1. Australian Christianity
a. Some comments about Australian society
Christianity is still the mainstream religion of Australia, despite the repeated declarations of media commentators to the contrary. Indeed, it is a little tiring to be continually reminded by the newspapers that church attendance has been declining since the 1950s, especially when they never mention the parallel drop in newspaper circulation over the same period, or that in the 1950s, Sydney had two evening newspapers, neither of which exist now.
The world has changed since the 1950s—the increase in motor transport, the arrival of TV, the ease of air travel, the refrigerator, the washing machine, the supermarket. It is a different world.
Back then, evangelicals knew that most church-going was nominal rather than real. Indeed, that is why we were always evangelizing within mainstream churches. The changing social structure has revealed just how brittle that nominal Christianity was. Not surprisingly, those churches whose attendance was most nominal or cultural—notably the theologically liberal and catholic—have had the largest decline.
The individualism of modern society works against church-going. There is a direct correlation between women entering the workforce and the drop in women attending church. But it is not just church. The political parties have suffered an enormous decline in membership, as have the Scouts and Guides, school P & Cs, and a host of similar organizations. The nature of voluntary ‘club joining’ has been radically altered.
Thus, in census after census, Australia declares itself overwhelmingly to be Christian. And yet in joining and attending church, Australia declares itself to be irreligious. The church that Australians don’t go to is a Christian church, and the God they believe in but largely ignore from day to day is the Christian God.
We must not let the secularists determine public policy as if people’s beliefs and lives were as pagan as theirs. The vast majority of Australians believe in God, and the God they believe in is the God of the Bible.
Moreover, it is becoming apparent that the Christian lifestyle so rubbished and decried by our secularist intelligentsia has much to commend it. More and more evidence (from places like Duke University) is showing that those who attend church regularly live longer, are healthier, enjoy life more, have happier personal relationships, better marriages, better sex lives, and so on.
This is matched by the worldwide findings that the sexual revolution has been an unmitigated failure in producing happier families, happier people or even happier sexual relationships. The cost to our society has been measured by our own federal government in terms of billions of dollars (in the recent ‘To Have and To Hold’ Report; for a review, see kategoria #11).