Bob Marley was converted to a Christian on November 4, 1980, in a hotel room in New York City. Yet, few biographies of the musician mention it.
It is a true story—but mostly untold—how the reggae icon and face of the Rastafarian movement was baptized into the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. His official bios mention it, although they don’t go into much detail. It is not mentioned at all in the 2012 film Marley. You would probably never learn about this story unless you stumbled across it online, as I did when an Ethiopian Orthodox acquaintance tweeted about it, or possibly as you are doing now with this piece.
Near Jamaica’s Saint Ann Parish, in settlement of Nine Mile, Bob Marley was born on February 6, 1945. Norval Marley, a white man of English ancestry, was his father; he passed away when Marley was ten years old. Cedella Booker, his mother, was a Black woman of Afro-Jamaican ancestry. Marley’s mother writes in her book Bob Marley, My Son that while attending Kingston, Jamaica’s Shiloh Apostolic Church as a chorister, she “caught religion” before becoming pregnant with Bob.
Biblical impact
Growing up in a Christian household greatly impacted Marley, especially through music. Cedella is quoted by Roger Steffens in Chanting Down Babylon as noting that Marley “would always sing along with me, hymns, popular tunes, everything” in the home.
In 1963, Marley started making music with The Teenagers, who later changed their name to The Wailers. His early music, particularly “One Love” (an older version of one of his well-known songs), reveals a deep commitment to the Bible that lasted the rest of his life and career. Dean MacNeil counted no fewer than 137 biblical allusions in The Bible and Bob Marley, mostly from Psalms and Proverbs, during his Island Records period.
According to MacNeil
From “Judge Not,” his first published song at age 17 (based on Matthew 7:1/Luke 6:37), to “Redemption Song,” the final track of his final album before he passed away from cancer at age 36 (“How long shall they kill our prophets while we stand aside and look? / Some say it’s just a part of it, we’ve got to fulfill the book,” cf. Matt. 23:37/Luke 13:34), biblical allusions and imagery He even claimed that the name of his group was inspired by biblical references to “weeping and wailing,” most likely alluding to Jeremiah 9:10, which is a lament for Judah’s defeat by the Babylonians. He would read from the King James Version every day.
Rastafarianism
Marley never lost interest in the Bible, but by the end of 1966, he had slowly become increasingly familiar with the Rastafarian understanding of “Jah,” the Bible, and history. Rastafarianism condemned oppression and colonialism (“Babylon”) and welcomed African ancestry and history, despite being reduced in popular culture to cannabis and dreadlocks (“Zion”). And the central tenet of the Rastafarian religion was the conviction that Haile Selassie, the Ethiopian emperor (also known as “Ras Tafari”), was God incarnate and the return of Jesus.
Rita Anderson, a Christian who had become a Rastafarian when Selassie visited Jamaica in April of that year, and Marley had wed in February of that same year. Later, Marley adopted the same behavior and joined the Twelve Tribes of Israel, which Dean MacNeil describes as “the most ‘Christian’ and Bible-based Rastafari cult.” In June 1968, he released his first song with Rastafarian influences, “Selassie Is the Chapel.” Two years later, “Jah Is Mighty.”
The decade of Marley the Rastafarian’s musical prominence that followed is well remembered. But three years after receiving his initial cancer diagnosis and a few months before passing away, Marley started another covert revolt in 1980. In his book Catch a Fire, Timothy White writes that Marley had visited Miami and Mexico before returning to Sloan-Kettering in New York. On November 4, 1980, he traveled to New York and was baptized there. “Bob was baptized in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church at Rita’s request. He had converted to Christianity and adopted the name Berhane Selassie, which means “Light of the Trinity.”
