Rastafarianism is a religious movement (especially popular in Jamaica – 5% to 10% of the population) that is less than a century old. It had its beginnings in a black, political movement that started in the 1920s/30s.
One of the early influences who paved the way for the rise
of this cult was Marcus Garvey (1887-1940). Garvey, who lived in New York City, believed that the black man would never receive fair treatment in a white man’s world. He thus organized a “back-to-Africa” movement that attracted thousands of followers among the poor blacks of certain large-city urban areas. Garvey was convicted of mail fraud, spent time in prison, and finally returned to his native Jamaica in 1927.
At about the same time, Garvey allegedly “prophesied” that a black king would be crowned in Africa, and through that monarch deliverance for dark-skin people would be realized eventually. Garvey himself never joined the subsequent religious movement that became known as Rastafarianism.
In 1930, a man by the name of Ras Tafari Makonnen (1893-1975) was crowned as emperor of Ethiopia. He became more popularly known as Haile Selassie I (signifying, “Power of the Trinity”), a name he chose for himself. Selas
sie was from a dynasty that boasted of having descended from a union between King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba (of which there is no biblical evidence). At his coronation, he was exalted as “King of Kings, Lord of Lords, His Imperial Majesty of the Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah, Elect of God.” In the minds of many, Selassie was perceived as the “fulfillment” of Marcus Garvey’s earlier “prophecy.”
The followers of Selassie began to designate themselves as “Rastafarians,” after the emperor’s original name (though, apparently, Selassie himself never joined the sect). The main focus of the movement was in Jamaica, but many Rastafarians migrated to the United States in the 1960s/70s. They now number more than 1,000,000 world-wide.
Like many other systems, Rastafarianism has segments within it that advocate various shades of religious ideas. But these sects have one
thing in common. Each teaches doctrines that are antagonistic to the Christian system as revealed in the New Testament.
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