Congregational Union of Australia

Last updated

Congregational Union of Australia
North Adelaide Congregational Church, Australia.jpg
Formerly North Adelaide Congregational Church; now known as Brougham Place Uniting Church
Classification Protestant
Orientation Calvinism
TheologyCalvinism
RegionAustralia
LanguageEnglish
Founder Frederick Miller
Origin1830 (1830)
Hobart, Tasmania
Branched from Congregational Church, England
Merged into
Defunct1977 (1977)
Congregations300

The Congregational Union of Australia was a Congregational denomination in Australia that stemmed from the Congregational Church in England as settlers migrated from there to Australia.

Contents

Congregational Churches existed in all states and territories of Australia at some time. The oldest Congregational Church was founded in Hobart in 1830 by Frederick Miller.

History

One of the earliest and most influential Congregational ministers in early times was Thomas Q. Stow, who built the first church in South Australia.

Some of the first Congregational Churches established in each Australian state included the Pitt St church in Sydney, Stow Memorial Church (now Pilgrim Uniting) in Adelaide, Collins Street (now St Michael's) church in Melbourne, Trinity (now Trinity Uniting) in Perth, and National Memorial Church (now City Uniting) [1] in Canberra.

The Congregational Church was the first Christian denomination in Australia to ordain women, with the first female ordinand being Winifred Kiek in 1927.

Dissolution

The Union dissolved in 1977, when the Uniting Church in Australia was formed. 260 of the congregations that had previously formed the Union joined the new Uniting Church. The Uniting Church union also included the Methodist Church of Australasia and the Presbyterian Church of Australia.

However, 40 other congregations that had previously formed the Union objected to joining the new Uniting Church, and formed the Fellowship of Congregational Churches instead. In 1995, there was a split within that Fellowship, with some more ecumenically-minded congregations leaving to form the Congregational Federation of Australia.

Today, there are therefore three Christian organisations that can claim to be direct 'descendants' of the Union.

Related Research Articles

Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) Mainline Protestant (religious) denomination

The Christian Church is a Mainline Protestant Christian denomination in the United States and Canada. The denomination started with the Restoration Movement during the Second Great Awakening, first existing as a loose association of churches working towards Christian unity during the 19th century, then slowly forming quasi-denominational structures through missionary societies, regional associations, and an international convention. In 1968, the Disciples of Christ officially adopted a denominational structure at which time a group of churches left to remain nondenominational.

United Reformed Church Christian church organisation in the United Kingdom

The United Reformed Church (URC) is a Protestant Christian church in the United Kingdom. It has approximately 46,500 members in 1,383 congregations with 608 active ministers, including 13 church related community workers.

Congregational church Religious denomination

Congregational churches are Protestant churches in the Reformed tradition practicing congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation independently and autonomously runs its own affairs.

Uniting Church in Australia christian denomination

The Uniting Church in Australia (UCA) was founded on 22 June 1977, when most congregations of the Methodist Church of Australasia, about two-thirds of the Presbyterian Church of Australia and almost all the churches of the Congregational Union of Australia united under the Basis of Union. According to the church, it had 243,000 members in 2018. In the 2016 census, about 870,200 Australians identified with the church; in the 2011 census, the figure was 1,065,796. The UCA is Australia's third-largest Christian denomination, behind the Catholic and the Anglican Churches. There are around 2,000 UCA congregations, and 2001 National Church Life Survey (NCLS) research indicated that average weekly attendance was about 10 per cent of census figures.

United and uniting churches

A united church, also called a uniting church, is a church formed from the merger or other form of union of two or more different Protestant denominations.

The Congregational Christian Churches were a Protestant Christian denomination that operated in the U.S. from 1931 through 1957. On the latter date, most of its churches joined the Evangelical and Reformed Church in a merger to become the United Church of Christ. Others created the National Association of Congregational Christian Churches or joined the Conservative Congregational Christian Conference that formed earlier in 1945. During the forementioned period, its churches were organized nationally into a General Council, with parallel state conferences, sectional associations, and missionary instrumentalities. Congregations, however, retained their local autonomy and these groups were legally separate from the congregations.

The Basis of Union is the document which formed the basis on which most congregations of the Congregational Union of Australia, Methodist Church of Australasia and Presbyterian Church of Australia united to form the Uniting Church in Australia (UCA) in 1977. It was issued in nearly its final form in 1974.

Presbyterian Church of Australia

The Presbyterian Church of Australia (PCA) is the largest Presbyterian denomination in Australia.

Port Adelaide Uniting Church Church in Port Adelaide, Australia

The Port Adelaide Uniting Church is located in Port Adelaide, South Australia. It is an active church, with worship and prayer each week.

The Congregational Federation of Australia and New Zealand is a Congregational denomination originally comprising fourteen congregations in New South Wales and Queensland but now including congregations in New Zealand.

The Fellowship of Congregational Churches is a conservative Congregational denomination in Australia. It was formed by the forty congregations of the Congregational Union of Australia who chose not to join the Uniting Church in Australia in 1977.

The National Association of Congregational Christian Churches (NACCC) is an association of about 400 churches providing fellowship for and services to churches from the Congregational tradition. The Association maintains its national office in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, a suburb of Milwaukee. The body was founded in 1955 by former clergy and laypeople of the Congregational Christian Churches in response to that denomination's pending merger with the Evangelical and Reformed Church to form the United Church of Christ in 1957.

Congregational Federation

The Congregational Federation is a small Christian denomination in Great Britain comprising just under 300 congregations. The Federation brings together Congregational churches, and provides support and guidance to member churches both financially and otherwise.

The Southeast Conference of the United Church of Christ is the regional body of the United Church of Christ within the states of Alabama, northwestern Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Tennessee. It maintains headquarters in Atlanta. The Rev. Char Burch serves as the executive.

World Communion of Reformed Churches Christian organization

The World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC) is the largest association of Reformed churches in the world. It has 233 member denominations in 110 countries, together claiming 100 million people, thus being the third largest Christian communion in the world after the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church. This ecumenical Christian body was formed in June 2010 by the union of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) and the Reformed Ecumenical Council (REC).

The Indonesian Christian Church is an Indonesian Church of Presbyterian denomination. The church's theology is Calvinist.

Pilgrim Uniting Church Church in South Australia, Australia

Pilgrim Uniting Church is a church in the heart of the City on Flinders Street, Adelaide, South Australia. It is a church of the Uniting Church in Australia.

Clayton Congregational Church church building in South Australia, Australia

Clayton Wesley Uniting Church, formerly Clayton Congregational Church, is a church building in Beulah Park, South Australia, located on Portrush Road, in a commanding position at the eastern end of The Parade, Norwood.

References

  1. Riley, Joyce; Riley, Douglas; City Uniting Church (Canberra, A.C.T.) (1979), A history of the Congregational National Memorial Church, Canberra, known since union as City Uniting Church, 1929-1979, City Uniting Church, ISBN   978-0-909834-44-9

Further reading