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RESEARCH MATERIALS |
| A range of articles on many topics related to religious faith and church life in Australia are to be found below. You may search these articles for a particular topic using the search facility in the left-hand column
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| This is an archived article from January 2003. The details may no longer accurate. Please check with the publishers for more information.
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| In November 1995, Rev Graeme Bucknall died at the age of 85. He was remembered for a variety of roles he had played within the church - as a parish pastor, a visionary leader in the home mission department of the Presbyterian Church, a leader in the Uniting Church, and as a padre in the central Australia. Prior to his death, Rev Bucknall completed the text of a book containing stories of pioneers in central Australia and some of his reflections on the isolation and the role of the padre. His wife, Jean, arranged the launch of the book at West Hawthorn Uniting Church on 24th November 1996. MORE...
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| On the day of the 1996 National Church Life Survey, only 30 Victorian Uniting Church congregations registered more than 10 young adults, aged 15-30 present. As compared with all other Australian churches, the Uniting Church had proportionally the smallest numbers of people under 50. Integral to these findings was the discovery that of young UCA attenders, only half felt a sense of belonging.
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| While well known in England, the idea of a Christian Resources Exhibition is a new concept for Australian churches which have usually focussed on denominational or theme conferences and meetings. The CRE made its first appearance in Australia at Homebush Bay from 11-13 October 2001.
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| This closing Millennium commenced with a major split in the Christian Church as East and West parted company and with the Crusades seeing Christians slaughter Jews and Muslims in failing attempts to secure continuing Christian control of the 'Holy Land'. The middle of the Millennium witnessed the expulsion or forced conversion of Jews and Muslims in Spain while Columbus was opening the way to exploit and Christianise the New World. The second Millennium has ended with a century of ecumenism on the one hand and continued episodes of ethnic and religious cleansing.
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| The Standard Edition of the CD-Rom, Australia's Religious Communities: A Multimedia Exploration, has 28 religious groups on its menu. Among these, 16 are major Christian denominations, 6 other religious groups, 5 families of religions and no religion. Together, these covered the religious identity of approximate 17.4 million Australians and every group with more than 5,000 people identifying with it according to the 1996 Census. The Professional Edition of the CD-Rom details another 90 small religious groups with less than 5,000 people identifying. What are these groups and where have they come from?
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| Predicting the future is always risky. The world is such a complex place that the unexpected can always happen - apart from trying to predict divine activity! Yet we spend much of our time preparing for the future. We train leaders for the future church. We build buildings to be used in the future. We establish organisation structures to serve us into the future. To some extent, we can take the future into our hands through our imagination, creativity, and determination. We either do these things on the basis of tradition, ignoring the fact that the future may be different. We may prepare the future on some general hunches. Or, we can use the best information we can gather.
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| It is reported that in America, most prestigious private schools have abandoned chapel services and the position of chaplain. But there is a growing interest in spirituality. The Council for Spiritual and Ethical Education is a 400-member school association that encourages spiritual development, the study of religion and community service. The organisation was originally called the Council for Religion in Independent Schools. Since changing its name in 1998, the Council has grown significantly. The director says that schools are discovering that the frameworks of politics and psychology do not address issues such as charity and forgiveness. However, some fear that generic spirituality may not have much impact on students' spiritual growth. (Religion Watch, June 2000).
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| The English Church Attendance Survey has found that in 10 years between 40 and 50 percent of English churches have changed their 'churchmanship'. Thus, 40% of churches which had described themselves as Anglo-Catholic in 1989, described themselves as Liberal, Broad, Catholic or even Evangelical in 1999. 40% of of Charismatic Churches had changed, describing themselves as mainstream, low church or even broad church. A few had changed to being Anglo-Catholic. 47% of broad churches had changed their self-description to liberal, evangelical or something else. The Christian Research Association (UK) which undertook the survey asks whether the changes result from different people completing the form, or whether 'churchmanship' is becoming a less stable and less significant part of the identity of English churches.(From Quadrant, July 2000).
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| A book of papers to mark the 150th anniversary of the Anglican Diocese of Melbourne has just been published: People of the Past? The Culture of Melbourne Anglicanism and Anglicanism in Melbourne's Culture, History Department, University of Melbourne 2000. It was edited by Colin Holden, a senior fellow in the Department of History at the University of Melbourne and priest in the Diocese of Melbourne. While the orientation of the book is historical, a number of the papers pose questions for future directions of the Diocese - questions relevant to many denominations and churches in Australia.
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| The year 2000 has seen some important advances in the cause of justice for Aboriginal people in Australia. The walks for reconciliation in several major cities have provided a way in which many thousands of Australians have been able to express their opinions. The imagery of the opening of the Olympic Games gave Aboriginal people an appropriate place as the 'elders' of this ancient land. The participation of Aboriginal athletes in the Olympic games, especially Kathy Freeman, gave both non-Aboriginal and Aboriginal Australians a new pride in the Aboriginal people. But the issues raised by the health, life expectancy, the numbers of incarcerations, and so on, will not easily be resolved. A major contribution to understanding the issues has been made by Richard Trudgen in his new book Why Warriors Lie Down and Lie (Aboriginal Resources and Development Services, Darwin, 2000).
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| The Latter-day Saints, often referred to as the Mormons, were one of the fastest growing religious groups in Australia. Between 1991 and 1996 they grew by 17.8 per cent (compared with population growth of 5.4 per cent). While other religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam grew at a much faster rate, through immigration, the Latter-day Saints grew faster than most groups with a Christian heritage, apart from the Oriental Orthodox, surpassing the growth of the Pentecostal denominations.
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| A look at the Census figures reveals that there are two types of religious groups which are growing rapidly in Australia. MORE...
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| The Value of Independence in an Aging Population
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| Over the last ten years, 'health care' chaplaincy within both public and private facilities has become an important field of research. MORE...
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| ABS Report, Catalogue 4119.0 ISBN 0 642 25791 4 MORE...
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| There are approximately 350,000 Raelians world-wide, including some in Australia. Started in France in 1973, by Claude Vorilhon, known as the prophet Rael, the group believes that aliens from space visited the earth about 25,000 years ago and created life using advanced DNA technology. MORE...
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