The Christian Influence Of Australia

Ecumenism, in the sense of Australian Christianity, is the religious initiative towards unity within the Christian church. It is the promotion of co-operation and improved understanding between distinct religious groups or denominations within Christianity and other religions.

Christianity has been the primary religion post 1945 to today. The British who first came to Australia and inhabited it were mainly Christians. They formed a strong Christian base in Australia before the country decided to let more immigrants Australia. This base of Christians was split up into the 3 different types of Christianity. Each of the 3 groups coming from their own unique origins; Anglican which were the British colonist, Catholic made up of Irish/Italian settlers and Orthodox who were the Greek settlers. In the census of 1947, out of the 7.5 million people in Australia, 88 per cent of the population, not including the Aboriginals, said they were Christian. The other 12 per cent was mainly made up from people who didn’t respond to the question.

In comparison, knowledge and knowledge creation can be affected by cultural hegemony and ideologies which could call into question its value. Hegemony is the idea that people in power maintain power by influencing societies acceptance of their ideologies rather than using coercion (Rachar 2013, p. 238). In this time and age, this is performed by the control of media resources and Internet opinion (Kumar 2011, p.39). Media suppliers are highly experienced at emotive and persuasive content and reap the financial rewards of ratings (Edwards 2012, p. 69). In Australia, it is perhaps worth considering that a majority of our media, in particular, our newspapers are owned by companies such as Fairfax Media and News Corporation (Finkelstein 2012, p. 58).

According to source 2 Christianity remained the dominant religion in Australia, although non-Christian religions continued to grow at a much faster rate. Since 1996, Christianity grew from around 12.6 million to 12.7 million, but compared to the other religions and the total population this number fell from 71% to 64%. Within Christianity, Anglicans dropped from 22% of the population to 18.7%, and therefore resulted in a decrease growth of -4.7 within the time period of 10 years. “Over the same period of time non-Christian religions increased from around 0.6 million to 1.1 million people, and collectively accounted for 5.6% of the total population in 2006” (king, 2010, p.221).

Christianity is still currently the most popular religious tradition in Australia, however has seen a steady decrease in numbers due peoples interests in other religions and a non religious focused society. By 1947, Christianity had long been established in Australia due to European settlers who brought their traditional Churches. In 1947 it was recorded that 88% of Australians considered themselves Christians. Moving forward to 2013 Christianity is still the most dominant religion in Australia however it’s followers have decreased significantly to 61% recorded in 2011. This is mainly due to peoples dissatisfaction with traditional religious

Post WW2, under the growing mindset that Australia must ‘populate or perish’ in order to maintain and grow the nations security, workforce and economy, 3million migrants from Italy, Greece, and other European countries immigrated to Australia, in accordance with the ‘White Australia Policy”. Majority of these immigrants were adherents of either the Catholic or Orthodox Church, therefore whilst new religions were introduced, they did not have as much of a significant impact of the religious landscape as the immigrants post 1972 did.

The first Catholics to come along to Australia, were amongst the first convicts to step foot on the shores of Port Jackson in Sydney. These Catholics were Irish in origin, and brought Catholicism to Australia, although Anglican Ministers were trying to stop the spread of Catholicism in Great Britain and her colonies. Most of the Irish who came here came here because of the British persecution of Irish Nationalists.

Catholic social teaching (CST) or thought are belief or set of belief that is taught or developed by a catholic church or religious organisations (Australian Catholic Social Justice Council, 2016). It expresses human dignity as a foundation for the common good in our society to flourish together as one (Australian Catholic Social Justice Council, 2016). Therefore, this wiki page will explain and discuss each of nine CST.

Immigration has easily had the largest and most significant effect on Australia’s religious landscape and has managed to see Australia become a vast multi-cultural and religious community. Immigration has taken several years to make significant changes to the Australian religious landscape. After the early settlers arrived and began to set up churches and

The successor of Rev. Richard Johnson, Rev. Samuel Marsden caused upheavel with the other denominations of Christianity, mainly the Catholics, as he did not recognise them as ‘human’. The evident sectarianism can be expressed through the note of one convict who stated, “He prays for our souls on Sunday, and takes it out of our bodies during the rest of the week.” The development of Christianity in Australia pre 1945 has subsequently been tainted by the tensions and caused the oppression of many people in Australia.

This defining change in the education system over the last 20 years, has been due to the modification of the Christian schools throughout Australia (ABC, 2010). This has an influence on the culture of Australia as it means that this percentage of students have a background of which religion was required throughout their life, therefore the students learn Christian morals and values. This may shape the way they live their adult lives in terms of who they vote for, and how they spend their money as well as the fact that it means that they know the background of Christianity, having an impact on them and society. Christianity also has a major effect on the laws throughout Australia, for example a variety of laws have been made in relation to the Ten Commandments. Similarities are found between the commandments which state that one should not kill, steal or bear false witness, and the laws written about them. The parliament of Australia is majorly influenced by Christianity as the original government was made up of the English settlers who all had a Church of England or Christian background. This then shaped parliament into having a Christian background. Parliament is also affected depending on the faith of the leader, for example we have had five Christian Prime Ministers, John Howard being one of them. Howard quoted in

PART 1 Christianity is currently the largest Australian religion according to the national survey. In 2011, the tally proved that 61.1% of Australians were listed as Christian. The occurrence of Christianity began with the arrival of the First Fleet of British convicts in 1788. This led to a great society and a religious community. If Christianity did not exist, the world would differ from life nowadays.

On May 23rd 2015, Ireland became one of the first few countries throughout the world to legalized gay marriage. Since this approval there has been new debate as to where Australia stands on same-sex marriage. The amount of same-sex couples in Australia increased by 32% from 2006 to 2011 and 70% of the Australian nation believe that Australia should allow the right to same-sex marriage. Before the Marriage Amendment Act 2004 by the Howard Government, there was no previous definition of Marriage in the 1961 Act and the definition was based on common law. The definition changed by the Howard Government in

The author's main purpose for writing A Myth of a Christian Nation is to explain how the world has claimed to be founded on christian principles but has neglected to see that this is a lie that we as christians and people in society have told ourselves to make it seem like we are “ one nation under God”. Boyd also focuses in on and introducing our role in the kingdom of God vs the kingdom of the world and our role in politics and society.

Australia is both the smallest and oldest continent in the world, and it is the only country that is also a continent. [1] It is an island located between the Indian Ocean and the South Pacific, just south of Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. At 2,941,299 square miles, Australia is the sixth-largest country in the world and only about 150,000 square miles (about the size of Montana) smaller than the continental United States. Its interior land is a flat and sparsely populated desert, but as you move outward the climate changes to grassland, subtropical, tropical, and even temperate in the southeastern region. [1] While more than 70% of Australia is arid, the rest includes a variety of rich environments including flood plains,