The Kiribati Uniting Church (KUC) (until 2014 the Kiribati Protestant Church and earlier, the Gilbert Islands Protestant Church) is a
united
United may refer to:
Places
* United, Pennsylvania, an unincorporated community
* United, West Virginia, an unincorporated community
Arts and entertainment Films
* ''United'' (2003 film), a Norwegian film
* ''United'' (2011 film), a BBC Two f ...
Protestant
Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...
Christian denomination
A Christian denomination is a distinct religious body within Christianity that comprises all church congregations of the same kind, identifiable by traits such as a name, particular history, organization, leadership, theological doctrine, worsh ...
in
Kiribati
Kiribati (), officially the Republic of Kiribati ( gil, ibaberikiKiribati),Kiribati ''The Wor ...
. With approximately 25,000 members,World Council of Churches: Kiribati Uniting Church oikoumene.org, accessed 2015-10-07. and 136 congregations, the KUC is the second-largest religious group in Kiribati and accounts for approximately 21 percent of the population of the country.
Because of their remoteness and the few European presence, the
Gilbert and Ellice Islands
The Gilbert and Ellice Islands (GEIC as a colony) in the Pacific Ocean were part of the British Empire from 1892 to 1976. They were a protectorate from 1892 to 12 January 1916, and then a colony until 1 January 1976. The history of the colony w ...
were ignored by Christian missions until the latter half of the 19th century. Protestant
missionaries
A missionary is a member of a religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thomas Hale 'On Being a Mi ...
American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions
The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) was among the first American Christian missionary organizations. It was created in 1810 by recent graduates of Williams College. In the 19th century it was the largest and most imp ...
first arrived in Kiribati in 1857, and missionaries from the
London Missionary Society
The London Missionary Society was an interdenominational evangelical missionary society formed in England in 1795 at the instigation of Welsh Congregationalist minister Edward Williams. It was largely Reformed in outlook, with Congregational miss ...
arrived in 1870. The Protestant converts were served by
pastor
A pastor (abbreviated as "Pr" or "Ptr" , or "Ps" ) is the leader of a Christian congregation who also gives advice and counsel to people from the community or congregation. In Lutheranism, Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy and ...
s from
Hawaii
Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...
,
Samoa
Samoa, officially the Independent State of Samoa; sm, Sāmoa, and until 1997 known as Western Samoa, is a Polynesian island country consisting of two main islands (Savai'i and Upolu); two smaller, inhabited islands (Manono Island, Manono an ...
and
Tuvalu
Tuvalu ( or ; formerly known as the Ellice Islands) is an island country and microstate in the Polynesian subregion of Oceania in the Pacific Ocean. Its islands are situated about midway between Hawaii and Australia. They lie east-northeast ...
until the early 20th century, after which Tuvaluans and
I-Kiribati
The Micronesians or Micronesian peoples are various closely related ethnic groups native to Micronesia, a region of Oceania in the Pacific Ocean. They are a part of the Austronesian ethnolinguistic group, which has an Urheimat in Taiwan.
Ethno ...
, trained at
Rongorongo
Rongorongo (Rapa Nui: ) is a system of glyphs discovered in the 19th century on Rapa Nui (Easter Island) that appears to be writing or proto-writing. Numerous attempts at decipherment have been made, with none being successful. Although some c ...
, on Beru Atoll, took on this role. In 1968, the first general assembly of the
Gilbert Islands
The Gilbert Islands ( gil, Tungaru;Reilly Ridgell. ''Pacific Nations and Territories: The Islands of Micronesia, Melanesia, and Polynesia.'' 3rd. Ed. Honolulu: Bess Press, 1995. p. 95. formerly Kingsmill or King's-Mill IslandsVery often, this n ...
Protestant Church met to organise an autonomous church. In 1979, when the Gilbert Islands was renamed Kiribati, the church changed its name to the Kiribati Protestant Church. The church was originally established as a Congregationalist denomination.
In 2014, after a Church Bi-annual Assembly (Maungatabu), which was held on the island of
Arorae
Arorae (spelling variants: Arorai, Arurai; also known as Hope Island or Hurd Island“Captain Patterson, commanding the brig ''Elizabeth'', called it Hope Island: “Hope Island, in 2° 43′ S and 176° 56′ 25″ E, was the first discovery, t ...
, the Kiribati Protestant Church changed its name to Kiribati Uniting Church. The word " uniting" reflects that the church is now a union of several Protestant denominations in Kiribati, including Congregationalists,
Evangelicals
Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide Interdenominationalism, interdenominational movement within Protestantism, Protestant Christianity that affirms the centrality of being "bor ...
,
Anglicans
Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of the l ...
, and
Presbyterians
Presbyterianism is a part of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism that broke from the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland by John Knox, who was a priest at St. Giles Cathedral (Church of Scotland). Presbyterian churches derive their nam ...
.
But 10,000 members, mainly Congregationalists, did not accept the move and recreated a separate
Kiribati Protestant Church
The Kiribati Protestant Church (KPC) and earlier, the Gilbert Islands Protestant Church, is a Protestant Christian denomination in Kiribati. With approximately 10,000 members,copra
Copra (from ) is the dried, white flesh of the coconut from which coconut oil is extracted. Traditionally, the coconuts are sun-dried, especially for export, before the oil, also known as copra oil, is pressed out. The oil extracted from copr ...
cutters. Membership is decreasing since the move of 2014.
The KUC is a member of the
World Council of Churches
The World Council of Churches (WCC) is a worldwide Christian inter-church organization founded in 1948 to work for the cause of ecumenism. Its full members today include the Assyrian Church of the East, the Oriental Orthodox Churches, most juri ...
, the
World Communion of Reformed Churches
The World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC) is the largest association of Calvinist churches in the world. It has 230 member denominations in 108 countries, together claiming an estimated 80 million people, thus being the fourth-largest Chris ...
, and the
Council for World Mission
The Council for World Mission (CWM) is a worldwide community of mainly protestant Christian churches. The 32 members share their resources of money, people, skills and insights to carry out their mission work.
Leadership
The 32 member churches ar ...
. The pastors for the KUC are trained at Tangintebu Theological College, which is owned by the church.
See also
*
Bureieta Karaiti Bureieta Karaiti was the general secretary of the Kiribati Protestant Church (KPC),"Climate Change and Kiribati", ''Europe Pacific Solidarity Bulletin'', vol. 14, no. 2 (May–July 2006)The role of London Missionary Society Samoan missionaries in the evangelisation of the South West Pacific 1839-1930 (Doctoral dissertation, Australian National University).
*Porter, A. (1997). ‘Cultural imperialism’ and Protestant missionary enterprise, 1780–1914. Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 25, 367-391.
*Sabatier, E. (1977). Astride the Equator: An account of the Gilbert Islands (U. Nixon, Trans.). Melbourne: Oxford University Press.