Respected religion historian

LLOYD A. COOKE is well known in missionary circles, being a missionary himself, and is regarded a font of knowledge, especially when it comes on to the history of missionary work in Jamaica. He is a well-respected religion historian/researcher and has been documenting most of what he knows.

Cooke came up with The Story of Jamaican Missions: How the Gospel Went from Jamaica to the World, published in 2013 by Arawak Publications, in Kingston. This 672-page paperback is chock-full of information that may not be available in any other book publication. And it is not only about missionaries who came here, those who were trained here, and those Jamaicans who went abroad on missionary work.

The book gives an easy-to-understand history of the establishment of the major Christian denominations in Jamaica, and how some of them came to be part and parcel of some of Jamaica’s historical elements, such as Apprenticeship and Emancipation. Part I, ‘Insurrection and its Impact on Mission’, looks at the 1831-32 Christmas Rebellion, said to be instigated by Baptist Deacon Samuel Sharpe, and how the Colonial Church Union attempted to get rid of the missionaries.

While Part III is about Emancipation and its effects; ‘Ramifications of emancipation struggle at home and abroad’ and ‘Christianisation and social transformation’, Part II documents the arrival and evolution of Roman Catholic evangelists; the Quakers; the Anglicans; the Moravians, seeking souls for the Lamb; the Black American Baptists; the British Baptists; Wesley and his soldiers; and the Presbyterian Scots.

Part IV and V, ‘Irresistible Force: A Wave of Missionary Activity’ and ‘A New Impetus: The Second Wave’, respectively, are about the missions that left Jamaica to Fernando Po and the Cameroons, to Calabar, Nigeria, to east Africa, Nigeria, Panama, Costa Rica, Belize, Haiti, et cetera. Part VI, ‘A New Century: Individual Efforts And a Few Agencies that Helped’ brings into focus some special men, women, families and entities who had left indelible footprints on the path of the missionary journeys.

“ The missionary effort of the Jamaican Baptists, and of most of the other churches, marks one of the most glorious chapters in missions history. The motivation for this came largely from the people themselves, strongly supported by their missionaries … The missionaries who were active in Jamaica saw multitudes turning to Jesus as a direct result of the struggles for the abolition of slavery, and its aftermath.The future for the gospel seemed bright without a cloud anywhere in the skies,” Cooke writes, on page 225.

Cooke is also the author of A Goodly Heritage:The Legacy of a Family of Planter-Preachers who Helped Plant the Missionary Churchin Jamaica and the World, published in 2017 by Zulon Press in Maitland, Florida. It is about the Clarke/Lord family who went on missions of their own volition. For, it had reached a point where the denominations could not afford to send missions, but people would set out nonetheless, some without the knowledge of the Curch.

“ Possibly the greatest example of this type of Jamaican missionary sprang from one extended family in the central Jamaican parish of Manchester, in particular from the town of Mandeville.This was the Clark/Lord family, of which seven generations have served and continue to serve in cross-cultural missions. They were from the Christian and Missionary Alliance, which became the Missionary Church Association,” Cooke writes.

Cooke is now working on two more books, one with Billy Hall, on the history of the Christian Brethren in Jamaica (1920-2020), and another (with six others) on the 200th anniversary of the establishment of the Anglican bishopric in Jamaica.