A God Up Above, The Land Down Under

Manning Clark once very famously described Australians’ view of religion a shy hope in the heart.” This simple quotation is the most succinct way of illustrating their religious views in a way that accounts for the strong cultural influence that surrounds those beliefs. This characteristic of shyness takes precedence over eloquent announcements of religion and manifests itself through the “vaguely respectful recognition of an important if largely indistinct force, slightly shaped by the imagery of Christianity. ^ Australia is a distinctive nation, as are its people and cultural idioms. Being a former British colony, Australia’s heritage in the English tradition of Christianity extends back to its discovery in the 1600’s. Despite its roots in the English way of life, Australia boasts a very unique cultural identity that cherishes such values as mateship egalitarianism, and skepticism of authority. as now The notion of mateship is perhaps the most central Australian cultural institution and revolves around loyalty, friendship, and preference to mates above the law, which creates a problematic atmosphere for the religions that teach that one’s life should be focused on a higher being and a disregard of earthly relationships because of their temporary nature. Egalitarianism entails the collective practice of striving to be equal, average, or ordinary, which generates perceived incompatibilities with religion’s frequent delving into the abnormal. even 1 supernatural, and unordinary realm of the divine. Skepticism of authority is the part of the national psyche that arises out of Its beginnings as a penal colony and has played an interesting role in the attempts to establish religious supremacy because of the natural distrust of organizations and professionals that is inherent in the belief. These cultural traits blend to form religious and spiritual milieus that are quite different from their western Christian counterparts. People use social structure and social surroundings as a means of constructing ideas about things that are seen as outside their scope of knowledge, which includes conceptions of the divine. This Is shown by Swanson who found evidence linking hierarchical societies to monotheism and likewise societies with more decentralized figures of authority were linked to polytheism (Swanson 1960).2 In the same way the social features of Australia help to inform expressions and non-expressions of religion with specific regard to the before mentioned societal traits. This paper intends to show how three of the ingredients of Australian cultural identity are central to the formation and changing of modern Australian religious practice; it will also examine the specific ways that each factor contributes to the current picture of Australian spirituality. The task of including a detailed account of every religious practice represented by the diverse Australian population would be a far too hefty task to accomplish or explain adequately; therefore, the bulk of this paper will primarily focus on the cultural idioms as they pertain to Christianity, the country’s largest religion, atheism, the fastest growing. 2 and certain new age forms of spirituality, a trending belief among the younger generation.