Freedom of religion in Colombia is enforced by the State and well tolerated in the Colombian culture. The Republic of

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...

has an area of 439,735 square miles (1,138,908 square kilometers) and its population is estimated at 46 million. Although the government does not keep official statistics on religious affiliation, a 2010 limited survey found * 70.0% Catholic * 0.9% Charismatic Catholic * 14.4% Evangelical Christian * 1.6% Pentecostal * 0.3% Charismatic Evangelicals * 0.4% Protestant * 2.5% Agnostic * 2.2% Atheist * 3.5% Theistic but no religion * 1.3%

Jehovah's Witnesses Jehovah's Witnesses is a millenarian restorationist Christian denomination with nontrinitarian beliefs distinct from mainstream Christianity. The group reports a worldwide membership of approximately 8.7 million adherents involved in ...

* 0.5% Adventist * 0.1% Muslim * 2.2% no response According to

Latinobarómetro Latinobarómetro Corporation is a private non-profit organization, based in Providencia, Chile. It is responsible for carrying out Latinobarómetro, an annual public opinion survey that involves some 20,000 interviews in 18 Latin American countrie ...

's 2017 survey, 73% of the population is Roman Catholic, 14% is Protestant, and 11% is atheist/ agnostic.

Other religious statistics

The National Administrative Department of Statistics (DANE) does not collect religious statistics, and accurate reports are difficult to obtain. However, based on various studies and a survey, about 90% of the population adheres to Christianity, the majority of which (70.9%) are Roman Catholic, while a significant minority (16.7%) adhere to Protestantism (primarily

Evangelicalism Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide interdenominational movement within Protestant Christianity that affirms the centrality of being " born again", in which an individual exper ...

). Some 4.7% of the population is

atheist Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no ...

agnostic Agnosticism is the view or belief that the existence of God, of the divine or the supernatural is unknown or unknowable. (page 56 in 1967 edition) Another definition provided is the view that "human reason is incapable of providing sufficient ...

, while 3.5% claim to believe in God but do not follow a specific religion. 1.8% of Colombians adhere to

and Adventism and less than 1% adhere to other religions, such as

Islam Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic Monotheism#Islam, monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God in Islam, God (or ...

, Judaism, Buddhism, Mormonism, Hinduism,

Indigenous religions Indigenous religions is a category used in the study of religion to demarcate the religious belief systems of communities described as being "indigenous". This category is often juxtaposed against others such as the "world religions" and "new re ...

Hare Krishna movement The International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), known colloquially as the Hare Krishna movement or Hare Krishnas, is a Gaudiya Vaishnava Hindu religious organization. ISKCON was founded in 1966 in New York City by A. C. Bhaktived ...

, Rastafari movement, Eastern Orthodox Church, and spiritual studies. The remaining people either did not respond or replied that they did not know. In addition to the above statistics, 35.9% of Colombians reported that they did not practice their faith actively.

Legal status

While Colombia remains a mostly Roman Catholic country by baptism numbers, the 1991 Colombian constitution guarantees freedom and equality of religion. The Colombian Constitution of 1991 abolished the previous condition of the Roman Catholic Church as state church, and it includes two articles providing for freedom of worship: *Art. 13: States that "all people are legally born free and equal" and that they will not be discriminated on the basis of "gender, race, national or familial origin, language, ''religion'', political or philosophical opinion". *Art. 19: Which expressly guarantees freedom of religion. "Freedom of religion is guaranteed. Every individual has the right to freely profess his/her religion and to disseminate it individually or collectively. All religious faiths and churches are equally free before the law."

Freedom of religion

The constitution provides for freedom of religion. US State Dept 2022 report
/ref> However, international NGOs have noted difficulties for indigenous Christians; in particular, indigenous authorities in the Pizarro and Litoral de San Juan municipalities in the Chocó Department have banned the practice of Christianity, and Protestants in particular face threats, harassment and arbitrary detention in their communities due to their religious beliefs. Armed conflict in the country has also led illegal groups to see the presence of a strong church as a threat to their authority, leading to censorship or a ban on public worship. In 2023, the country was scored 4 out of 4 for religious freedom. In the same year, the country was rank as the 22nd most difficult place in the world to be a Christian.Open Doors website, retrieved 2023-08-08
/ref>

External links

International Religious Freedom Report 2004 on Colombia
U.S. Bureau of Democracy.
US State Dept 2022 report

References

{{South America topic, Freedom of religion in Religion in Colombia

Human rights in Colombia

Other religious statistics

Legal status

Freedom of religion

See also

External links

References