Christian Research Association

The Christian Research Association (CRA) was founded in 1985 to study the Christian faith in Australia. Its work consists of major research projects which have focussed on overviews of research on spirituality and religion in relation to Australian culture, and contract research for Christian organisations, including local reports based on Australian Census data.

The Christian Research Association was founded in 1985 to study the Christian faith in Australia.

Its key supporters and board members are:

According to the Christian Research Association's website:

The Christian Research Association has several aspects to its work:

Some of the early work of the Christian Research Association focussed on understanding the different patterns of faith in Australian Churches. It moved on a study of the attitudes of Australians who did not attend church. In seeking to understand the changes in attitudes to the Christian faith and the churches, it has focussed on the cultural changes which occurred in Australia in the 1960s and 1970s.

In 1995, the Christian Research Association began working with the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs and a range of academics to produce a series of books on the various religious communities in Australia. Twelve books were produced covering the Anglican, Baptist, Buddhist, Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Hindu and Sikh, Jewish, Lutheran, Muslim, Pentecostal, Presbyterian and Uniting Church communities. In 2000, this set of materials was expanded to include book length materials on another 15 religious communities and brief articles covering approximately 140 other religious groups present in Australia, and published on CD-Rom. A third edition of this 'encyclopedia' of religion in Australia was published in 2010.

Other work has centred on Australian values and the place that spirituality has in relation to other values. The Christian Research Association has argued that there are four major orientations in values on which Australians vary: the relative importance of order, of self-enhancement, of social enhancement, and spirituality.

Since 2002, the Christian Research Association has been involved in studies of the religious faith and spirituality of young people. It was a partner, with Monash University and the Australian Catholic University, in a major study, 'The Spirit of Generation Y'. This study involved a national telephone survey of 1200 young people as well as in-depth face-to-face interviews. It was supplemented by the Schools Project Study which involved interviews with 240 students and surveys of more than 5000 students. A new round of surveys of students in schools was commenced in 2011.

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