Two Centuries of Evangelicalism In Australia

By Dr Stuart Piggin, historian and author of several books including 'Evangelical Christianity in Australia' (OUP). The above reflections have been taken from the concluding chapter of that book with kind permission

Throughout almost two hundred years the mission of Australian evangelical Christianity has been to preserve society by reforming it along Biblical lines, and to bring its members to faith in Christ through the proclamation of the Gospel. The movement's effectiveness in that mission has been dependent on how successful it has been in maintaining the evangelical synthesis of Spirit, Word and world.

In synthesis, evangelical spirituality has nourished engagement with the social as well as the spiritual needs of many Australians. On its own, evangelical spirituality has fostered a world-denying pietism which has produced revivalism more often than revival. Occasionally it has produced a world-renouncing perfectionism which has ironically ended in powerlessness to resist worldliness. In synthesis, the evangelical commitment to the Word of God has resulted in prophetic prescriptions for personal salvation and social reform. On it's own, it has been used as a weapon to bludgeon friends too often perceived as opponents. Synthesised with Spirit and Word, evangelical social action has been sustained and committed. On its own, it has been desultory and ill-informed.

Australian society has been a challenging context for the evangelical movement. Its materialism has challenged evangelical spirituality; its secularity has disputed the claims of the Word and the lordship of Jesus Christ; and its own reformist movements have sought inspiration from sources outside the Bible. Surrounded by such great temptations, Australian evangelicals have yielded too easily and too often to the options of private religion, personal convictions, and the face-saving tolerance which passes for charity. Yet, just as many Australians has been softened by the love of God revealed in the Gospel, so the domain of mammon has not always been impervious to the evangelical Gospel.

Positive contributions

In three major areas the evangelical movement seems to have made a positive contribution to the creation of Australian society and culture. First, throughout much of the nineteenth century it made a sustained and possibly vital contribution to the development of Australian nationhood. It was a movement which was unembarrassed about co-operating with people of all creeds and none whenever the cause was right.

Political liberalism and philosophical utilitarianism, which are traditionally credited with the development of the progressive, democratic nation which Australia has become, were probably more enthusiastically endorsed by evangelicals than by any other groups. Particularly in the area of education, the evangelicals came to an agreement with colonial legislatures which significantly shaped the young nation.

The churches imparted their denominational and doctrinal expressions of Christianity to the Australian people through schools, missions, churches, Sunday schools, the media, and whatever other means they could devise, while the state through its school systems gave to its citizens an expression of Christianity which was civic, general and practical.

Secularisation has meant that the churches can no longer rely on the state to impart any expression of Christianity. Yet the state still depends on the churches to supplement both its educational and welfare systems. The involvement of the churches in social welfare has been extended and streamlined in the past four decades. Our churches today find themselves far better equipped to assist the needy than they were during the Great Depression of the 1930's.

Churches, conservative as well as liberal, are increasingly conscious of their need to engage with the community of which they are part. Australian conservative Christians are now less philistine in their attitude to artistic and intellectual pursuits. Throughout our history the average 'ocker' is supposed to have been hostile to religion, art, and academia. Yet, strangely, only recently have all three recognized that they have this problem in common.

But, leaving the world of art and academia and welfare aside, it is not as easy to demonstrate the formative impact of evangelicalism on Australian culture and society in the twentieth century as it is for the nineteenth. Since then, evangelicals have become noticeably narrower and have become more easily preoccupied with matters of the Spirit or of the Word rather than the world. In the twentieth century in other words, evangelicals have become far more concerned with each other. In so far as it is possible to learn from history it would be good if evangelicals could regain the habit of thinking about those to whom they are to minister, as much as about those who are engaged in a similar task.

A second major area in which the evangelical movement has made a positive contribution to Australian national development is through its insistence on the centrality of the Word of God, the Bible, as the only authoritative source of revelation about the saving purpose of God. Too often throughout Australia's history, a robust theology based on the Bible has been absent even from the evangelical churches. Too often weakness in Bible-based theology has allowed Christianity to accept as part of the Gospel some value which was really class or culture based.

The most obvious example is the endorsement by the churches in the nineteenth century of prevailing views of morality. The gospel is not moralism, and the absence of sound Biblical theology has deprived evangelicalism of a strong prophetic role in Australia's history. Still, it is the distinction of the evangelical churches to which Catholic, liberal or charismatic churches cannot lay claim, that it has insisted on seeking God's incontrovertible will for our society and the Australian people through the Bible alone.

The third major contribution of evangelicalism to Australia's history has been a spiritual one. Spiritual hunger, which charismatic churches have sought to satisfy in recent decades so conspicuously, has been a constant feature of Australian history. The desire for revival has been evident throughout our history. Revival itself has been a surprisingly frequent experience of Australian Christians, and occasionally, as with Aboriginal Christians, has been the means of giving a place and hope to marginalized segments of the population.

http://www.evangelicalalliance.org.au/commissions/theological/articles/piggin.php