Not quite established:

Ross Langmead

A paper given at the Gospel and Culture Network (GOCN) Consultation, Techny, IL, October 17-19, 2002 and published in an edited form in The Gospel and Our Culture 14.3&4 (Sep/Dec 2002), 7-10

In varying ways the Christian churches in Western countries which have been established by the state are losing their privileged status, and Australia is no exception. But the question of the extent to which the Australian church has been disestablished is complicated by the prior question of the extent to which it was ever established. In particular, was the church of the colonial masters, the Church of England, ever the state church?

I plan to use the issue of disestablishment as a focus for some broader questions about how much the gospel has had a transformative role in Australian society and how well it has taken root in Australian cultural soil.

I want to argue that the gospel has never had a real 'bite' on Australian culture, and in particular, that the Christian church has never quite been established in either the narrower (legal) sense or the broader (cultural)

sense. There's a certain truth to the common claim that Australia is one of the most secular societies to be found. But the picture is not as simple as this. While Australians are not generally interested in organised religion, most believe in God and are open to the spiritual dimension of life, even if they are somewhat inarticulate and stop short of commitment to a group. There are opportunities facing the Christian church in Australia currently as the gospel shows fresh signs of engaging culture in terms of Australian theology, new forms of church practice and a presence in wider society.

Some qualifications are important. Today I'll mainly be referring to the dominant cultural strands of Australian society. A thicker description would have to take account of Australia's multiculturalism, indigenous culture and marginal groups. Also, for the most part I'll be discussing Australian distinctives, though, many Australian cultural trends are actually trends in Western culture, linked through the effects of globalisation.

1 Established religion

As an anabaptist-leaning Baptist I am a disestablishmentarian, one who advocates the separation of church and state. (When I was a boy 'disestablishmentarianism' was the longest word I knew and I've always wanted a chance to use it.) Because I advocate the separation of church and state my hope for the Australian church lies not in the narrower sense of establishment, where the church enjoys privileges and power at the centre of Australian culture. My hope lies rather in a faith that lives dialectically between 'cultural establishment' (in the sense of being culturally attuned and well-rooted in its context) and intentional 'disestablishment', bringing a gospel critique to the dominant culture in ways that tend to take the church to the margins of society, just as Jesus' message took him to the edges.

'Establishment' in Europe has usually meant that a particular church was seen as the official religion, cooperating with the state. It entailed a privileged position but also obligations. In England after the Reformation, for example, it used to mean that the Church of England was the only officially recognised church. At various times it meant intolerance of dissenters; compulsory tithes and attendance for all; state payment of clergy stipends; public officials having to subscribe to the Thirty Nine Articles; the limiting of Oxford and Cambridge degrees to Anglicans only; recognising only the marriages that were solemnised in Anglican rites; and the right of Parliament to make church law and call church courts to account. Even today, after hundreds of years of gradual disestablishment, as I understand it, the Queen (through the Prime Minister) appoints the bishops; bishops sit in the House of Lords by right; church law has state recognition; that the monarch must be a member of the Church of England; that the monarch is crowned by the Archbishop of Canterbury; that the Lord' s Prayer is said in Parliament; and that certain public rituals reflect the position of Christianity as the official religion and the Church of England as the officially-sanctioned form of Christianity.[1]

In the English use of the term only one church can be established in a society. This contrasts with the American use of 'establishment', which refers more to providing financial support for religious purposes, whether to one group or many.[2]

2 De facto establishment in Australia, 1788 to 1833

Australia's flirtation with an established church was brief and ambiguous and yet had lasting effects.

When the British first formed a colony in Australia in 1788 it was a convict settlement, a military establishment. A chaplain, Rev Richard Johnson, was sent with the first fleet. An Evangelical Anglican, Johnson was given little support by anyone. Governor Phillip was not especially religious and wanted religion and the state together to provide the moral backbone of the social order; he showed annoyance at Johnson's Evangelical fervour.[3] The military were notoriously undisciplined and irreligious.[4] The convicts were already alienated from the Church of England, first because they were either from the English working-class or were Irish Catholics, and second because they were now part of the criminal class. Convict conditions were harsh and the church was seen as part of the oppression.[5] The church was indeed part of the oppression, because the chaplains served as magistrates. Rev Samuel Marsden, soon to join Johnson in Sydney, became known as the 'flogging parson' for the severe penalties he meted out as magistrate.[6]

Already there was a tension between preaching grace on Sundays and pronouncing judgement on week days. From the beginning the clergy tried unsuccessfully to act as moral police in a community marked by violence, drunkenness and sexual immorality.[7] This was the 'gospel against culture' in rather negative way.

