Christianity in Australia and Oceania (ca. 1800-2000)

Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands since the end of the eighteenth century have been major sites of evangelical enterprise. Significant proportions of their indigenous and settler populations have embraced evangelical faith. Community values, social practices, and educational and charitable institutions have been shaped partly by evangelical influences. Represented in a wide range of old and new Protestant denominations, most from Britain, evangelicalism has manifested a variety of practices. Distinguished by its biblicism, it has preserved its adherents from liberalism, but is less fundamentalist than many assume and has promoted scholarship in Bible and theological colleges. Charismatic influences have been more pronounced in New Zealand than in Australia. Itself the product of the global outreach of Protestant missions, Australasian evangelicalism has made its own significant contribution to the movement's resources for globalization. Recent manifestations of local evangelical strength include the worldwide influence of both the strongly Reformed Sydney Anglicanism and the rapid growth of Hillsong churches within the Pentecostal tradition.