200 years after its founding, this article in the Bermuda Sun online coincides with the dedication of a small historic plaque at the site of Zion Church, at the corner of Church Street and Wesley and Avenue in downtown Hamilton Bermuda.
The plaque reads as follows:
"This plaque marks the site of
ZION CHAPEL
The first Methodist Church built in Bermuda, and the first church erected in the city of Hamilton.
Zion Chapel was built at a cost of eleven hundred pounds and opened its doors for the first time in March, 1810.
It was the first church were both black and white people could worship together.
Rev. Joshua Marsden from England presided.
“To God be the glory”
Erected March, 2010."
From the BDA Sun Online: (
visit link)
Hamilton's first church welcomed the free and the enslaved
Performance looks at history of Methodism in Bermuda from 1810 to the present
Dr. Jack Garstang, Writer/Sub-editor
Friday, June 4, 2010 6:20 AM
Two hundred years ago Rev. Joshua Marsden established the first Methodist church in Bermuda, Zion Chapel, which was also the first church to be built in the City of Hamilton.
Of great significance is that in Marsden’s church all were welcome — he preached to the free and the enslaved.
As part of the celebrations of this anniversary there will be a special performance by Ruth Thomas & Company entitled ‘Mosaic 65’ at the Wesley Methodist Church at 4pm on Sunday, June 6
The Company will present a compendium of stories, anecdotes, history, music and insights covering the span of years from when the Zion Chapel was built in Hamilton in March 1810.
Bringing all this to life are the Company’s four members: Ruth Thomas, Gary Phillips, Grace Rawlins and Leo Mills. There will be special music during the performance by the Wesley Choir and by Praiz.
“We have a script and it is in the form of conversations between the four of us,” said Ruth E. Thomas.
“The audience listen in and it will be interactive as we encourage their participation, which allows us to improvise.”
Educator
Joshua Marsden was an educator as well as a preacher said Ms. Thomas. “He was all inclusive: free or enslaved were all welcome at the church’s opening in 1810.
“The church was overflowing and that is why the bigger Wesleyan church was [eventually] built. Methodism was at the forefront of breaking down racial and cultural barriers on the island.”
The performance will be a journey back in time to the way we were and how life was lived in Hamilton.
Ms. Thomas spoke of the ‘sacredness’ of Sundays, and how people refrained from work. Also, the importance of the family meal when the best china and cutlery was used. “People had Sunday best clothes, and as children we could attend Sunday school twice. Sunday afternoons would be spent on strolls or visiting family,” said Ms. Thomas.
The Mosiac is more a history of social change than a critical account of the past 200 years.
However, segregation had been a major feature of church life in Bermuda, and Ms. Thomas said that this fact would not be ignored during the performance, nor would the more recent divisions in Methodism which has been the cause of much angst amongst Methodists. Methodism had its roots earlier on the island in 1748, when the most famous evangelical preacher of the day, Rev. George Whitefield, gave a sermon in Tucker's Town, which was then a predominantly black community.
Whitefield gained fame for being able to preach to thousands at a time in North America and he played a significant part in an evangelical revival there that became known as “The Great Awakening”. He also preached at Christ Church in Warwick where a plaque commemorates the event.
Slavery, it will be recalled, was abolished in Britain in 1807, but not in the rest of the British Empire until 1834.
The Zion Chapel lasted some 60 years before the cornerstone of the new Wesleyan church was laid. With emancipation in 1834 came a hardening of attitudes by the white dominated society and segregation, or more accurately separate development, became widespread, affecting schools, churches, and pervading all areas of the community preventing blacks from reaching their full potential as equal members of society.
Entrenched
Segregation had become so entrenched that it seemed to be the natural order of how things should be. This view appeared to have entered the bloodstream of Bermudian society so that it affected church ministers and civil leaders alike. Racism, and its ugly sister, segregation, lingered on, with the island finally starting the process of desegregation after the authorities were confronted by a theatre boycott by blacks and sympathisers in 1959. It would be as late as 1968 before the island was fully desegregated.
Recent
Segregated congregations occurred within the living memory of many on the island and it is painful for some to recall these times. Indeed, it is hard to fathom how ministers of all denominations could preach about brotherly love and loving thy neighbour to congregations that were segregated by race.
Some of these issues will be dealt with by ‘Mosaic 65’, but it will be more of a social dialogue on change over time and a tribute to Methodism, “with the emphasis on Wesleyan Methodism”, said Ms. Thomas
Methodism in Bermuda will be celebrated in this performance, highlighting the early heroes and pioneers of the faith, as well as the challenges the Church faced in the post-emancipation era and its place in the Bermuda of the 21st century.
Joshua Marsden would no doubt have been pleased at the progress Methodism has made in the past 200 years.
At the same time he might be justifiably angry that having set the standard in 1810 by being all inclusive, leading religious denominations would in future segregate their congregations by race, and that it took an unconscionable length of time to re-integrate all who gathered to worship."