In a 1988 biography by Stephen Davis, we get a few more specifics, including the location of the Baptism, which was the Wellington Hotel in midtown Manhattan. Archbishop Abuna Yesehaq baptized Bob, a representative of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church sent to serve Jamaicans. They were joined by their kids and “A tearful Rita.”
religious funeral
It was more evidence of Marley’s shift from Rastafarianism, which typically doesn’t observe burial ceremonies at all, and his acceptance into the Orthodox Church that his funeral was a wholly Christian ceremony. The Guardian provides a thorough narrative of the entire incident, also depicted in an internet video. The celebration was firmly entrenched in Christian song, readings, and prayer, except for the occasional mention of Rastafarianism; all of this was done in a way that was respectful of the major themes of Marley’s life and work.
Was Marley converted? White suggests that Rita came up with the notion and that Marley was still fundamentally a Rasta. Davis admits that Marley might have been drawn to the mysterious, old Ethiopian Church. Still, he also questions if Marley’s decision to be baptized was motivated by dread of dying or a desire to please his mother, who had “been trying for years to bring him back to Christianity.”
But the firsthand testimonies of people who were most familiar with Marley and his conversion are instructive. The person who baptized Marley himself, Archbishop Abuna Yesehaq, recounts in So Many Things to Say: The Oral History of Bob Marley:
“Regardless of how others saw him, Bob was a good brother and a child of God. Long ago, he had the wish to be baptized. However, those close to him kept control of him and supported an alternative Rastafari philosophy. But he frequently attended Church. I can still see Bob’s tears running down his face as I stared at him during a Mass.
“Many followers of the Orthodox faith joined the Church due to Bob’s outreach efforts in Los Angeles, New York, and England. Contrary to popular belief, he was not baptized because he knew he was about to die. When there was no longer any pressure on him, he did it, and after being baptized, he sobbed while hugging his family. They cried together for nearly 30 minutes.”
Marley grieved for a half-hour during his Baptism, according to Yesehaq, who also discusses how Ethiopian Orthodox and Roman Catholic beliefs are very similar. Yesehaq added that he understood Marley’s sobs to be tears of repentance. He also notes that Rita Marley, who was Marley’s wife, and their children were baptized into the Orthodox Church in 1973, making Marley the seventh year prior. (Davis emphasizes another facet of Marley’s lengthy affiliation with the Orthodox Church in The First Rasta: “For years, he had been its covert Jamaican donor, paying for the building of its Church on Maxfield Avenue.
Liq Kahnat Misale, an Ethiopian missionary serving in Jamaica, occupied Bob Marley’s home “for four years.” A passage from Visions of Zion that reads, “Bob Marley’s children would come to church and serve the diaconate” supports Yesehaq’s interpretation. Although Bob Marley was a devout Orthodox Christian, he never admitted it.”
Even more compelling is Rita’s testimony. She insisted that Bob had made the arrangements for himself and that she had not done so on his behalf. She says in No Woman, No Cry, “He requested a baptism on November 4, 1980, in the early hours. Since His Majesty Haile Selassie dispatched Abba to Jamaica, I had been urging him to get baptized because I had baptized all of our children—not just my own—in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. He was crying when he requested me to call Abba that morning. All of us were sobbing.”
When Bob was near death, Rita called Judy Mowatt, a friend and former backing vocalist for the Wailers, saying he was “in such horrible pain and he held out his hand and said, Jesus, take me.”
Marley, who turned 78 on February 6, never publicly acknowledged his conversion, although it did take place. When you consider all of these stories, it was not only genuine but also profound. This begs the question: Why does nobody want to discuss it? Why has this amazing development in the life of a legendary musician been continually minimized or ignored?
Perhaps it was thought to be untrue—one of those “death-bed conversion” tales that Christians love to share. But more likely, it was kept quiet since it was so accurate, and many of his friends and followers saw it as an unfortunate footnote that would damage his reputation.
Marley’s conversion validated what was most deeply ingrained in him—his Christian lineage and passionate pursuit of justice—rather than a rejection of his life. He converted to Christianity after being a Rasta, not a Christian Rasta. It’s time to spread the good news of Bob Marley’s conversion and to listen to his songs for what they were: seeds of the Word sowing the Gospel into his (and our own) hearts.
