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The Encyclopedia of Religion in Australia by James Jupp Pdf
Australia is a country rich in religious diversity. While constitutionally-speaking Australia is a secular society, waves of immigration over its short history have had a large impact on its religious and cultural make-up. The Encyclopedia of Religion in Australia is the first major work of reference to describe the beliefs, practices and organisation of religion in Australia. It examines religion in several different ways: historical development, belief systems and controversies, as well as the social role each faith plays in modern Australian society. This comprehensive volume includes entries on indigenous spirituality, Scientology, hillsong, and atheism, and features all of the major religions. Richly illustrated, it includes a section dedicated to current debates and issues in modern-day Australia, such as the place of religion in politics, fundamentalism, religious education and social cohesion.
Religion and Change in Australia by Adam Possamai,David Tittensor Pdf
This timely book offers a panoramic overview of the enduring significance of religion in modern Australian society. Applying sociological perspectives and contemporary theories of religion in society, it challenges conventional assumptions around the extent of secularisation in Australia and instead argues that religious institutions, groups, and individuals have proved remarkably adaptable to social change and continue to play a major role in Australian life. In doing so, it explores how religion intersects with a wide range of other contemporary issues, including politics, race, migration, gender, and new media. Religion and Change in Australia explores Australia’s unique history regarding religion. Christianity was originally imported as a tool of social control to keep convicts, settlers, and Australian Aboriginal peoples in check. This had a profound impact on the social memory of the nation, and lingering resentment towards the "excessive" presence of religion continues to be felt today. Freedom of religion was enshrined in Section 116 of the Australian Constitution in 1901. Nevertheless, the White Australia Policy effectively prevented adherents of non-Christian faiths from migrating to Australia and the nation remained overwhelmingly Christian. However, after WWII, Australia, in common with other western societies, appears to have become increasingly secularised, as religious observance declined dramatically. However, Religion and Change in Australia employs a range of social theories to challenge this securalist view and argues that Australia is a post-secular society. The 2016 census revealed that over half of the population still identify as Christian. In politics, the socially conservative religious right has come to exert considerable influence on the ruling Liberal-National Coalition, particularly under John Howard and Scott Morrison. New technologies, such as the Internet and social media, have provided new avenues for religious expression and proselytisation whilst so-called "megachurches" have been built to cater to their increasing congregations. The adoption of multiculturalism and increased immigration from Asia has led to a religiously pluralist society, though this has often been controversial. In particular, the position of Islam in Australia has been the subject of fierce debate, and Islamophobic attitudes remain common. Atheism, non-belief, and alternative spiritualities have also become increasingly widespread, especially amongst the young. Religion and Change in Australia analyses these developments to offer new perspectives on religion and its continued relevance within Australian society. This book is therefore a vital resource for students, academics, and general readers seeking to understand contemporary debates surrounding religion and secularisation in Australia.
With its increasingly secular and religiously diverse population Australia faces many challenges in determining how the state and religion should interact. Australia is not unique in facing these challenges. States worldwide, including common law countries with shared legal and religious heritages, have also been faced with the question of how the state and religion should relate to one another. Countries such as the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand and the United States have all had to grapple with how to manage the state-religion relationship in the present day. This book provides a comprehensive historical review of the interaction of the state and religion in Australia. It brings together multiple examples of areas in which the state and religion interact, and reviews these examples across Australia’s history from settlement through to present day. The book sets this story within a wider theoretical context via an examination of theories of state-religion relationships as well as a comparison with other similar common law jurisdictions. The book demonstrates how the solutions arrived at in Australia is uniquely Australian owing to Australia’s unique legal system, religious demographics and history. However this is just one possible outcome among many that have been tried in common law liberal democracies.
