Engaging with the Augsburg Confession

The Augsburg Confession of 1530 was the first great confessional statement of the Reformation, yet like many historic confessions it is underappreciated today.

If we are to revive the spirit of confessionalism, we need to remove the barriers to engaging with the confessions themselves.  One of these barriers is the harsh language of sixteenth century doctrinal and sectarian disputes.

If one looks past this language, the core becomes highly relevant again.  To demonstrate this, I have focused on the first 21 articles which are the positive expressions of belief (the last seven articles focus on correcting errors of the Roman Catholic church).  I have also removed the rhetorical “condemnation" of various Christian groups at the end of each article, which mainly serves to contrast with the positive articulation in the main part of the article.

I am not suggesting we sweep the original text away, but rather that we consider new ways to express a positive and powerful vision of our faith. Hopefully we can then restore the relevance and power of these confessions in the modern context.

I've posted my abridged version of the Augsburg Confession here.

Christianity in Australia

The first data from the 2011 Australian census was released today and it doesn't make for encouraging reading. The tables below show key trends in religious affiliation over the last 20 years.

Over the last ten years, the share of the population identifying as Christian has declined by 7% (to 61%) while the share of those explicitly identifying themselves as non-religious has increased by 7% (to 22%).

Table 1: Religious affiliation - total population

Affiliation	1991 (000)	2001 (000)	2011 (000)	1991 (%)	2001 (%)	2011 (%)
Christianity	12,466	12,764	13,151	74%	68%	61%
Buddhism	140	358	529	1%	2%	2%
Islam	147	282	476	1%	2%	2%
Hinduism	44	95	276	-	1%	1%
Judaism	74	84	97	-	-	-
Other	40	92	342	-	-	2%
No religion	2,177	2,906	4,797	13%	15%	22%
Not stated	1,762	2,188	1,840	10%	12%	9%
Total	16,850	18,769	21,508	100%	100%	100%

The second table shows the breakdown of Christian respondents by denomination:

Table 2: Religious affiliation - Christian denominations

Affiliation	1991 (000)	2001 (000)	2011 (000)	1991 (%)	2001 (%)	2011 (%)
Protestant	7,223	7,048	6,940	58%	55%	53%
- Anglican	4,019	3,881	3,680	32%	30%	28%
- Uniting	1,388	1,249	1,066	11%	10%	8%
- Presbyterian	732	638	600	6%	5%	5%
- Baptist	280	309	352	2%	2%	3%
- Lutheran	251	250	252	2%	2%	2%
- Pentecostal	151	195	238	1%	2%	2%
- Other	404	527	752	3%	4%	6%
Catholic	4,607	5,002	5,439	37%	39%	41%
Orthodox	475	529	563	4%	4%	4%
Other*	161	185	208	1%	1%	2%
Total	12,466	12,764	13,151	100%	100%	100%

* Jehovah's Witnesses, Seventh-day Adventists and LDS

Within the Christian population the traditional British Protestant denominations (Anglican, Uniting and Presbyterian) continue to contract sharply. Almost uniquely, Lutheran numbers are neither growing nor shrinking but remain steady at approximately 250,000 and represent 2% of all Christians.