What do the ABS figures tell us?

Dear friends,

On the Catholica Forum today I have posted an interesting table computed from the raw ABS tables for religious affiliation which shows the relative change in affiliation religion to religion over the last three Commonwealth Census. The good news that comes out of these tables I think is that, in either raw or absolute terms, the rise in religious fundamentalism does not pose any significant threat in a country like ours. The pain the rest of the nation has to put up with is that fundamentalists tend to sing a heck of a lot louder than everybody else and the buggers can never sing in tune – lol! These figures give no comfort to the likes of Drs Pell and Jensen (The Anglican Archibishop of Sydney) that religious fundamentalism is going to re-evangelise their Churches. In fact reading Linda Morris's article in the Sydney Morning Herald it is easy to draw the conclusion that the great push by the Sydney Anglicans to re-evangelise their Church through religious fundamentalism has been a failure.

More seriously: we certainly are a diverse nation in terms of religious affliation. One of the questions that continues to intrigue me though is the one of what do people actually mean when they claim a particular religious affiliation on the Census form? For many I am sure it's a "mark of identity" in much the same way that we might be born with a particular surname, or we belong to a particular nationality because we were born in a particular location in the world and there is nothing much we can do about these things. We accept we are "Catholic" in much the same we we accept that our surname might be "Coyne" or "Smith" or "Jones", or we accept our nationality as "Australian", "New Zealander", "Chinese" or "Vietnamese". Religious affiliation is not linked in a real sense to any set of beliefs other than in that vague sort of way that "Coynes" or "Smiths" or "Jones" might have certain inherited characteristics in the ways in which they think or "Australians" might have some attributes in the national character as to the ways in which they think or act. I suspect that most people think of their religion more or less in those terms.

Others though would take it seriously but probably perceive of it in terms of subscribing to a certain set of beliefs. What proportion of the total do that is an intriguing question though. I suspect that if someone were able to come up with a methodology to ascertain this that the figure would actually be significantly lower than what we perceive it to be. I suspect it is also declining in society in line with this enormous change that seems to be going on in society as to how we think about religion. What does it really mean in our lives? What does it really mean in 2007 to identify oneself as a "religious" person?

I suspect the great dichotomy which I postulate characterises the Catholic Church today probably extends across all the great religions. Religion is divided — apart from those who see it principally as a cultural attribute like "nationalisty" or "family name" — between those who basically see it as a security symbol and "set of rules to be believed and obeyed" and this more amorphous mass who vaguely discern that our religion ought be a tool, a pathway, or a process by which, or through which, we discover truth, by which we endeavour to grow (mature) as individuals, and by which we endeavour to access those qualities of love, peace, happiness, justice and ultimately the fulfilment of our lives. The link following will take you to the post in our forum where I have posted the table showing the relative changes in religious affliation. <more>

Unless there is any significant breaking news on Friday there won't be a lead commentary tomorrow either as I'm trying to have a couple of days break. It's been pretty full on in recent weeks with a further big jump in readership and subscriptions and also some pleasing significant sized financial donations which give us a lot of confidence for the future. Welcome to our new subscribers and readers and a special thank you to those who have contributed financially.

Best wishes for a great day wherever you happen to be ... in life, and in our world,

Brian Coyne
Editor and Publisher