Losing My Religion: Unbelief in Australia by Tom Frame Pdf
In this challenging and provocative book, Tom Frame, one of Australia's best-known writers on religion and society, examines diminishing theological belief and declining denominational affiliation. He argues that Australia has never been a very religious nation but that few Australians have deliberately rejected belief - most simply can't see why they need to be bothered with religion at all. He contends that vehement campaigning against theistic belief is the product of growing disdain for religious fundamentalism and a vigorous commitment to personal autonomy. Losing My Religion contends tha.
Australian Soul challenges the idea that religious and spiritual life in Australia is in decline. This fascinating book describes the character of religious and spiritual life in Australia today, and argues that, far from petering out, religion and spirituality are thriving. Gary Bouma, the leading expert on the state of religious life in Australia, provides the most up-to-date facts and figures and compares the 'tone' of Australian religious practices with those of other countries. Australians might be less vocal and more reticent about their religion than Americans are, but their religious and spiritual beliefs are no less potent. Australian Soul describes and analyses our religious and spiritual life in detail as well as providing a series of case studies that illustrate the range of practices and beliefs in Australia today. Australian Soul predicts a vital future for religion and spirituality.
In this challenging and provocative book, Tom Frame, one of Australia's best - known writers on religion and society, examines diminishing theological belief and declining denominational affiliation. He argues that Australia has never been a very religious nation but that few Australians have deliberately rejected belief - most simply can't see ...
Media Perceptions of Religious Changes in Australia by ENQI. WENG Pdf
This volume explores the contradiction between the news coverage given to issues of religion, particularly since 2001 in relation to issues such as terrorism, politics, security and gender, and the fact of its apparent decline according to Census data. Based on media research in Australia, and offering comparisons with the UK, the author demonstrates that media discussions overlook the diversity that exists within religions, particularly the country's main religion, Christianity, and presents religion according to specific interpretations shaped by race, class and gender, which in turn result in very limited understandings of religion itself. Drawing on understandings of the sacred as a non-negotiable value present in religious and secular form, Media Perceptions of Religious Changes in Australia calls for a broader sociological perspective on religion and will appeal to scholars of sociology and media studies with interests in religion and public life.
Aboriginal Religions in Australia by Françoise Dussart,Howard Morphy Pdf
Over the last 25 years there has been an explosion of interest in the Aboriginal religions of Australia and this anthology provides a variety of recent writings, by a wide range of scholars. Australian Aboriginal Religions are probably the oldest extant religious systems. Over some 50,000 years they have coped with change and re-invented themselves in an astonishingly creative way. The Dreaming, the mythical time when the Ancestor Spirits shaped the territories of the Aborigines and laid down a moral and ritual law for their occupants, is the fundamental religious reality. It is the basis of the Aborigines's view of their land or country, kinship relationships, ritual and art. However, the Dreaming is not a static principle since it is interpreted in different ways, as in the extraordinary movement in contemporary indigenous painting, and in attempts at an accommodation with Christianity. The contributions of anthropologists, cultural historians, philosophers of religion and others are included in this anthology which not only guides readers through the literature but also ensures this still largely inaccessible material is available to a wider range of readers and non-specialist students and academics.
What do people actually mean when they say 'God'? Around two-thirds of us say we believe in God or some 'higher power', but fewer than one in ten Australians attend church weekly. In Beyond Belief, Hugh Mackay presents this discrepancy as one of the great unexamined topics of our time. He argues that while our attachment to a traditional idea of God may be waning, our desire for a life of meaning remains as strong as ever. Mackay interviews dozens of Australians representing many different points on the spectrum of faith, including some who are part of the emerging 'spiritual but not religious' movement. He exposes the deep vein of ambivalence about religion that runs through our society: we may not actively worship, but we still like to see local churches operating in our midst, and we use 'our' church to marry, christen our babies, educate our children and commemorate our dead. He points out some uncomfortable truths, such as our tendency to call on God only in a crisis, and unpacks our human need for 'answers', even when science can't find them. He endorses the Christian ideal of the good life - a life lived for others - but acknowledges that there are many pathways to that same goal, not all of them religious. Written with all the insight and compassion we have come to expect of our leading chronicler of Australian life, Beyond Belief is an engrossing exploration of the ways we find spiritual fulfilment in an avowedly secular age.