The elements of establishment were present in these weak beginnings and, for the next forty years or so, were only to strengthen, at least in structural terms. Church attendance was compulsory, in theory anyway.[8] The colonial government paid Anglican clergy stipends, and paid the costs of erecting churches and vicarages (without enthusiasm, it must be said).[9] Land grants were given to the Church of England for churches, for schools and to foster self-sufficiency. The job of education was given primarily to the church.[10] Births, deaths and marriages had to be registered through the Church of England.[11] An archdeacon was appointed (1824) and then a bishop (1836).[12] The 'Anglican ascendancy'[13] reached its peak in 1825 when the Church and Schools Corporation was set up by the British government to give the Church of England one-seventh of all new land in the colony, for religious and educational purposes.[14]

3 Secular winds, sectarian debates and, finally, separation

When the Corporation was challenged and dismantled (in 1833), however, disestablishment gradually followed, though it might be more accurate to say that there was first a bold experiment in 'plural establishment'.[15] Other denominations were granted clergy stipends proportional to their attendance, and Christian pluralism began to prevail. But the role of the state in supporting the churches diminished over time and eventually vanished, with the exception of education, where state aid has been a constant feature.

Historians still disagree about whether the Church of England was legally established in New South Wales in this period.[16] What is clear is that (in the words of historian J S Gregory) 'down to about 1836 the Church of England was treated as far and away the most favoured church in the colony, and that insofar as the Imperial government thought about its position there at all it thought of it as the "established" church'.[17] In fifty years its status in New South Wales had gone from 'bare tolerance to high privilege'.[18]

In terms of government support, the Australian story for the rest of the nineteenth century, in New South Wales and the subsequent colonies, was not one of separation of church and state but of all Christian churches asking for and being given a share of state aid, both for religious and educational purposes. Secular and liberal arguments seriously weakened this support, but the doctrine of separation of church and state has never been well articulated nor prominent in Australian political life.[19]

In an undignified 'scramble of denominations',[20] sectarian debates filled the newspapers through much of the nineteenth century. The main protagonists were the Church of England, Roman Catholicism and Presbyterianism. Although separate religious school systems were set up, civic leaders influenced by the European Enlightenment won the battle to establish secular schools and universities. The cultural climate, never very positive towards religion, grew even more hostile, as it became fashionable to lump organised Christianity with the forces of conservatism and superstition. Clergy were often openly scorned as the colonies expanded and the confidence of non-convict settlers grew. Secularist newspaper editors such as William Wentworth, in The Australian, campaigned openly from the 1820s onward to blow away 'the [talk of] sin [and] smut, and the gloom of darkness of the parsons . on gales of laughter and ridicule'.[21] This was the gospel dismissed by culture, partly due to the bitter sectarianism of the churches.

The process of disestablishment concluded with the passing of the Australian Constitution in 1900, with a rather weak and negatively framed statement of church-state separation, prohibiting the Commonwealth from "establishing any religion" or "prohibiting the free exercise of any religion".[22] This hasn 't prevented the funding of religious schools, large grants to faith-based welfare agencies, or the reciting of the Lord's Prayer as Parliament opens each day, but separation is at least official. My perspective on this is that now the gospel had been freed by the state to be the gospel.

The church-state relationship since 1788 is one strand in a story of an often feeble and foreign expression of the gospel in Australia. The Church of England was brought to Australia weak, gloomy and narrow, and its period of official favour was brief. The state was soon influenced by liberal and separationist political philosophies while the churches, especially the Anglican, Roman Catholic and Presbyterian churches, desperately sought to build their influence and gain government backing. Not strong enough to shape mainstream politics and yet not weak enough to be ignored, the church has never quite been established, either officially or culturally.

4 Secular Australia?

It was a popular view until recently that Australia is one of the most secular states ever to exist, perhaps 'the most godless place under heaven' (in the words of Scottish Presbyterian James Denney).[23] Although I'm going to put an alternative perspective there are several factors which led to this view gaining wide acceptance, particularly in the 1980s. Why do lots of people reckon Christian faith and Aussie culture just don't mix?

