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Although there is a popular understanding that Australia is a secular society, religion and the churches have played a critical historical role in the shaping of the nation. A History of the Australian Churches is the first general history about the role of churches in Australian society. This is a broad canvas covering all of the Australian states and territories. It offers a balanced and thoughtful historical analysis of how the Christian churches have shaped and been shaped by a number of key issues including church-state relations; the churches and education; responses to the stubborn secularity of Australia; and the search for a distinctive Australian Christianity. This book deals with theological, liturgical and constitutional changes in the major churches and relates them to changes in Australian history. It breaks new ground in comparing denominations - Protestant, Roman Catholic and the Orthodox - as well as setting the development of Aboriginal and Islander Christianity in context.
This pioneering study of Australian, New Zealand, and Pacific Christianity opens up new perspectives on Christianization and modernization in this richly complex region. The reception of Christianity into Pacific cultures has produced strongly Christian societies. Based on research in widely scattered archives, this book not only deals with regional interactions but pays careful attention to developments in microstates, and to the variety of indigenous religious movements, which were earlier regarded as deviations from Christian orthodoxy but are now seen as significant adaptations of Christian teaching. In Australia and New Zealand too, European Christian beginnings have been given local emphases, producing Churches with distinctive identities. Lay leadership is emphasized - not only in the Churches but as part of the Christian presence in the realms of politics, business, and culture. The broad liturgical, theological, constitutional, and pastoral developments of the 19th and 20th centuries are mapped, as a context for the striking changes which have taken place since the 1960s. The dynamics of religious change and conflict, the ambiguities of religious authority, and the destructive effects of Christian colonialism on indigenous communities, especially Australian aborigines, are all frankly dealt with. The decline of the institutional impact of the Churches in Australia and New Zealand is explored, as is the growth of partnership between government and Churches in education, social welfare, and overseas aid and development. Interchange in personnel and ideas is strikingly illustrated in the missionary activities of the regional Churches and their cultural impact. The author's involvement in Church and community leadership, ecumenism, and theological education makes this volume in The Oxford History of the Christian Church a valuable addition to the series, describing both continuities with world Christianity and little-known local developments.
Few Australians realise that the Constitution does not formally separate Church and State. Tom Frame argues that some contact between organised religion and government is both inevitable and, in some circumstances, highly desirable. But there are continuing and unnecessary tensions, for which Christians are largely responsible. This book explores the nature of the tensions, and how to deal with them.