Why religion fell off the radar in Australia - and how it can get back on At the time of Federation 98% of Australians identified themselves as Christians. Now only 8% say they regularly go to Church. What's changed? How did Australia become a post-Christian nation and what part did the Churches play in their own decline? Author Roy Williams (God, Actually, In God they trust?) has long been an impassioned defender of Christianity. Here, he tackles the decline of the church head on, acknowledging that in many cases, inflexibility, negativity and a refusal to listen have led to a tarnished image. But he also argues that Australia had a long and often misunderstood Christian heritage. And without it, he says, we will become a society with no moral centre, a community where rampant materialism is the only rule. Offering a bold roadmap for the Church to change, Williams challenges atheists, agnostics and true believers to a genuinely open debate about the force of faith.
This book provides new perspectives on the relationship between religious thought and social reform in Australia. It argues that religious thought can be found in many intellectuals in Australia, both in the religiously inclined and in those who were not conventionally religious. Drawing together existing and new research, this book opens up new perspectives and re-thematises the field in six exploratory studies. Each study is revisionist in some respects. Shapes of disbelief are explored in intellectuals of many types. The concept of sacral secularity is used to complex and contest discussions of 'the secular' in Australia. Religious liberalism is interpreted as transnational and as often a source of social reform. Interactions between religious thought and philosophy are discussed in some detail, as is the development of theology, which has received relatively little attention from historians. Account is also taken of what might perhaps be called post-secular consciousness in many intellectuals. Taking religious thought more seriously suggests possible revisions to the way the national story has been told. There was more serious intellectual life in Australia than some historians have claimed, and a considerable part of it was in a broad sense 'religious'
Religion and Non-Religion among Australian Aboriginal Peoples by James L. Cox,Adam Possamai Pdf
Offering a significant contribution to the emerging field of 'Non-Religion Studies', Religion and Non-Religion among Australian Aboriginal Peoples draws on Australian 2011 Census statistics to ask whether the Indigenous Australian population, like the wider Australian society, is becoming increasingly secularised or whether there are other explanations for the surprisingly high percentage of Aboriginal people in Australia who state that they have 'no religion'. Contributors from a range of disciplines consider three central questions: How do Aboriginal Australians understand or interpret what Westerners have called 'religion'? Do Aboriginal Australians distinguish being 'religious' from being 'non-religious'? How have modernity and Christianity affected Indigenous understandings of 'religion'? These questions re-focus Western-dominated concerns with the decline or revival of religion, by incorporating how Indigenous Australians have responded to modernity, how modernity has affected Indigenous peoples' religious behaviours and perceptions, and how variations of response can be found in rural and urban contexts.
Reason, Religion and the Australian Polity by Stephen A. Chavura,John Gascoigne,Ian Tregenza Pdf
How did the concept of the secular state emerge and evolve in Australia and how has it impacted on its institutions? This is the most comprehensive study to date on the relationship between religion and the state in Australian history, focusing on the meaning of political secularity in a society that was from the beginning marked by a high degree of religious plurality. This book tracks the rise and fall of the established Church of England, the transition to plural establishments, the struggle for a public Christian-secular education system, and the eventual separation of church and state throughout the colonies. The study is unique in that it does not restrict its concern with religion to the churches but also examines how religious concepts and ideals infused apparently secular political and social thought and movements making the case that much Australian thought and institution building has had a sacral-secular quality. Social welfare reform, nationalism, and emerging conceptions of citizenship and civilization were heavily influenced by religious ideals, rendering problematic traditional linear narratives of secularisation as the decline of religion. Finally the book considers present day pluralist Australia and new understandings of state secularity in light of massive social changes over recent generations.