First, it is arguably the first modern society without deep religious roots. Unlike other 'New World colonies', New South Wales had no religious ceremony to mark its foundation; a worship service was not held until eight days after the first fleet landed.[24] Historian Patrick O'Farrell writes, 'There came here no truly religious people, save very few, and they founded here no [Australian] religion'.[25]

What religion did arrive struggled to gain a hold. As I've mentioned, in eighteenth and nineteenth century England the Church of England was alienated from the working classes, not to mention the convict class who made up the first European settlers here. The Evangelical Anglicanism of the first clergy was often moralistic. Bitter sectarianism was a recurring impediment to Christian witness for over a hundred years.[26] And everything about the churches in Australia spoke of imported faith, from the clerical garb to the dark and austere buildings.[27] It was seen as 'sombre, constricting, stifling in a land of colour, fun and freedom'.[28] To this day a large proportion of Australians only go to church for christenings, weddings and funerals ('hatches, matches and dispatches') and wear their religion like the ill-fitting suit they may wear to these occasions. John Smith describes the typical Australian christening: 'The blokes all line up, looking acutely uncomfortable in collars and ties. Dad looks more uncomfortable than any of them - but even though he doesn't really believe it, he just isn't sure.'[29] The gospel in Australia started on the back foot and has struggled to take root.

Secondly, European Australians have been slow to appreciate the Australian continent, to come to terms with the indigenous people they displaced and to learn from indigenous spirituality. This is a complex topic, which I can't begin to deal with here. Most Australians have had a relationship of attraction to, and yet avoidance of, the vast centre of the continent. They see themselves as pioneers and people of the bush but live on the seaboard.[30] The 'sky God' of European Christianity has not been integrated with the immanent God of the Australian landscape. European Australians have lived on the 'edge of the sacred', unable to integrate within themselves their relationships to the country, to indigenous people, to migrants, to the opposite sex and to their place in the cosmos.[31]

Their experience has largely been one of exile.[32] The gospel in Australia has been slow to be contextualised.

A third often-mentioned factor, related to the land, is the sun, sand and surf, which has often led to a shallow hedonism. A television documentary series on Australian spirituality, screened in the1980s, summed up this view with its title: 'The sunburnt soul'.[33] Closely linked is the national obsession with sport. As just one example, in 1888 the Melbourne Cup drew 100,000 people, reputed to be the largest crowd ever to gather for a horse race until that time.[34] The gospel has struggled in Australia to come to terms with enjoyment, pleasure and celebration, with the churches repeatedly cast as killjoys.

Fourthly, a set of myths has emerged from Australia's nation-building phase that are powerful in the way Australians (particularly men) have seen themselves. Australians see themselves as easy-going larrikins who stand by their mates - self-reliant, laconic, anti-authoritarian, egalitarian, iconoclastic and impatient with abstract thought.[35] The world has seen this self-image most clearly in the larger-than-life characters of Paul Hogan (especially in the film Crocodile Dundee) and Steve Irwin, the crocodile hunting television celebrity. The gospel has had to compete with the frontier myths of self-sufficiency and tribalism. We see ourselves as impatient with mystery, with depending on a higher power, with mumbo-jumbo.

In the 1980s all of these factors combined with a realisation that Australia was experiencing a significant decline in church attendance and belief in God.[36] Sociological research into religious belief and practice, until then scarce, began to show trends common to most Western countries.

Nevertheless, the statistics then and since have also challenged the popular view that Australia is highly secular. Further, they suggest that complex changes have been taking place in Australian society over the last few decades. Consider just a few representative indicators, each of which gives some comfort but also raises issues of concern for the Christian churches seeking to express the gospel in an Australian way.

5 Spiritual but not religious

First, the great majority of Australians have always identified as 'Christian' at a time of Census. In the1901 Census 96% identified as Christian,[37] and in 2001 the figure, though significantly lower, was still 68%.[38]

But big changes are occurring. Pentecostal Christianity has been rapidly growing for decades, though it may now be levelling off in numbers.[39] As a result of immigration Australia has seen steadily growing numbers of Jews (particularly after the Second World War) and Hindus, with Buddhists and Muslims even more numerous and still increasing in number rapidly.[40]

Australians identifying with a religion other than Christianity grew from 3.5% in 1996 to nearly 5% in 2001.[41] Those who say they identify with 'no religion' or 'no stated religion' have doubled over three decades to represent about 25% of the population. This is difficult to interpret, as some people who are quite religious or spiritually active choose not to say so on a Census form. But most commentators agree that there has been a decline in identification with Christian denominations and an increase in individually-pursued forms of spirituality.[42]

Secondly, although for most of Australian history church attendance has been low, belief in God has remained high. Australian spirituality is arguably not absent but inarticulate.[43] Many people believe in 'someone behind it all' but find it hard to go beyond this general belief and translate it into religious commitment of any kind.

