Kiribati Uniting Church

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Kiribati Uniting Church ( KUC , formerly: Kiribati Protestant Church , Gilbert Islands Protestant Church ) is a Uniate Protestant Christian denomination in Kiribati with approximately 40,000 members and 136 congregations. The KUC is the second largest religious group in Kiribati and brings together around 36% of the country's population.

history

Protestant missionaries (including Hiram Bingham ) sent by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions arrived in Kiribati in 1857 and missionaries from the London Missionary Society arrived in 1870. The Protestant converts were pastors from Hawai'i , Samoa and Tuvalu until the beginning of the 20th century, when Tuvaluans and I-Kiribati, who are being trained in Rongorongo on the Beru Atoll , took on this role. In 1968 the first General Assembly of the Gilbert Islands Protestant Church came together to found an independent church organization. In 1979, when the former "Gilbert Islands" were renamed Kiribati, the church changed its name to "Kiribati Protestant Church". The church was originally designed as a congregational denomination.

In 2014, after the biennial Maungatabu (Synod, Assembly) held on the island of Arorae , it changed its name again to Kiribati Uniting Church. In doing so, the church made it clear that it emerged from a union of different Protestant denominations in Kiribati, including Congregationalists, Evangelicals , Anglicans and Presbyterians .

present

The KUC has 209 pastors. Most church members are fishermen or copra collectors. The number of members and churches are growing.

The KUC is a member of the World Council of Churches , the World Fellowship of Reformed Churches and the Council for World Mission . The pastors of the KUC are trained at Tangintebu Theological College .

Became known Bureieta Karaiti as a representative of the church, as it often focuses on social issues ( prostitution , children's rights , etc.). He received particularly wide attention with various statements on global warming , as the Pacific Islands , above all Kiribati, are strongly affected by global warming .

literature

  • Alaima T., Mikaere B., Keina B., Meita B., Kunei E., Uentabo F.,. . ., & Kumon U .: Kiribati: Aspects of history. Suva, Fiji: University of the South Pacific, Institute of Pacific Studies 1979.
  • J. Garrett: Footsteps in the sea: Christianity in Oceania to World War II. Suva: University of the South Pacific 1992.
  • N. Goodall: A history of the London Missionary Society 1895-1945. London: Oxford University Press 1954.
  • BK Macdonald: Cinderellas of the empire: Towards a history of Kiribati and Tuvalu. Canberra: Australian National University Press 1982.
  • UF Nokise: The role of London Missionary Society Samoan missionaries in the evangelization of the South West Pacific 1839-1930. (PhD thesis) Australian National University 1983. PDF
  • A. Porter: 'Cultural imperialism' and Protestant missionary enterprise, 1780-1914. In: Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History. 1997, 25: 367-391.
  • E. Sabatier: Astride the Equator: An account of the Gilbert Islands. (translated by U. Nixon). Melbourne: Oxford University Press 1977.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e World Council of Churches: Kiribati Uniting Church , oikoumene.org.
  2. ↑ United States State Department, Kiribati. International Religious Freedom Report 2007 , state.gov.
  3. ^ Kiribati Protestant Church. www.unitingworld.org.au.
  4. ↑ http://wcrc.ch
  5. ↑ Traditional treatment of girls link to prostitution in Kiribati. Kiribati News Agency, June 4, 2007.

Web links