Colonial Religion

This book contains a series of essays based on previously published articles but all revised and updated. One on the founding of the university of Sydney has been totally re-written. They deal with the cultural and political tsunami that swept over the British empire and especially the colonies in Australia in the middle of the nineteenth century. The effects on those changes continue to this day for both church and state. The recent debates on marriage and religious freedom have about them the marks of these nineteenth century changes. Not all is simple continuity. State aid for independent schools initiated by Robert Menzies but carried to enormous lengths by his successors to this day actually turned the nineteenth century resolution totally on its head. The issues in these essays turn of the collapse of the English Christendom version of church state relations. The implications of that long running change are still central to the stuttering re-thinking by Anglicans of what it means to be a church in Australia in the twenty first century. That struggle has its analogues in the broader culture and nation as it tries to find a way to be Australia.