Church attendance is estimated at around 10% of the population on any one Sunday,[44] or about 20% who go at least once a month - these are the lowest figures in fifty years of counting.[45] Comparisons with the United Kingdom, where Peter Brierly estimates about 7% attend church one any one Sunday,[46] suggest that while church attendance is not declining as fast in Australia the ageing of congregations and the general decline in attendance is common to both countries.[47] People who once went weekly are going occasionally, and commitment to Sunday School teaching and other week-by-week church rosters is in decline. This is certainly true in my observations of several 'baby-boomer' Baptist churches once known for their high levels of commitment.

Most Australians believe in God. A recent survey found that 61% believe in a personal God, a figure that goes up to 79% if the idea of God is broadened to include a 'higher power'; only 13% identified as agnostic and 9% as atheists.[48]

But in common with other Western countries, the Australian 'religious market ' is in great flux. Younger people, in particular, are turning to New Age philosophies and Eastern religions or cobbling together eclectic worldviews which don't necessarily connect them to religious groups.[49] Many of the trends associated with postmodernity are evident: rejection of traditional institutions, scepticism about meta-narratives, an emphasis on present experience, new ways of networking, interest in the arts and the imagination, fewer long-term commitments, ecological concerns, a familiarity with high technology, media saturation, an emphasis on style and a heightened sense of irony.

Thirdly, for a long time the churches have had the respect of average Australians for their defence of the poor and for addressing the darker issues of Australian society, such as racism, conflict and poverty, but (as in other countries) have recently lost much of that moral authority by being slow to respond to their own dark issue, abuse of vulnerable people in the care of the churches themselves and, in particular, sexual abuse by clergy.

The churches' record is mixed. Arguably the churches' muffled prophetic voice on some social issues is one of the reasons the gospel has struggled to take root in Australian soil. Despite some clear missionary voices in defence of Aboriginal culture and rights, most Christian missionaries until about 1950 contributed to the destruction of indigenous culture, seeing their role to 'civilise' as well as 'Christianise' Aboriginal people.[50]

Churches helped to carry out government policies to remove indigenous children from their parents for at least fifty years last century, with hardly a protest.[51] On other social issues, such as sex, alcohol and gambling, the church's voice has often been austere and judgemental, so Christians have been seen as 'wowsers', a piece of Australian slang meaning 'prudish teetotallers' or 'killjoys'.[52]

Nevertheless, particularly in recent decades the Australian church has been respected for defending the poor, advocating indigenous reconciliation, and providing extensive welfare services. For example, Australians hold the Salvation Army in the highest regard because of its practical Christianity, its rolling up of the sleeves in service of the poor.

So far my method has been one of history and cultural analysis, highly compressed and necessarily selective. I've painted in broad brush the ambivalence that exists in Australian society towards the gospel as it is expressed in the churches. The record of the church has had highlights and lowlights but, for the most part has been mediocre. Australia is not a secular society if by 'secular' we mean that most people are atheists or irreligious. But if a secular society is one which ignores religious dimensions in its mainstream daily pursuits, then Australia is increasingly a deeply secular society. Despite many positive things that could be said about Christianity in Australia, it has lacked vigour and has often failed to engage in a vital way with politics, economics, the arts, education, the law, entertainment or other aspects of Australian culture.

6 The double call of contextual faith

This leads to the question of what it means for the gospel to be expressed in a contextual way. The Good News of God, incarnational from the very beginning, always takes shape in a context.[53] The mission of the church is the mission of God, the transformation of society and individuals. The mission of the church has two interlocking dimensions: to be open to the transforming power of God within its own life so that it is a living witness to the gospel, and to engage actively in the world as co-operating agents in the mission of God to win the whole world to God's gracious ways through love and justice.

