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Professor Gary Bouma

I've read some of his books but haven't heard him talk before. He talks like he writes - giving a comprehensive overview of the state of religion in society with regular prophetic challenges to the church to engage society appropriately and in ways that are realistic in the light of changing religious trends.

Here are my rough notes from the presentation .

Professor Gary Bouma Professor at Monash University & Associate Priest St John's East Malvern "Australian Soul: 21st Century Religious and Spiritual Challenges to Churches"

Wednesday November 21

RevUp at Whitley College

Gary has always been involved in church ministry, pastoral ministry or otherwise, and academic teaching of sociology and religion in society. His academic career he says is in part a 'day job' to support his other interests. At the moment that is as Associate Priest at St John's East Malvern and UNESCO chair of a committee on religious

At the Rev Up he presented two lectures.

Firstly he looked at 'Australian Soul'. Here is an outline of his powerpoint slides and discussion:

He suggested basic features of Australian religion, in outline, are: - Laid back, low temperature

- A shy hope in the heart (Manning Clark)

- Infrequent attendance

- One person, one religion (not just negative anti-clericalism)

- Distrust/ avoidance of

o Organizations

o Professionals

- Religion to be personal, peripheral, undemanding, part of the background

Drivers of religious change are: Increases in religious diversity - Migration - Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus

- Conversion - Pentecostals, spiritualities

- Rise of spiritualities - census info (note many said 'Jedi', and Star Wars does give a developed approach to religion and spirituality with various thoughtful sermons. Cinema teaches lots of values. E.g., Harry Potter is honest, open, heroic, trying to build a better place etc.)

o Spiritual not religious

o Spiritual questioning

- Note Aus multicultural for 40,000 years. Any spiritual homogeneity was a minor blip in about 1926.

o >Has practised inclusion rather than exclusion

Australia's religious diversity. In 2006 National /Melbourne %: - Catholics 25.8 /28.3 slight decline

- Anglicans 18.5/ 12.1 note decline

- No religion 18.5 / 20.0 (more than Sydney 14.1%)

- Not stated 10/ 11.1 (don't treat as none)

- Uniting 5.7 / 4 very aged

- Presbyterian 3.0/ 5.9 aged, changing (went conservative, hardline)

- Orthodox 3.0/ 5.9

- Baptists 1.6 / 1.4 (cf. 1901 2.4%, 1981 1.3%)

o But young 25.9% 55+, not hugely off national average, compare 36.2% Uniting or 44% Adelaide Salvos

- Pentecostals about 1% and stagnant at that level for 15 years.

Baptists are interesting. Why dropped from 2.4% in 1901, highwater mark? Historically doing well in last two decades. Holding a 'solid proportion' and comparatively young (only 25.9% > 55+).

- More Buddhists (2.1%) than Baptists (1.6%)

- More Muslims 1.7% than Lutherans 1.3%

- In Melbourne Orthodox > Uniting > Buddhist > Muslim > Presbyterian Baptists > Hindu ? Pentecostal

- 4x witches than Quakers (and young people know what a witch is but not a Quaker)

- Few atheists 31,000 but growing 29% (from 2001 to 2006). (Australians are shy about it.)

This is very different to 1947 when Anglicans were 39%.

Cf. Post-Christian Europe - we are very different. We are in some ways ahead of that having been a colony moving out of colonialism and Christendom age. E.g., 80% of Danes tick Lutheran and pay a tax as a result, but many don't go. We've never been that and very differently located.

Coping with Religious Diversity

- Major issue = shift from Christendom to religious plurality

o Old Anglican, Empire Religion domination passing (in decline since 1926). Loss of a cultural normal

o Rise of Pentes, spiritualities, Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus. Diversity = new normal.

- Societal issues raised

o How to incorporate and include many religions?

o How to accommodate a wider range of legitimate religious needs?

- At personal level - choice, consuming

Revitalisation of religion

Who would have guessed we'd have newspapers reporting on religion etc. Gary was told why studying religion - it will be gone by end of century. - Religion is back on the agenda

o Policy, politics, values debate

o People searching but in ignorance

o DaVinci Code, TV series, books

- Resurgence is happening everywhere

o Asia, Africa

o Removal of repressive regimes (and in Russia, all 'stans' Muslim, now not 47% Muslim but much less)

o Taking new forms, challenging old

- Except mainstream Protestants + Catholics (Catholics age structure is good)

Is life there, but won't turn us back to the 1890s and unlikely to fill many suburban Anglican and Uniting congregations.

Why revitalisation?

- Historical cyclical pattern - Impact of diversity - Salience of religious identity - Increased participation (people interested to know identity religiously - Religious in politics - Failure of secular humanism - To produce happiness

Religious Competition

Changing Social Location of Religion

- From centre to margines 1947 to 1975

o Secularisation of liberalism, social justice

o In 1979 people in politics didn't use religious language as much any more. Clergy in politics thought they had to give up their religious voice. If we aren't standing out as people of faith without asserting how our faith can affect public policy, what are we doing Gary asks?

- From margins to involvement 1985 -

- Evangelicals no longer quiescent

- Muslims seeking ability to practice

- Will the 'liberals' please stand up

- Role of chaplains as voice from 'outside'

- From organised to dispersed

o The end of vertically integrated groups (PM can't ring 3 archbishops and cover 60% of population.)

- From medium sized to huge (megachurch) or tiny (e.g., some emerging churches). In between sized churches are difficult. Look at resource - small churches say 'hey you can help us' and large churches say 'hey we have a program for you'. Small churches are crucifying themselves to keep a form of religion going that si sucking them dry but not providing a future!

