphere. Considerable parts of the populati- ons migrated to the big cities. We must realize that the contact between the various parts of the region is far from what it should be, because of the language barriers and the costs of transportion. However e-mail and internet open new possibilities in this respect. The Present Situation The indigenous peoples of the region became the victims of violence of the first conquistadores. After 1492 Spanish Catholicism became the state religion in some of the parts of the region (Espanola, Cuba, Trinidad, 141 Puerto Rico), but in the seventeenth century Protestantism grew: Anglican- ism (Barbados, Jamaica, Surinam), Lutheranism (Virgin Islands, Guyana, Surinam), Calvinism (Surinam, Guyana), Moravians (St. Croix, St. Thomas, Surinam). That makes the religious panorama very significant: a process of wiping out the religions of the indigenes and slaves and pro- moting a very paradoxical Christianity. The quality of this Christianity was dubious and far from attractive for newcomers. In Trinidad, Guyana and Surinam, Hinduism and Islam made their appearance with the arrival of the indentured labourers. The membership 1 of the various religions in these three countries now is as follows:' Various other religious movements came into existence, not only with a Christian signature. Some Hindu variations (Brahma Kumari, Hare Krishna, Maharishi Yogi), Rastafaria, the many combinations of folk religion (Voodoo, Santeria, Orisha, Winti, Kele, and the Shouter Baptists, Pocomania, revivalists with protestant background). In short: the religious map is very diverse with a population of 33 million. Beginning Discord and rivalry was the basic characteristic of the relations between the Christian churches and institutions in the region. There were moments of cooperation, for example the mutual help on the occasions baptism was necessary during the absence of ministers. In 1825 the Dutch government combined the Calvinist and Lutheran churches of Curacao in one United 1 Caribbean Catholic Directory 1994, p. 220, 96, 200. .
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