In Western societies where part of the church has been established at the centre, whether legally or culturally, the missiological task includes intentional disestablishment. The church must disengage from the dominant culture in order to meaningfully reengage that same culture.[54] Our mission flows from neither simply disengaging (in order to be a sign of the kingdom on the edge of culture) nor simply engaging (without critical awareness of our entanglement with culture). To use John Douglas Hall's words, it calls for a 'dialectic of separation and solidarity'.[55]

To put it another way, the ongoing critical contextual task involves seeking both to be culturally-attuned and to allow the gospel to challenge and transform the culture we live in. It is complicated by several factors. We live in many overlapping cultures, so the analysis is complex. While it is hard enough to contextualise faith in our own culture, amongst people 'just like us', most of our mission engagement in a pluralist world takes place across cultural boundaries, amongst people who are different from us. And cultural change is so rapid that today's highly contextually relevant faith is in danger of tomorrow becoming yesterday's faith. In Australia the task is further complicated by the fact that the gospel has never quite taken root. The church may even need convincing that it has enjoyed a degree of 'cultural establishment' and that it should give up what has never fully been given to it.

The challenge for Australian Christians is to discern how the gospel, expressed in theology, church and mission, can authentically reflect the dialectic between cultural attunement and cultural critique. The search for authentic faith has led to solutions all the way along the spectrum from non-contextual to highly-contextual faith. At a shallow level the Australian church has tried everything from importing North American ways to articulating 'ocker' theologies such as a 'gumleaf' or 'boomerang' theology.[56]

There are signs that in the last twenty or thirty years the Australian churches are engaging in this quest in the three areas of theology, church and mission, or the forums that David Tracy called the academy, the church and wider society.[57]

7 Australian theologies

Two collections entitled Discovering an Australian theology (1988) and Developing an Australian theology (1999) are representative of the lively theological conversation now being conducted.[58] Gideon Goosen, in his comprehensive survey called Australian theologies (2000), argues that 'Australian theology is identifiable, vigorous and growing [and] has moved from being sectarian to being ecumenical [against] the wider background and reality of world religions, the whole planet and indeed the whole cosmos.' [59]

Among the issues that contextual theologies are tackling are indigenous spirituality, traditional doctrines expressed in terms that resonate with Australian culture, the land, the environment, Australian identity myths, feminism, justice, everyday life, literature and the arts.[60] Here is just a sample of this engagement, in the words of John Gaden:

In place of a God concerned with narrow piety and petty morality or else a God totally remote from the harsh realities of daily life, many Australians have exulted in a vital immanent Spirit, who is experienced in the sensuality of good food and drink, in sunshine and physical exertion, of crowded arenas and rowdy bars. But they have also been awestruck at craggy mountains and raging seas and been appalled by wilting deserts and relentless bushfires. They have been touched by the struggling underdog, stood by those in need [and] brought down the pretentious from their thrones. Yet few knew that in all this they were encountering the living God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ in the power of the Spirit. "Whom you ignorantly worship, that one we declare to you ." (Acts 17:23). But in saying this I am not blind to the evil, the racism, the apathy and the barbarism that co-exists with the above in the hearts of Australians and our society.

8 Australian ways of being church

In ways of being church there are signs that churches are experimenting with authentically Australian ways of gathering, worshipping and expressing community. Some churches meet over a barbecue, in neutral venues or on a weekday. Australian hymns are now being written (though the songs coming from the dominant Hillsong stable tend to be non-contextual). Most importantly, natural ways of exploring Christian community continually emerge. There are training networks (such as the Forge Network) entirely devoted to training younger leaders for a missional church attuned to the postmodern generations and those on the fringe of society.[61] Many of these trends are shared with other Western cultures, and the theme of disengagement in order to begin at the margins of society is a recurring one.[62]

There are strands of the gospel which are muted in Australian churches and which I would argue resonate with both the gospel and Australian culture. One is the recovery of community; it is at the heart of Australian longing[63] (though it may be counter-cultural to talk about commitment) as well as being at the heart of the gospel call to love one another as the body of Christ. Another is the practice of hospitality, again central to both Australian culture and the gospel. A third, rather counter-cultural at first sight, is the centrality of embodied life together, a central aspect of community - in a 'virtual world' marked by media saturation and fragmented lifestyles lived at an increasing pace, the always-embodied God offers in the authentic church a grounded and personal reality where the holy is valued and time slows for people to get back in touch with each other and the sacred, thereby allowing space for growth and transformation.

