Costa Rica is predominantly a Roman Catholic (76.3%) country. Of those who are not Roman Catholic, 13.7% are Evangelical Christians, 1.3% Jehovah's Witnesses, and 0.7% members of other Protestant denominations and 3.2% claiming no Christian affiliation at all.

Costa Rica’s civilization can be traced back thousands of years before the arrival of Columbus in 1502 and there is strong archaeological evidence that some of its early indigenous people groups were strongly influenced by the Mexican Olmec and Nahuatl civilizations.

By the time Columbus arrived, there were four major indigenous tribes living in Costa Rica: the Caribs, the Borucas, Chibchas and the Diquis. Sadly most of these tribes were wiped out in the conflicts leading up to Spanish colonialism and by the deadly smallpox brought by the Spaniards in the years following colonialism. The massive loss of indigenous people from the region meant that the Spanish colonialists were in drastic need of a new labour force. This led to the importation into Costa Rica of African slaves to work the land. Today about 70,000 Costa Rican citizens can trace their families back to African slaves. Today Costa Rica’s population is made up whites and Mestizos (mixed indigenous and Spanish) (94%), Afro-Costa Ricans and West Indians (3%) and Chinese (1%). Only 1% of Costa's Rica's 4.5 million people are of indigenous heritage.

Although Costa Ricans in the pre-Columbian era were mainly polytheistic, following the practices of the fertility cults of the surrounding nations, this practice was quickly wiped out during Spanish colonial rule and replaced by a form of Roman Catholicism, which synthesised some of the indigenous superstitions into its practice. Still today, Catholicism (even among the highly educated) in Costa Rica, coexists with other supernatural belief systems in which people seek to communicate with spirits , actively invoke spells and use magic in conjunction with medical treatments. Today, in spite of the fact that Roman Catholicism is integrated into the Constitution of Costa Rica, most Roman Catholics in Costa Rica have only a nominal association with the local church. This is seen by the fact that less than 25% of those calling themselves Catholics actually attend Church more than once a year.

Because of the dominion held by Spain and the Roman Catholic Church over the people of Costa Rica, Protestant missionaries were not able to take the gospel to the nation until the late 19th century after Costa Rica achieved national independence from Spain. However, following independence, the gates were opened wide to Protestant missionary involvement and missionaries came, initially from Great Britain and then from the United States. Much of the early protestant mission work In Costa Rica was achieved by Methodist, Anglican/Episcopalian, and Baptists missionaries. Seventh - day Adventist and Pentecostal (Assemblies of God and Church of God) missionaries started to arrive shortly after the turn of the 20th century.

In recent years, Costa Rica has experienced a spiritual awakening, which has led to huge numbers of people leaving the Catholic Church to become active members in many of the evangelical and Pentecostal churches throughout the country. Today, the number of protestant churches in Costa Rica has grown from about 2,700 (in 2000) to almost 5,000 (in 2010) and there is a constant flow of new churches being planted throughout the country.

Please pray for the governmental leadership in Costa Rica. Pray that God will raise up Christians who will stand firm in their faith against the attacks of Catholicism. Pray also for those who minister in Costa Rica, that their proclamation of the gospel is true to the Word of God, able to be understood by the people and made available to all. We encourage you to do something to support the ministries currently in Costa Rica. We encourage you also to become actively involved in supporting those Christians from your own nation who are willing to take the gospel into Costa Rica.