Christianity is the largest religion in Vanuatu. Vanuatu is an archipelago made up of 13 larger islands, and approximately 70 smaller surrounding islands, each home to multitudes of diverse cultural and religious communities.
As of 2020, the population of approximately 300,000 people speak as many as 145 languages throughout the island nation. Approximately 82% of the population of Vanuatu is Christian. An estimated 28% is Presbyterian, 12% Roman Catholic, 15% Anglican, and 12% Seventh-day Adventist. Groups that together constitute 15% include the Church of Christ , the Apostolic Church, Assemblies of God, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Jehovah’s Witnesses and some Protestant denominations.
The John Frum Movement, a political party that also is an indigenous religious group, is centered on the island of Tanna and includes about 5% of the population. The Baháʼí Faith, Muslims, Jehovah's Witnesses, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) also are active. There are believed to be members of other religions within the foreign community; they are free to practice their religions, but in 2007 they are not known to proselytize or hold public religious ceremonies.
History
The traditional religion of Vanuatu
Before Christianity, the indigenous religion of Vanuatu was inherited from Oceanian and Melanesian traditions. Missionaries often called this pre-Christian religion “pagan” or “heathen” in English, and as “times of darkness” in the country's local languages, or in Bislama (taem blong tudak).
The traditional religion, sometimes considered a form of animism, has been described by various authors, notably the Anglican missionary and anthropologist Robert Codrington in his famous 1891 monograph The Melanesians: Studies in Their Anthropology and Folk-lore (1891). He was followed by other scholars, including anthropologists and linguists.
Concepts central to the traditional religion include mana, tabu, and the worship of ancestral spirits (tamate). Named deities or mythological figures included Qat and Qasavara in the Banks Is, Tagaro on Ambae, Lisepsep across the archipelago.
Grade-taking ceremonies, which existed throughout Vanuatu, were associated with the indigenous religion, and with the transmission of mana.
Many aspects of the traditional religion have survived until today, in parallel with the adoption of Christianity, at least in some rural areas of Vanuatu.
Christianity
Christian missionization of Vanuatu began as early as 1606 upon the arrival of the Spanish explorer Pedro Fernandes de Queirós in Vanuatu. Missionaries representing several Western churches brought Christianity to the country in the 19th and early 20th centuries, specifically from Presbyterian, Catholic and Anglican missions. Some foreign missionaries continue this work; however, approximately 90% of the clergy of the established churches were indigenous by 2007. The Summer Institute of Linguistics have been active in translating the Bible into the country's many indigenous languages.
Because of the modernities that the military in World War II brought with them when they came to the islands, several cargo cults developed. Many died out, but the John Frum cult on Tanna is still large, and has adherents in the parliament. As well, Tanna is home to the Prince Philip Movement, which reveres the United Kingdom's Prince Philip. Villagers of the Yaohnanen tribe believed in an ancient story about the pale-skinned son of a mountain spirit venturing across the seas to look for a powerful woman to marry. Prince Philip, having visited the island with his new wife Queen Elizabeth, fit the description exactly and is therefore revered and even held as a god around the isle of Tanna.