Charles Strong: Influences and Early Ministries up to 1875

Abstract

The Rev. Charles Strong (1844–1942) was the cause and centre of the most significant theological controversy in nineteenth-century Australian Protestantism. The current paper presents a review of Strong’s background in Scotland by considering his family (especially his older brother David), education, and first ministries before moving to Melbourne and taking up ministry there first at Scots’ Church, Melbourne, within the Presbyterian Church of Victoria, and then subsequently The Australian Church. Extensive new material is presented here to supplement the account of C. R. Badger, the only current biographer of Strong.