Religion in Guyana
Religion in Society
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Christianity, Hinduism, and Islam are the dominant religions in Guyana. The majority
of the Indo-Guyanese are Hindus, although a substantial number are Muslims. Some
Indo-Guyanese have converted to Christianity, but conversion is often for professional
reasons. Some converts continue their Hindu or Muslim rituals in addition to participating
in Christian services. Most Afro-Guyanese are Christians, although a few have converted
to Hinduism or Islam. Guyana's other ethnic groups are largely Christian. In 1990,
some 52 percent of Guyanese were Christian, 34 percent were Hindu, and 9 percent
were Muslim. Of the Christians, 65 percent were Protestant and 35 percent Roman Catholic
Christianity's status as Guyana's dominant system of values is a consequence of
colonial history. To the European planters, colonial administrators, and missionaries,
the profession of Christian beliefs and observance of Christian practices were prerequisites
to social acceptance. Even though the planters discouraged the teaching of their
religion to the slaves, Christianity eventually became as much the religion of the
Africans as of the Europeans
Indeed, after abolition, Christian institutions played an even more important
role in the lives of the former slaves than in the lives of the masters. By the time
the East Indians and other indentured groups arrived in Guyana, a new syncretic Afro-Guyanese
culture in which Christianity played an important part had already been established.
Only since the mid-twentieth century, with the growth of the Indo-Guyanese population
and the efforts of their ethnic and religious organizations, have Muslim and Hindu
values and institutions been recognized as having equal status with those of Guyana's
Christians.
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