North American Wesleyan-Holiness Churches in Australia, PhD thesis, La Trobe University, 2005 (original) (raw)
Related papers
North American Wesleyan-Holiness Churches in Australia
2005
This thesis examines the emergence of a number of North American Wesleyan-Holiness denominations in Australia, beginning in the years following the Second World War. They are the Church of God (Anderson), the Church of God (Cleveland), the Church of the Nazarene, and the Wesleyan Methodist Church. It will trace the manner in which some of these churches moved from being despised and marginalised sects to established denominations while others remained small and isolated, experiencing little growth. The thesis demonstrates that the movement along the church-sect continuum is by no means a smooth and inevitable one. Immigrant dislocation may lead to a slowing down of change to preserve a sense of identity. A particular group may be found to be positioned toward the church end of the continuum in its place of origin and be positioned toward the sect end in its mission areas, or the reverse may be true. A particular movement may be seen as a ‘sect’ when compared to one group and a ‘church’ when compared to another. The theme of Americanisation and anti-Americanism is examined, as the explicitly American origins of these churches was both the cause of their exclusion and at the same time a mechanism for their survival. The emergence of the Wesleyan-Holiness denominations in Australia is not an example of American cultural and religious imperialism. Rather it has been a creative partnership between like-minded evangelical Christians from two modern nations sharing a general cultural and social similarity and a common set of religious convictions. The Wesleyan-Holiness churches saw increased growth from the late 1970s by welcoming into their membership a new wave of refugees from more liberal Protestant denominations. They are shown to be both a new religious movement, emerging out of the post-war context of greater engagement between Australians and Americans and at the same time a continuation of the long-standing ‘holiness’ and ‘revivalist’ strain within Australian evangelicalism.
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 2010
When North American Wesleyan-Holiness churches began to arrive in Australia in the years immediately following the Second World War, they faced considerable opposition from Australian Christians who, to some extent, resented American influence on the religious scene. Other evangelicals influenced by earlier forms of ‘Holiness’ teaching were drawn to the new Holiness groups because they recognized an echo of an older, but now almost forgotten tradition. These churches were not instances of American religious imperialism, but authentic movements of Australian Christians finding in their American cousins willing ‘sponsors’ who could provide legitimacy for their efforts by links with recognized and established denominations. The fact that these ‘sponsoring’ denominations were American, far from being seen as an advantage, was seen by Australian and American church leaders alike, as a liability. These groups continued to be marginalized because of their perceived American origins and control. Only as features of American evangelicalism began to be more widely accepted among Australian evangelicals and seen as authentically Australian and not an American import, did the holiness churches become less ‘queer’ and less sect-like.
"Gods Brand is Love": Australian Immigrant Churches in the United States
God’s Brand is Love: Australian Pentecostalism in the United States. , 2014
Within the last decade, Australian Pentecostals have begun to plant new congregations in the United States. Much of the popularity of these churches is based upon the success of Australian music publishing houses such as Hillsong Church. However, transnational movement of liturgy is not new - it is long established in Christian practice. Under the guise of mission, the revitalization of religion occurred globally through a migration of people, practices, texts and technologies. Recent interest in Southern Christianity has precipitated studies of immigrant-led churches within the United States (sometimes under the term "return mission movement"), and there is growing recognition of change in the Western religious landscape. However, the contribution of Australian Pentecostal congregations to the North American religious landscape is rarely observed - here reviewed through the lens of mission studies.
Protestants in Post-Christendom Australia: Themes and Movements
Post-Christendom Studies, 2020
This paper is part of a special collection in the journal Post-Christendom Studies (McMaster University), on the history of Christianity in New Zealand (Peter Lineham) and Australia (Mark Hutchinson), with adversions on Race (Jason Goroncy) and Ministry (Kevin Ward). Hutchinson's paper intertwines the debate about Australia as a post-Christendom country (O'Farrell vs. Piggin), with major trends which saw the disestablishment of the United Church of England and Ireland, the rise of pluralism and a materialist/ consumerist society moderated by a highly engaged Welfare State. It concludes that, for all that Australia may well have been the first post-Christendom settler society in the world (per O'Farrell) it still feeds (per Piggin) on very powerful cultural Protestantism, and produces (with New Zealand) incredibly energetic transnationalizing forms of Christianity. Post-Christendom doesn't automatically mean post-Christian.
A Brief History of Pentecostalism in Australia
2017
This is paper is an introduction to Australian Pentecostalism. It covers its humble beginnings and three phases of growth through the twentieth century. It will cover the highlights of key names and places, specific arms of the Pentecostal Church, its reasons for growth and what this meant for Australian Pentecostalism’s development. Each section affords a basic evaluation of Pentecostal theology and ecclesiology whilst providing a basic synthesis of extra readings and footnotes, which are complimented in the bibliography. In my research I have learned that Pentecostalism’s growth in Australia is more accidental then intentional due to the fall out of both World Wars. My evaluation of Australian Pentecostalism as a movement concluded that it is shallow in its theology of the Bible, lacking or empty in its Church governance, left wanting in corporate-liturgical worship practices, insolvent of its understanding of the Trinity and bankrupt in its comprehension of the sacraments. Nailing down definitions to group Pentecostal sects together is similar to herding cats. In terms of what is clearer in one circle is completely ambiguous in another, making this movement all the more unclear, indistinct, ecumenically dis-unified, and therefore calls for hasty generalisations which may not always do each sect justice upon examination.
