Young Australians and Christianity
Image via WikipediaAustralia is a good place to live. It is well ordered. The basic needs of most people are met. There is employment for most people. For those unable to work, there is a good range of social services. There are many opportunities for entertainment, sport and culture. The large cities are highly multicultural, and, for the most part, people of different backgrounds accept each other. Yet, close to one-fifth of young people and older people say that they are hurting deep inside and they are not satisfied with their lives.
Often the immediate cause of this dissatisfaction is a breakdown in relationships. However, there are underlying problems in the nature of Australian culture itself.
In the 1970s, young people turned away from the traditions of the past. They no longer felt bound by the patterns of marriage and family life, by the styles of music and art, or even by the particular drugs that had been prevalent in Australian life.
Certainly, many people felt that the traditions of religion no longer were binding on them. Rather than seeing religion as something into which they were born, it came to be seen as something they could put together in their own way, if they chose to do that. Each individual could make their own decisions about religious faith as decisions of life-style.
The Australian Survey of Social Attitudes showed that in 2009 just 50 per cent of adult Australians regarded themselves as Christian (compared with 86 per cent according to the 1966 Census), and 46 per cent of adult Australians said they did not have a religion.
It should be noted that these figures are vastly different from the 2006 Census, in which 64 per cent of Australians identified with a Christian denomination. The differences can be explained by the different ways that the question was asked.
The Australian Survey of Social Attitudes asked people first, "Do you have a religion?" It then asked those who responded positively what was their religion. The Census firstly indicated that the question about religion was optional, It then simply provided people a list of religions (including "no religion") and asked people to tick the appropriate option, or write in another option.
However, the Survey gives a far more accurate reading of the Australian population as they currently see themselves. Many who complete the Census form respond in terms of the way they were brought up, or what school they went to. The Survey was more direct and signalled that it was asking about "now."
Indeed, a separate question asked what was the respondent's religion when they were aged 11 or 12. That picture was very different. 25 per cent of the Australian population thought of themselves as growing up as Christians, but now regard themselves as having "no religion."
It is also interesting to note that of all those who said they grew up in other religions (such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and Judaism), 26 per cent of them said they now had "no religion."
Of those who indicated they had "no religion," 32 per cent of them said that they considered themselves to be spiritual. Moreover, of those who said they had a religion, 15 per cent said they were more spiritual than religious.
These figures are a clear indication that, while many Australians consider themselves spiritual, many of these do not look to Christianity or other religions to nurture that spirituality.
Thus, influenced by the freedom offered by the "post-traditional" culture that has developed in Australia, many people have withdrawn from the Christian faith, sometimes to a more general spirituality, sometimes to "no religion" at all.
While many people experienced post-traditionalism as giving them freedom, and thus warmly embraced the option to make their own decisions, others found the responsibility of making their own decisions about the basic ways of approaching life and what to believe about life and the world daunting. Indeed, this has been a root cause of much insecurity in Australian culture.
There is an interesting parallel here with occupations. While every Australian young person values the opportunity to make their own choices about what work they will do, finding the right occupation is often a very long process and causes great insecurity in the process.
Young people jealously guard their right to make their own decisions about religious faith and spirituality. Yet they do not find those decisions easy. Few feel equipped to think through what is involved. They frequently fall, almost by default, into a non-religious, non-spiritual approach to life that focuses on the here-and-now.
At the same time, there are major issues that confront Australians which have a spiritual dimension. One such issue iseconomics. Australians are equivocal about the demands of work and consumption which lie heavy upon many. They are encouraged to buy consumer goods and bigger houses, but they really do not want to work more. They are burdened by their work.
Young people often express a desire for a better work-life balance than they see in the lives of their parents. Our current capitalist system is dependent on the assumption of continued economic growth. That means stimulating ever higher levels of demand for what it produces, and driving those who work ever harder.
In other words, it is a system whose continued existence depends on producing and increasing greed. Even spirituality can be made into a saleable commodity, as increasing number of commentators have noted.
At the same time, there is growing inequality across the world, inequality which is disruptive to world harmony, as well as morally unacceptable to those who believe in the worth of every human individual.
The other issue is associated with it: climate change. Already, millions of people are on the move because of changes in climate. Already, bio-diversity in some areas is under considerable threat. Already, sea levels have risen across the globe.
The global increase in human population, the use of gas, oil and coal as major sources of energy, and the increases in our energy use - these are all factors that are contributing to global warming. But these causes are undergirded by the relationship we have with the natural environment and, again, the greed that impels us to increase our consumption of material goods and energy.
If the Christian faith were to be seen as providing workable solutions to the spiritual dimension of such problems, perhaps it would come back onto the national agenda. Perhaps it would re-enter people's consciousness as an alternative way of life. Perhaps it would be seen to be relevant to the deep and abiding concerns of Australians.
It may also be that in addressing such problems, people will find a way out of the confusion that currently dominates. Indirectly, that could address the hurt and the insecurity of purpose that is so widespread in Australian society.
Philip Hughes is the senior research officer of the Christian Research Association. He has further explored these themes and has analysed the challenges of Christian ministry in his book, Shaping Australia's Spirituality: A Review of Christian Ministry in the Australian Context (Melbourne: Mosaic Press, 2010). You can hear Rachael Kohn in conversation with Philip Hughes on "The Spiritual and the Secular in Australian Life" on The Spirit of Things, Sunday, 30 November 2010.
