This week the Syd­ney Morn­ing Her­ald pub­lished yet another sur­vey on reli­gios­ity in Aus­tralia. The results con­tinue to show that the major­ity of Aus­tralians call them­selves Chris­tians while the minor­ity are actu­ally actively involved in church… how should the church fix that disparity?

The more con­ven­tional Chris­tians, those who believe in – and occa­sion­ally wor­ship – a per­sonal God make up a neat 50 per cent of the nation.

There are some inter­est­ing demo­graphic breakdowns…

Women are more cer­tain that God cre­ated the world (27 per cent to 18 per cent) and wrote the Bible (40 per cent to 28 per cent) but aren’t so sure every word of the Good Book has to be taken to be lit­er­ally true (25 per cent to 30 per cent). The least Chris­t­ian com­mu­nity in Aus­tralia is young men; the most Chris­t­ian are women of a cer­tain age.

It seems that the “pro­gres­sives” are gain­ing some traction.

They [Chris­tians] are con­vinced (94 per cent) that Christ was a his­tor­i­cal fig­ure; fairly con­fi­dent (91 per cent) that He was the Son of God; increas­ingly scep­ti­cal (72 per cent) about the Vir­gin Birth; and oddly – con­sid­er­ing its key impor­tance to the faith – uncer­tain that He rose from the dead (85 per cent). These beliefs are held very con­fi­dently. The Nielsen poll found almost nine out of 10 Aus­tralian Chris­tians were absolutely or fairly cer­tain of their beliefs.

Across all faiths and no faith 34 per cent of the pop­u­la­tion thought these texts were the word of God. A clear major­ity (61 per cent) thought they were writ­ten by man. Chris­tians showed far greater con­fi­dence in the Bible (58 per cent) than other reli­gions showed in their texts (35 per cent).

Then the find­ings just got a lit­tle weird…

Astrol­ogy
Chris­tians seem hardly more likely (44 per cent) than the rest of us to put their faith in the stars.

Psy­chics
The Chris­tians in our midst are markedly more likely (52 per cent) to put their faith in telepa­thy, clair­voy­ance, psy­chic heal­ing etc.

The beliefs regard­ing sci­ence and the ori­gin of life were also pretty interesting…

Most Aus­tralians believe God played a part in the process. That He cre­ated all life at a stroke about 10,000 years ago is believed by 23 per cent of us. That He guided a long process over time is believed by another 32 per cent. The beliefs of Aus­tralian Chris­tians are even more dra­matic, with 38 per cent sup­port­ing Gen­e­sis and another 47 per cent favour­ing the God of Design.

In the year in which the 200th anniver­sary of Darwin’s birth was cel­e­brated around the world, only 12 per cent of Aus­tralian Chris­tians believe his the­ory of nat­ural selec­tion. For all the talk of Darwin’s pre­em­i­nence in mod­ern sci­ence, atti­tudes to evo­lu­tion remain the lit­mus test of belief and dis­be­lief in Aus­tralia. Chris­tians offer the most mea­ger sup­port, while 89 per cent of those who deny God’s exis­tence back Darwin.

What do the other 11% who deny God’s exis­tence back?

Heaven, hell, angels, witches and the devil get a tick from about 10 per cent of those who doubt or dis­be­lieve the exis­tence of God. A quar­ter sup­port mir­a­cles; 27 per cent put their faith in astrol­ogy and UFOs; and a mighty 34 per cent believe in ESP. So a third of the nation’s athe­ists, agnos­tics and doubters have turned their back on God, but not on magic.

But it seems Aus­tralia is trend­ing towards athe­ism. Nearly half of young men aged under 25 iden­tify as athe­ists. Athe­ism is de rigueur for the angry young man.

Men out­num­ber women by two to one in the ranks of the deniers. They are joined by nearly half (42 per cent) of Aus­tralians under 25. But only a quar­ter of those over 55 are as sure that no God awaits them as their end approaches.

Here are the results for a sim­i­lar sur­vey in the US.

• 82% of Amer­i­can adults believe in God
• 76% believe in miracles
• 75% believe in heaven
• 73% believe Jesus is God or the Son of God
• 72% believe in angels
• 71% believe in the sur­vival of the soul after death
• 70% believe in the res­ur­rec­tion of Jesus
• 45% of adults believe in Darwin’s the­ory of evolution
• 40% believe in creationism.
• 61% of adults believe in hell
• 61% believe in the vir­gin birth (Jesus born of Mary)
• 60% believe in the devil
• 42% believe in ghosts
• 32% believe in UFOs
• 26% believe in astrology
• 23% believe in witches

Author: Nathan Campbell

Nathan runs St Eutychus. He is currently a student at the Queensland Theological College. In a previous professional life he worked in public relations for an economic development and tourism marketing organisation. He is married to Robyn. He likes coffee and the internet.

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