Church Union
See also: Basis of Union (Uniting Church in Australia)In 1977 two-thirds of the Presbyterian Church of Australia, the Congregational Union of Australia, and the Methodist Church of Australasia joined to form the Uniting Church in Australia. Much of the third that did not join the Uniting Church did not agree with its liberal views, although a number remained because of cultural connections.
Before the union the Presbyterian Church of Australia was liberal, but the continuing Presbyterian Church become increasingly conservative.The resurgence of the traditional Reformed theology took place. In 1982 the denomination withdrew from the World Communion of Reformed Churches. In 1987 a new hymnbook was introduced. In 1991 the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Australia repealed the approval of the ordination of women. Women elders continue in some states. Th church is active in missions with about 130 missionaries working around the world, including Korea, the Pacific, Myanmar.
The Presbyterian Church of Australia’s official web site stated that the church has over 50,000 adults and children within its communion, more than 600 ministers, deaconesses and theological students, and 740 congregations.
At the last Commonwealth Census (2011) nearly 600,000 people identified as Presbyterian/Reformed, representing 2.8% of the population. This makes Presbyterianism Australia’s fourth largest Christian denomination, although not all Presbyterians are members of the Presbyterian Church of Australia. See also List of Presbyterian Denominations in Australia.
Read more about this topic: Presbyterian Church Of Australia
Famous quotes containing the words church and/or union:
“A State, in idea, is the opposite of a Church. A State regards classes, and not individuals; and it estimates classes, not by internal merit, but external accidents, as property, birth, etc. But a church does the reverse of this, and disregards all external accidents, and looks at men as individual persons, allowing no gradations of ranks, but such as greater or less wisdom, learning, and holiness ought to confer. A Church is, therefore, in idea, the only pure democracy.”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)
“And thus they sang their mysterious duo, sang of their nameless hope, their death-in-love, their union unending, lost forever in the embrace of night’s magic kingdom. O sweet night, everlasting night of love! Land of blessedness whose frontiers are infinite!”
—Thomas Mann (1875–1955)