Several independent sources confirm the account of Marley’s conversion from Rasta religion to Christianity. Rastafarians use the Bible as a Holy Book but believe that deceased former Emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie, is the Messiah of the Bible and worship him. The title “Ras Tafari” was a title given to Selassie in his home country as a political ruler. The Rastafarians adopted the name for themselves. Marley became a Rasta as a youth and infused the Rasta lifestyle and beliefs into his music. With his trademark dreadlocks, socially conscious lyrics and Afrocentric consciousness, Marley put the Rasta movement on the global music scene. And some of the lyrics were anti-Christian. Biblical Christianity was often perceived in the Rasta movement as a product of the White race and Western society, also known as “Babylon.”Despite having literal worshipers, Selassie himself was a Christian and member of the Ethiopian Orthodox church. “He always rejected the view that he was the second Christ,” explains the Reverend of Holy Trinity Church, where Selassie attended later in life. “He always remained a Christian.” Unlike many false prophets and messianic figures who have come and gone through the years, Selassie never claimed to be the Christ or God. He also never followed or led the Rastafari movement. It was the rare case where one was basically “selected” as messiah. In an interview with Canada’s CBC news in 1967, Selassie stated: “I have heard of that idea [that I am divine]. I also met certain Rastafarians. I told them clearly that I am a man, that I am mortal, and that I will be replaced by the oncoming generation, and that they should never make a mistake in assuming or pretending that a human being is emanated from a deity.” Selassie died in 1975, prompting many Rastas to proclaim his death was a hoax, while others claimed Selassie was still existing, just no longer in bodily form. Despite his death proving that he did not fulfill the Bible’s prophecies about the Second Coming of the Messiah (who will come and rule and reign on a His throne forever), and Selassie’s own personal denials, many Rastas today still insist on Selassie’s divinity.Selassie commissioned Abuna Yesehaq to start a church in Jamaica to specifically preach to the Rasta community and turn them from worship of him and towards worship of the true Jesus Christ of the Bible. In a 1984 interview with the Jamaica Gleaner’s Sunday magazine titled “Abuna Yesehaq Looks Back on 14 Years of Ministry in Jamaica”, Yesehaq spoke of Marley’s desire to convert to Christianity. “Bob was really a good brother, a child of God, regardless of how people looked at him,” Yesehaq said. “He had a desire to be baptized long ago, but there were people close to him who controlled him and who were aligned to a different aspect of Rastafari. But he came to church regularly.”While the Ethiopian Orthodox Church in Jamaica preaches that sacraments are required to receive God’s grace, which is an unbiblical stance (Christians are saved by their faith according to the Bible and not by any actions), Yesehaq’s confirm’s Marley’s converson to Christianity based on his faith and never mentions Marley being confirmed in the church, wearing a Mateb necklace or other Ethiopioan church ordinances. In the interview, Yesehaq also addressed claims that Marley’s terminal cancer was the motivation behind his acceptance of Jesus Christ as his personal saviour.“When he toured Los Angeles and New York and England, he preached the Orthodox faith, and many members in those cities came to the Church because of Bob,” Yesehaq said. “Many people think he was baptized because he knew he was dying, but that is not so. He did it when there was no longer any pressure on him, and when he was baptized, he hugged his family and wept, they all wept together for about half an hour.”Judy Mowatt recalled learning about Marley’s conversion to Christianity in an interview with Cross Rhythms radio. Marley, who died of cancer at the age of 36, was severely ill in his final days. Mowatt spoke with her former bandmate and Marley’s wife, Rita, about the late musician calling out to Jesus Christ on his death bed.“When Bob was on his dying bed, his wife Rita called me on the phone and said to me that Bob was in such excruciating pain and he stretched out his hand and said, ‘Jesus take me.’ I was wondering to myself, ‘Why is it that Bob said Jesus and not Selassie,’” Mowatt questioned. “Then I met a friend of mine and he said his sister, who is a Christian, was a nurse at the hospital where Bob was before he passed on, and she led him to the Lord Jesus Christ. So when Rita saw him saying ‘Jesus take me,’ he had already received the Lord Jesus Christ in his life.” (source)So Mowatt confirms that it was not the Orthodox Ethiopian Church that led to Marley’s conversion but a nurse during one of his hospital visits. After hearing of Marley’s conversion, Mowatt soon found herself on her own spiritual journey:“I was a Rasta for 22 years and I was genuine. I embraced the objectives of Rastafari, knowing that one of the aims and objectives were to repatriate to the land of our ancestors. And also to make music to let people be aware of who they are as a people and knowing that the western hemisphere is only a place for them to pass through, but we should return to our father’s land. That was my plan, but God had a different plan! After 22 years I became very unfulfilled, dissatisfied; not by any one thing or by any one person but I started to search inside because I [realised] that there was something else that I needed that I could not put my hand on. I knew that God was calling me into deeper waters. I was a little bit fearful because I was wondering what my brothers and sisters would say and what would be their reaction. So I was a bit fearful.”“I was at a place where I thought I wanted to die but I never had the strength to take my own life. I started praying and I said, ‘God, I really don’t know you because if I knew you, then all of this would not have been happening to me.’ Not knowing that God had used that situation to draw me to him. I started reading my Bible. I had read my Bible three times from cover to cover and I started reading, but the things I was seeing this fourth time were what I never saw in the three times I read my Bible.”She continued, “I was seeing it through another pair of lenses. I read, ‘Wherein, there is no other name given among men whereby we must be saved, but by the name of Jesus Christ.’ That flew out of the Bible and into my spirit and that really turned the key. Whenever you have a mindset and you seriously believe something, you’re not going to open to anything else, and I wasn’t open to anything else. But God opened me to start seeking and searching.” (source)Mowatt is now a Gospel reggae performer. When asked why the story of Marley rejecting the Rastafari for Christianity is not more well-known she stated: “If people knew, they would be drawn to Jesus Christ. Nobody wants to promote that in Jamaica. I said it on a popular television programme over there and a Rasta man met me and asked me why did I have to say that? I told him it was because it’s the truth! But he never wanted me to reveal that and I think that nobody wants it to be revealed because so many people would be drawn to Jesus.” Bob Marley’s official website doesn’t even mention his conversion, (although a number of fan sites do.)Tommy Cowan was Bob Marley’s business managers for years while Marley was touring the world. Cowan, who was a very staunch rastafarian, recalls the time of Marley’s conversion:“Bob Marley himself, before he died, he got baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ,” Tommy says with much conviction. “What does Selassie teaches That Jesus Christ is the way. As a matter of fact, in one song you would have heard him militantly (saying) ‘how they crucified my Jesus Christ and they sold Marcus Garvey for rice.’One of his songs said, ‘Give us the teachings of his majesty because we don’t want the devil’s philosophy.’ Bob, Tommy recalls, called the bishop of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and told him I need to be baptized now. Just recently Tommy was speaking with the said bishop who described Bob’s baptism. “At one point he (Bob) cried for 45 minutes non-stop; his tears wet the floor. And the Holy Spirit came down upon his body and he cried out Jesus Christ three times ‘Jesus my Savior, Jesus Christ…’” (source)Like Mowatt, Cowan too eventually left the Rastafari movement to become a born again Christian:“When I pursued the teachings of Rasta which is Haile Selassie, basically, Rasta would have had to be a Christian religion,” Tommy reasons. “Haile Selassie himself was a very, very observercommitted Christian and somehow through that whole faith it led me back to that place that I had to realize that it’s not about Islam, it’s not about Buddha, it’s not about Mohammed, it’s not about Selassie but at the name of Jesus that every knee shall bow and every tongue confess.”Observer