It must be said, however, that the signs of life in Australian churches are counter-balanced by many signs of conservatism and decline. Evangelical, Pentecostal and Charismatic churches are often global rather than contextual in character, drawing particularly on North American songs, theology and education programs. Cathedrals and other old church buildings often stand as symbols of the 'cultural establishment' of a previous era, even though their congregations are ageing and in numerical decline; they find it difficult to shed the old patterns and to experiment with new ones. Their 'disestablishment' is being forced on them as they become weaker and less culturally relevant.

9 Contextual mission

The third area in which there are signs of contextual engagement is mission. Incarnational mission, in which the church 'enfleshes' the message to which it points, is at the heart of God's way of communicating in Christ and therefore at the heart of Christian mission.[64] It is also at the heart of contextual faith, because it seeks to take shape in its specific context and culture. My impression is that this perspective is becoming mainstream, and many Christians are now patiently exploring what it means in practice. In my case it has meant settling in Melbourne's lowest-income area and taking root, as it were, in a highly multicultural and fragmented district. My Christian community has said for twenty years that it is above all a local one, where the pains and joys of our neighbourhood are ours, from the schools to the medical clinics. We've started food co-operatives, an employment training centre, a medical clinic, a community centre, a housing service, a housing co-operative, and other initiatives, many of which are now part of the wider community. We aim to reflect Jesus' transforming grace where we live.

Australian churches are experimenting with new ways of sharing faith in informal settings or holding 'Spirituality in the Pub' evenings. Australian theological conversations held in public forums are beginning to cross boundaries and address questions of meaning which Australians are asking. Social commentator Hugh Mackay argues that the current interest of Australians in values, vision, meaning and purpose is a common characteristic of societies facing the turn of a century, as well as societies going through rapid change.[65]

One of the goals of the amalgamation of the Presbyterian, Methodist and Congregational denominations in 1977 to form the Uniting Church in Australia was to become an Australian church,[66] and it has been a leading voice in contextual mission since. In particular it has led the Australian churches in speaking prophetically on social issues and national identity. On matters such as indigenous reconciliation, the environment, aid to developing countries, cancelling the debts of heavily-indebted poor countries, poverty in Australia, the reduction of welfare funding, and gambling addiction, the voice of the Australian churches has been loud and clear.

Whether in theology, church or mission, these encouraging signs are only a beginning. In most aspects of the expression of the gospel in Australian culture the process of losing what privilege the churches once had, in the sense of power and influence, is still largely experienced as loss, and there is little desire to voluntarily 'disestablish themselves' (as John Douglas Hall puts it)[67] in order to more clearly discern what the gospel says to Australian culture.

There is an increasing number, however, who see the link between mission on the margins and the cultural location taken up by Jesus. When Australians, who are generally sceptical of the traditional church, see new expressions of the gospel which are at the one time both culturally-attuned and yet counter-cultural in a 'gospel way', the receding tide of the gospel's role in Australian culture may yet turn in the power of the Spirit and the transforming power of the Good News may be felt at a cultural as well as a personal level.

Ross Langmead

Professor of Missiology, Whitley College

271 Royal Pde, Parkville Vic. 3052, Australia

Tel +613/03 9348 8021

October 11, 2002

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Tacey, David. 'Relationship to place: Spiritual problems in secular Australia'. Eremos No. 59 (May 1997): 18-19.

Tacey, David J. Edge of the sacred: Transformation in Australia. Melbourne: HarperCollins, 1995.

Thompson, Roger C. Religion in Australia: A history. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1994.

Tracy, David. The analogical imagination. New York: Crossroad, 1986.

Wilson, Bruce. Can God survive in Australia? Sydney: Albatross, 1983.

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[1] Ross Border, Church and state in Australia, 1788-1872: A constitutional study of the Church of England in Australia (London: SPCK, 1962), 51-53, 71-72; Hilary M Carey, Believing in Australia: A cultural history of religions (St Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin, 1996), 3.

[2] Border, Church and state in Australia, 53.

[3] Michael Hogan, The sectarian strand: Religion in Australian history (Ringwood, Vic.: Penguin, 1987), 10-12.

[4] Iain H Murray, Australian Christian life from 1788: An introduction and an anthology (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1988), 4.

[5] Ian Breward, A history of the Australian churches (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1993), 13.