Tradition and Change: Australian Churches and the Future
From 1960 onwards, Australian society has been engaged in a dual transformation. On one hand, radical secularisation has lowered church attendance figures across all denominations. On the other, Australia has become a multi-cultural, multi-faith society with many new religions. Some of these ‘new’ religions (for example, Buddhism) are only new to Australia, and others (for example, the Church of Scientology) are entirely new. Three censuses since 1991 have shown that Islam, Buddhism, and Neo-Paganism are the fastest growing religions in Australia. The ‘big’ Christian denominations, Anglicanism and Catholicism, are still numerically dominant, but are experiencing a gradual decline. Two recent books, Caroline Miley’s study of the Australian Anglican church, The Suicidal Church, and Chris McGillion’s edited collection about the Australian Catholic church, A Long Way From Rome, suggest, however, that the two denominations are facing rather different problems. McGillion’s book argues that if the Australian Catholic church is out of step with Rome, Rome is deficient, not Australia. Miley believes that the Australian Anglican church is out of step with Canterbury and the historical unfolding of the Church of England. For her, this points to deficiencies in Australia.
They complement rather than unduly duplicate one another. Hutchinson and Wolffe cover the whole scope of evangelicalism from its beginnings to its many contemporary manifestations both in its places of origin and now worldwide. Stanley concentrates on the latter half of the twentieth century and provides an excellent analysis of the many expressions and developments of evangelicalism during that period. The collected work, Global Evangelicalism, while recognising the early development of evangelicalism in Europe and North America, deals more extensively with the global dimensions of the movement. Therefore, taken together, these three books provide a scholarly and in-depth understanding of the multi-faceted expressions of evangelicalism in both the past and present. Each will remain a standard work on the topic of evangelicalism with its multiple origins, extensive disseminations and global manifestations.
Salvationists: A case study in Australian Pentecostal Origins
This is a short study of the link, noted by Barry Chant, between the rise, institutionalisation, and encapsulation of the Salvation Army as a revivalist group, and the emergence of Australian Pentecostalism. It uses the life story of Peter John Lovelock, who moved from being a Roman Catholic, to a Methodist pastor, to a Salvation Army Major, and finally to being a divine healing revivalist involved in the early Pentecostal congregations in Brisbane, Australia. In passing, there are some reflections on links between 'botanical medicine' (including homeopathy) and the emergence of divine healing in this particular case.
The Text Repeats itself: Of Earthquakes and Waifs and Strays in 1920s Australian Pentecostalism.
In 1929, an Adelaide newspaper carried 'gossip' of events in Sydney, reflecting in passing on an odd public baptism event on the shore of one of Sydney's most exclusive suburbs. The minister named, 'B. S. Moore', is little known in Australia, and yet was being nominated in the context of the better known work of F. B. Van Eyk. This paper explores the background of Barney S. F. and Marie Ellis Moore, and what this press fragment means in the broader context of 1920s Australian pentecostalism. It notes the connections to American holiness Methodism, and the earlier contribution of revivalist William 'California' Taylor in the 1860s, and demonstrates the importance of these campaigns as a 'template' for later pentecostal activities.
Religion in Australian Society: A Place for Everything, and Everything in its Place
Contemporary Australian expressions of religion and spirituality demonstrate a diversity and flexibility that is largely the result of the changes wrought by the dual processes of secularisation and multiculturalism, which have increasingly characterised Australian culture since the 1960s (Bouma 1999, 18-24). Prior to the mid-twentieth century, Australia’s spiritual and religious climate was dominated by the convict origins of the white settlers, interdenominational conflict between Catholic and Protestant Christians, and the systematic suppression of the indigenous Australian Aboriginal culture, including Aboriginal religion (Thompson 2002, passim). “Spirituality,” a looser construct than “religion” (Brown, 1997, 116), has gained in popularity as organized religion, chiefly Christianity, has declined. Data from the five-yearly Australian Bureau of Statistics censuses demonstrates a strong trend towards personal choice in matters of religion and spirituality (particularly in the 1991, 1996 and 2001 censuses), and also changes in the religious profile of Australians that are the result of immigration (“A natural choice”, 2003). However, since the election of the conservative Howard federal government in 1996 Christianity has occupied a prominent place in public affairs, due to the government’s espousal of “family values” and outsourcing of job placement agencies to churches, among other things (Maddox, 2005). This paper is divided into four sections: the first details the colonisation of Australia and the religious context of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; the second examines the effects of secularisation and the growth of diversity; the third gives details of a broad range of contemporary spiritualities with distinctively Australian manifestations; and the brief fourth section chronicles the rise of a public, right-wing Christianity over the past decade, culminating in the electoral success of Family First in the 2004 Federal election.