Globalisations means globalisation + things are more localised and much more serious attention is paid to local situations.

Secular societies - Secular does not mean irreligious

o Secular vs secularism, secularist

o Secularism as an ideology/ perspective > not objective, independent or neutral

- In secular societies, religion is 'out of control'

Major cultural shift in authority style - 3 bases of authority - Tradition à reason à emotion

- style of leadership - priests à

- loci of cultus

- criteria

The current shift from rational to experiential modes of authority

- From preaching to 'aerobic' Christianity

- Reading to watching

- Sitting to moving

- Pulpits to platforms

- Books to screens

- Concordance to internet

- Permanence to impression (do I feel better, have I experienced God?)

A New religious context

- More experiential than dry rational Calvinism shaped religion of previous years, but harder to 'run' congregations.

- More contested and conflictual context.

- Religions are more of an independent force. People of faith can have a voice in the political realm, speaking out of our values base (and not just pretending to be secular)

- Emergence of new alliances (e.g., Creation Scientists can talk with Muslims and buddy up with them on one point even if disagree on others).

Role of clergy

- Organisational reps?

o Recreating nostalgic past

o Recruiting attenders

- Meaning makers

- Points of spiritual contact - sacramental, experience

- Community builders and good management (can't do without it but .)

Some clergy don't like it when people experience God if they're not.

Sometimes it is good to strategically maintain an old declining church because of trends in a community may change, and sometimes it is best to close the church when the critical mass is not here and it may be best to merge with someone else and recreate a new vision.

See Putmman Bowling Alone book who said community groups across the board are in decline. How will local communities pull together and what will networks look like is a big question. Networking places have radically changed. Churches may 'hoover' up some people, but .

Gary discussed a changing notion of church that allows people to gather in their homes without full-time paid clergy. I wonder how aware he is of emerging missional churches inspired by Forge etc?

A 2005 survey found that 35% of Australians in their twenties said 'religion was important in their lives' compared with 21% in 1978.

Secondly, in his next lecture, Gary looked at managing religious diversity.

I decided to listen more and type less through this lecture (and then my battery ran out too), but Gary's notes and MP3 of both of his talks will be on the Whitley website.

I appreciated how Gary explained societies are now held together more by interdependence and needing each other, rather than similarities. But this may be changing in post-industrial society.

We have one postcode in Aus 99% Muslim, Cocoas Islands. Everywhere else is only up to 20% Muslims. We have no ghettos. We are one of the most socially cohesive societies in the West.

Much of current concern for social cohesion = code for Islamophobia. This is politically advantageous for national government, though State governments haven't bought into it.

Australia - secular or multifaith? Civic life often includes leaders from different faiths on the platform. Darebin has printed a brochure explaining different religious groups to understand one another.

Secular sounds neutral. We don't tend to say we are a Christian society. We may say 'Judeo-Christian-(+ Islama if honest)' heritage. But multifaith is becoming more accepted as the way to describe our society.

How do we manage consequences of living in a richly diverse society?

In Australia, the government will fund schools for different religions. In America it is different - they'd think that is unusual but the government will fund universities for Christians or Muslims or whoever.

Apochalyptics is a critical example where preaching dehumanises people, uses militaristic language, promotes hopeless causes (because God will deliver and will bring end of the age) and has universal negative consequences. (Cf. rapture books, Left Behind etc)

Gary took Anglican congregations to mosques, then said the Muslims will come to our churches next week and ask questions. They were firstly fearful and concerned (what will we say?) but found encouragement in being able to articulate their beliefs. So dialogue sharpened up their faith. (Apart from any interest in conversion, though Gary is not interested in that as much because of his explicit universalism.)

The Samaritan women's 'husbands' could be translated 'gods' of which she has lots but Jesus still listens to her.

Gary is author, most recently, of Australian Soul. This is my summary/ review of his book from when I read it last year or earlier this year:

Australian Soul offers a comprehensive description of the nature of religious and spiritual life in Australia today. It analyses the post- modern, post-Christendom, post-empire, post-colonial, post-national, post-ecumenical, post-denominational, secular, post-secular, post- book, post-family, post-patriarchal and multicultural characteristics of the Australian context. Bouma builds his case with up-to-date facts and figures, the latest research and astute insights and case studies. Rather than bemoaning religious decline, he observes how religious and spiritual life is changing and showing itself as 'A whisper in the mind and a shy hope in the heart' (words used by Manning Clarke and Thornhill to refer to a key characteristic of the ANZAC psyche, appropriate also to broader Australian spirituality). A key theme was his analysis of the cultural shift from tradition to rationality (after the Renaissance, Reformation and especially the Enlightenment), and now to experience and emotion as the dominant form of authority. It is a move from orthopraxy (in terms of right worship scripting), to orthodoxy (right beliefs and creeds), to orthoprassy (right feelings and emotional responses). Bouma indicates how this shift in authority-base is reflected in what spirituality is appealing, what church forms are declining and how religious communities and worship services are organized. His analysis of globalization and changing family structures were also significant, particularly because these issues are not often dealt with in the emerging church literature. Churches need expressions that address global justice issues and that cater for people other than the 40% that live in nuclear families. Gary Bouma is a La Trobe University Professor and an authority on religion and society in Western countries, and his work is worthwhile background to understand the heritage and trends of Australian religious life and grass-roots expressions of spirituality.

Grace & peace,

- Darren

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Darren Cronshaw

Coordinator of Leadership Training

Baptist Union of Victoria