[6] Hogan, The sectarian strand, 13.

[7] Roger C Thompson, Religion in Australia: A history (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1994), 4.

[8] Border, Church and state in Australia, 16-18.

[9] Border, Church and state in Australia, 16-17.

[10] Border, Church and state in Australia, 23, 45.

[11] Border, Church and state in Australia, 47.

[12] Border, Church and state in Australia, 43, 85

[13] Hogan, The sectarian strand, 30.

[14] Hogan, The sectarian strand, 37.

[15] Ian Breward, Australia: "The most godless place under heaven"? (Melbourne: Beacon Hill, 1988), 19.

[16] Border, Church and state in Australia, 51-62, J S Gregory, Church and state: Changing government policies towards religion in Australia; with particular reference to Victoria since separation (North Melbourne: Cassell Australia, 1973), 258-260; Carey, Believing in Australia: A cultural history of religions, 4.

[17] Gregory, Church and state, 260.

[18] Border, Church and state in Australia, 50.

[19] Marion Maddox, For God and country: Religious dynamics in Australian federal politics (Canberra: Department of the Parliamentary Library, Information and Research Services, 2001), 107.

[20] Hogan, The sectarian strand, 48.

[21] Cited in Thompson, Religion in Australia: A history, 9.

[22] Commonwealth of Australia, 'Australian Constitution (1900)', <http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/general/constitution.htm>, Accessed 3 Sep 2002.

[23] Cited without attribution in Ian Breward's book of the same title (in which Breward questions the claim). Breward, Australia: "The most godless place under heaven"?, 1. See also Maddox, For God and country, 1; Frank Fletcher, 'Drink from the wells of Oz', in Discovering an Australian theology, ed. Peter Malone (Homebush, NSW: St Paul, 1988), 65.

[24] Border, Church and state in Australia, 17-18.

[25] Patrick O'Farrell, 'The cultural ambivalence of Australian religion', in Australian Cultural History, Vol 1: Culture and the state in Australia, eds. S L Goldberg and F B Smith (Canberra: Australian Academy of the Humanities and the History of Ideas Unit, Research School of the Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1982), 5.

[26] David Millikan, The sunburnt soul: Christianity in search of an Australian identity (Homebush West, NSW: Lancer, 1981), 71.

[27] Millikan, The sunburnt soul, 46, .

[28] O'Farrell, 'The cultural ambivalence of Australian religion', 4.

[29] John Smith, Advance Australia where? (Homebush West, NSW: ANZEA, 1988), 36.

[30] Australia is one of the most highly urbanised societies in the world, with eighty per cent living in cities of 50,000 or more.

[31] David J Tacey, Edge of the sacred: Transformation in Australia (Melbourne: HarperCollins, 1995); David Tacey, 'Relationship to place: Spiritual problems in secular Australia', Eremos No. 59 (May 1997): 18-19.

[32] Michael Goonan, A community of exiles: Exploring Australian spirituality (Homebush, NSW: St Pauls Publications, 1996).

[33] Millikan, The sunburnt soul.

[34] Millikan, The sunburnt soul, 8.

[35] Millikan, The sunburnt soul, 1; O'Farrell, 'The cultural ambivalence of Australian religion', 4.

[36] Bruce Wilson, Can God survive in Australia? (Sydney: Albatross, 1983).

[37] With four denominations accounting for 87% of the population: 40% Church of England, 23% Roman Catholic, 13% Methodist and 11% Presbyterian. Australian Bureau of Statistics, The Census guide: A comprehensive reference to the 2001 Census, CD-ROM (Canberra: Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2002), File: .

[38] Australian Bureau of Statistics, The Census guide. Roman Catholicism stands at 27%, the Anglican Church at 20% and in numerical decline, and the Uniting Church at 8% and also in decline, with many smaller groups following [figures to be confirmed; for 1996 Census see Peter Bentley and Philip J Hughes, Australian life and the Christian faith: Facts and figures (Kew, Vic.: Christian Research Association, 1998) - at Whitley?].

[39] For technical reasons the 2001 Census figures on Pentecostalism may be misleading. See Philip Hughes, 'Religion in the 2001 Census', <http://www.cra.org.au/pages/00000055.cgi>, On web site of Christian Research Association (Australia), Accessed 5 Sep 2002. For earlier figures, see Philip J Hughes, Religion in Australia: Facts and figures (Kew, Vic.: Christian Research Association, 1997), 30-32.

