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.

In the pages of this book the history of the Russian Orthodox Church in Australia is diligently chronicled within the wider context of the place of ethnic Russians in a dominantly anglophone society: that of what was at first a British colony and later became an independent state. It begins with the first contact of Russian naval ships with the Australian continent in the early nineteenth century and progresses through to the establishment of the first parish of Orthodox believers in Melbourne in the 1890s, the establishment of further churches, and ultimately the creation of a diocese. The catalyst for much of this was the arrival of thousands of Russians fleeing their homeland via Siberia after the Bolshevik revolution of 1917. For these newly dispossessed, Australia and New Zealand became havens of safety and the Russian Orthodox Church an echo of the Motherland they had lost. They were later joined by successive waves of fellow Russians after the end of World War II in 1945 and again after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Together these refugees and their descendants created a unified organism that retained a sense of shared heritage and purpose, and in turn provided a home to spiritual seekers who were not of their ethnic lineage.In writing this work the author has drawn on extensive archival sources spread over several continents together with his own life experience, having arrived as a small boy in Australia over six decades ago. First published in 2006 this new edition includes an added chapter recounting the ongoing story from the beginning of the twenty-first century through to the end of 2020, covering the effects on the Church in Australia of major world events as diverse as the reunification of the Russian Church Abroad with the Patriarchate of Moscow in 2007 and the global coronavirus pandemic that arrived in Australia in 2020.

The founding of the Catholic missions in Australia coincided with the defining drift of power and prestige within the nineteenth-century Church. This was a period of chronic dissension among Australia's Catholic communities, powerfully drawn by the ultramontane impulse and political manoeuvring to refer their problems to the Pope. Roman bureaucratic control, exercised through the Sacred Congregation de Propaganda Fide, was the single most important factor in the resolution of these problems and, consequently, in the determinative shaping of the colonial Australian Church. Based on extensive archival research, this study explores issues of process, politics and personality in the formulation of papal policy towards a part of the world that could not be more distant from Rome.

The Founding of the Roman Catholic Church in Oceania, 1825-1850 is the first detailed and documentary history of the seminal period of Roman Catholic missionary activity. Beginning with the founding of the Prefecture Apostolic of the Sandwich Islands in 1825 there was continued development in Australia, New Zealand, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia for the next quarter century. By 1850 this vast area of the South Seas could boast of one archdiocese, eight dioceses, and eight vicariates apostolic. This lively, dramatic narrative is told largely through the words of the participants drawn from diaries, documents, and letters found in the archives of the Vatican and several religious orders. The comprehensive tale ranges from the politics of the Vatican to sufferings on outpost islands. The focus of attention shifts from Rome to Paris, Valparaiso, Sydney, Honiara, Auckland, and many other places, in a study of men and institutions, faith and emotion, rivalries and confusions, murder and annexation, God and mammon. Originally published in 1979, this important historical study had been out of print and virtually unavailable for many years until this new edition was completed.

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.

Research in the Social Scientific Study of Religion, Volume 31: A Diversity of Paradigms' showcases two approaches to the socio-scientific study of religion. It includes a special section within which authors draw on data collected about congregational life in the Australian National Church Life Surveys (from 1991 to present). These studies give voice to minority groups and children. While findings include the strengths of ethnic diversity and the positive experiences of young churchgoers, they also highlight that full inclusion in local church life is far from being realized. A second section explores the application of feminist approaches within the sociology of religion. In their struggle for equality for women, feminist scholars developed methodologies to challenge the marginality of any ?othered? group. This section showcases how use of these methods challenges hierarchies within knowledge.

Australia’s development, from the most unpromising of beginnings as a British prison in 1788 to the prosperous liberal democracy of the present is as remarkable as is its success as a country of large-scale immigration. Since 1942 it has been a loyal ally of the United States and has demonstrated this loyalty by contributing troops to the war in Vietnam and by being part of the “coalition of the willing” in the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 and in operations in Afghanistan. In recent years, it has also been more willing to promote peace and democracy in its Pacific and Asian neighbors. This fourth edition of Historical Dictionary of Australia covers its history through a chronology, an introductory essay, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 500 cross-referenced entries on important personalities, politics, economy, foreign relations, religion, and culture. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Australia.