- Summary
- Adherents
- Religious Freedom
- Socio-economic
- Public Opinion
Religious Adherents1 |
Bahamas, The | Caribbean | World |
|---|---|---|---|
| Baha'i | 0.4% | 0.2% | 0.1% |
| Buddhist | 0.0% | 0.0% | 5.8% |
| Chinese Universalist | 0.0% | 0.1% | 5.8% |
| Christian | 92.0% | 83.1% | 33.3% |
| Confucianist | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.1% |
| Ethnoreligionist | 0.0% | 0.0% | 4.0% |
| Hindu | 0.0% | 0.9% | 13.6% |
| Jain | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.1% |
| Jewish | 0.1% | 0.0% | 0.2% |
| Muslim | 0.0% | 0.3% | 20.8% |
| Shintoist | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| Sikh | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.3% |
| Spiritist | 1.9% | 6.8% | 0.2% |
| Taoist | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.1% |
| Zoroastrian | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| Other Religions | 0.0% | 0.0% | 1.6% |
| Neo-religions | 0.0% | 0.0% | -- |
| Non-religious | 5.4% | 6.8% | 11.7% |
| Atheist | 0.2% | 1.8% | 2.3% |
Religious Demography
The country has an area of 13,939 square miles and a population of 340,000, including those residing illegally. The country is ethnically diverse and includes a Haitian minority of legal and illegal immigrants estimated at 40,000 to 60,000 persons and a white/European minority that is nearly as large. More than 90 percent of the population professed a religion, and anecdotal evidence suggests that most attend services regularly. The country's religious profile reflects its diversity. Protestant Christian denominations including Baptists (35 percent), Anglicans (15 percent), Pentecostals (8 percent), Church of God (5 percent), Seventh-day Adventists (5 percent) and Methodists (4 percent) are in the majority, but there are also significant Roman Catholic (14 percent) and Greek Orthodox populations. Smaller Jewish, Baha'i, Jehovah's Witness and Muslim communities also are active. A small number of Bahamians and Haitians, particularly those living in the Family Islands, practice Obeah, a version of voodoo. A small but stable number of citizens identify themselves as Rastafarians, while some members of the small resident Guyanese and Indian populations practice Hinduism and other South Asian religions. Although many unaffiliated Protestant congregations are almost exclusively black, most mainstream churches are integrated racially.2
Sources
Note: All country histories and flags were obtained from The World Factbook, 2008.
1. The World Christian Database (WCD) is based on the 2600-page award-winning World Christian Encyclopedia and World Christian Trends, first published in 1982 and revised in 2001. This extensive work on World religion is now completely updated and integrated into the WCD online database. Designed for both the casual user and research scholar, information is readily available on religious activities, growth rates, religious literature, worker activity, and demographic statistics. Additional secular data is incorporated on population, health, education, and communications. A dataset with these and the other international measures highlighted on the country pages can be downloaded from this website. Used with permission.
2. The U.S. State Department's International Religious Freedom report is submitted to Congress annually by the Department of State in compliance with Section 102(b) of the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) of 1998. This report supplements the most recent Human Rights Reports by providing additional detailed information with respect to matters involving international religious freedom. It includes individual country chapters on the status of religious freedom worldwide. A dataset with these and the other international measures highlighted on the country pages can be downloaded from this website. These State Department reports are open source.