[40] Jews 0.4%, Hindus 0.5%, Muslims 1.5%, Buddhists 1.8%. Calculated from Australian Bureau of Statistics, Basic Community Profile (Canberra: Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2002), Catalogue No. 2001.0, Table 10.

[41] Hughes, 'Religion in the 2001 Census'.

[42] Peter Bentley, 'Tricia Blombery and Philip Hughes, Faith without the church? Nominalism in Australian Christianity (Melbourne: Christian Research Association, 1992). For a New Zealand comparison, see Alan Jamieson, A churchless faith: Faith journeys beyond evangelical, Pentecostal and charismatic churches (Wellington, NZ: Philip Garside, 2000).

[43] Tony Kelly, A new imagining: Towards an Australian spirituality (Melbourne: Collins Dove, 1990).

[44] Peter Kaldor et al., Build my church: Trends and possibilities for Australian churches (Adelaide: Open Book, 1999), 15.

[45] Ruth Powell, 'Why people don't go to church ... and what the churches can do about it', Pointers 12.2 (June 2002): 8.

[46] Peter Brierly, The tide is running out: The English Church Attendance Survey (London: Christian Research, 2000).

[47] Philip Hughes, 'Comparison of church attendance trends in the UK and Australia', Pointers 10.1 (March 2000).

[48] Philip Hughes et al., Believe it or not: Australian spirituality and the churches in the 90s (Kew, Vic.: Christian Research Association, 1995), 13, drawing on the National Social Science Survey, 1993.

[49] Philip Hughes, A maze or a system? Changes in the worldview of Australian people, CRA Research paper No.2 (Melbourne: Christian Research Association, 1994).

[50] Carey, Believing in Australia: A cultural history of religions, 26-52. For a more positive view, see John Harris, One blood: 200 years of Aboriginal encounter with Christianity: A story of hope (Sutherland, NSW: Albatross, 1990).

[51] Bringing them home: National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families, (Canberra: Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, 1997).

[52] Breward, Australia: "The most godless place under heaven"?, 32.

[53] Darrell L Guder, ed. Missional church: A vision for the sending of the church in North America. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 11.

[54] Douglas John Hall, 'Ecclesia Crucis: The theologic of Christian awkwardness', in The church between gospel and culture: The emerging mission in North America, eds. George R Hunsberger and Craig Van Gelder (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 198-213.

[55] Hall, 'Ecclesia Crucis', 204.

[56] Gideon Goosen, Australian theologies: Themes and methodologies into the third millennium (Strathfield, NSW: St Pauls, 2000), 30-32.

[57] David Tracy, The analogical imagination (New York: Crossroad, 1986), 5.

[58] Peter Malone, ed. Discovering an Australian theology. (Homebush, NSW: St Paul, 1988); Peter Malone, ed. Developing an Australian theology. (Strathfield, NSW: St Pauls Publications, 1999). A sample might include Victor C Hayes, ed. Toward theology in an Australian context. (Bedford Park, SA: Australian Association for the Study of Religions, 1979); Dorothy Harris, Douglas Hynd and David Millikan, eds. The shape of belief: Christianity in Australia today. (Homebush West, NSW: Lancer, 1982); William Lawton, Being Christian, being Australian (Moore Theological College Lectures 1986) (Sydney: Lancer, 1988); Kelly, A new imagining: Towards an Australian spirituality; and Goonan, A community of exiles: Exploring Australian spirituality.

[59] Goosen, Australian theologies, 68.

[60] References are too numerous, but many are listed in the extensive bibliographies in Goosen, Australian theologies.

[61] See the web site of some of those active in the Forge Network

[62] Stuart Murray and Anne Wilkinson-Hayes, Hope from the margins: New ways of being church, Grove Evangelism Series, No. 49 (Cambridge, UK: Grove Books, 2000).

[63] Hugh Mackay, Reinventing Australia: The mind and mood of Australia in the 90s (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1993), 262-265.

[64] Ross Langmead, 'The Word made flesh: Towards an incarnational missiology', Thesis (DTheol), Melbourne College of Divinity, 1997.

[65] Mackay, Reinventing Australia, 231-233.

[66] Breward, A history of the Australian churches, 182.

[67] Hall, 'Ecclesia Crucis', 205