bedwardism means the Jamaica Native Baptist Free Church, a religious movement of Jamaica based on Christianity, and according to which Augustown in Jamaica corresponds to Jerusalem for the Western world. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 92 out of 100.
Why “bedwardism” is a great word
BEDWARDISM — [Noun] A Jamaican Christian revivalist movement, the Jamaica Native Baptist Free Church, founded by the prophet Alexander Bedward (1859–1930) and centered on the sacralization of Augustown as a New World Zion. From the surname Bedward (of its prophet Alexander Bedward, 1859–1930) + the suffix -ism (denoting a distinctive practice, system, or philosophy). Unlike Rastafari (a later faith venerating an Ethiopian emperor) or the broad category of Revivalism (encompassing many forms of ecstatic renewal), Bedwardism was a specific, prophet-led creed of local apotheosis. It is the red earth of a Jamaican hillside sanctified, the fervent baptismal waters of the Hope River washing away a plantation legacy, and the collective breath held for a prophet's promised ascension—a brief, vivid flare of millenarian certainty that the center of the world could be a familiar parish on a map you could, for a time, walk to.
noun
- The Jamaica Native Baptist Free Church, a religious movement of Jamaica based on Christianity, and according to which Augustown in Jamaica corresponds to Jerusalem for the Western world.