Charles Richardson writes in Crikey today:
From a lot of cultural indicators, you’d think that religious belief in Australia was on the increase. Certainly politicians and commentators talk about it more than they used to; Kevin Rudd is more open about his Christianity than any of his recent predecessors, and Paul Kelly assured us last year that secularists “are fighting a losing cause”.
…
But if we move from the world of rhetoric to the world of hard data, the picture is quite different. This week’s release of 2006 census figures shows that only 70% of Australians identified with a religion, and only 64% with some variety of Christianity (down from 71% in 1996). Just under 19% said they had no religion, while about 11% declined to answer the question.
Even those figures, however, overstate the extent of religious commitment. While, for example, the 1.1% who described themselves as Pentecostals are probably serious about their religion, we know that more traditional categories - principally Roman Catholic (25.8%), but also Islam (1.7%) and Judaism (0.4%) - function more as social or cultural identities, and do not necessarily involve religious belief.
They certainly don’t equate to church attendance: the 2001 National Church Life Survey found that weekly attendance was down to 8.8% of the population. A 2002 survey found that 18.8% “claimed to attend religious services at least monthly”, down from 20% in just four years. And surveys of what people actually believe consistently find that many professed adherents of traditional religions are in fact gripped by what George Pell calls “heresy or unbelief”.
There’s another particularly interesting aspect of the census data on religion, which was picked up by Bernard Salt in The Government Gazette yesterday. Ignore the gibberish about generationalism - his explanations are his stock in trade pop sociology, but he’s quite right to identify the crucial aspect of the data beyond the headline figures.
Nowhere is the shift away from belief stronger than among Australia’s youth.In the chart above, I show the proportion of believers by single year at various census dates. Believers have lost most ground among those aged 0-5 years: for example, in 2001 some 70 per cent of babies aged under one year were assigned a religion by their parents; last year, only 63 per cent of babies were designated believers. The market for baptisms must have plummeted in the past five years.
This shift away from God by infants is, of course, matched by a similar shift by their parents. The proportion of believers aged 20-35 contracted by no less than five percentage points between the 2001 and 2006 censuses.
I haven’t had time to do a full analysis, but you can download the census data here yourself. The key thing that jumped out at me was that the “no religion” and “did not answer” folks don’t begin to decline by much as a percentage until you get to the 55-64 age bracket, and that there are more people giving those answers in that age bracket than there were in the 1996 census.
Of course, you could posit some hypothetical religious revival in the future, but what we’re seeing here really is the accentuation of long term trends (which is another reason why Salt’s highly speculative explanations are flim flam). And, historically, you can make a good case that having been largely settled after the dam really broke in Europe for universal religious belief from the mid Nineteenth century, Australia was always on track to becoming a very secular society indeed.
What’s also interesting is looking at the census data in concert with social attitudes data which shows more liberal social attitudes gaining much ground the younger the population sampled is, despite all the crazy claims we heard a while back about a “generation of South Park Conservatives”.
Fervent religious belief is highly correlated with conservative social mores (and conservative voting patterns). I wouldn’t extrapolate too much from these shifts to voting intention, because the most important cleavages in determining electoral behaviour aren’t cultural (except, perhaps, sometimes at the margins - which is where it can count). But I’ve always been struck by Guy Rundle’s argument in his Quarterly Essay a few years ago that Howard was holding back a dam of social liberalism, though sceptical about his position that it would be Peter Costello who’d usher in a more socially liberal Liberal Party. Jeff Kennett was an example in the Australian context of a Liberal Premier whose views were largely libertarian on social issues, and he may have been riding the crest of a wave rather than swimming against the Howardian tide. The British Tories under Cameron have also moved away from conservative moralistic rhetoric.
In this context, I think it makes more sense to see the culture wars of the last decade as a rearguard action rather than as some sort of evidence of a return to the religious, or a return to “traditional values”. Of course, here we should make an exception for those fronts in the culture wars which go to national identity, immigration and multiculturalism, because they reflect different underlying dynamics. It’s instructive, I’d suggest, to observe the way in which anti-Muslim sentiment has been framed in such a way as to highlight the issue of gender equality. You can have a cultural identity which is relatively socially liberal and still in some degree xenophobic.
But I think all this helps to place some of the discussions about religion and politics in some perspective. Pentecostal churches may be increasing their market share of Christian believers, but there’s no evidence that religious belief and practice more generally are displaying anything other than accelerating decline. Family First, and Tony Abbott style politics, are more a symptom of a cultural shift away from strong religiously inspired social values rather than evidence of their revival. With any luck, they’ll be increasingly seen that way as the “social issues” culture wars fade from the scene.
Update: This post has been re-published in On Line Opinion today.
“…I think it makes more sense to see the culture wars of the last decade as a rearguard action rather than as some sort of evidence of a return to the religious, or a return to “traditional valuesâ€?.”
Absolutely spot on mark. I am so sick and tired of all the empty puffery written in the newspapers and elsewhere about how religion is staging a comeback under the Howard Hegemony.
For some time now, my only real interest in the four-yearly census has been the religious question (leaving the deeper analysis of other more complex issues to the experts), because the long term trends on religious affiliation or otherwise show up better than anywhere else, given the consistency of the question over the decades.
And yes, in the light of the continuing non-religious trend revealed in the latest census, its imperative that governments all over this nation begin to address the continuing dominance of organised religion in our public schools (if not implicitly as a lazy hangover from the past, then explicitly with Howard’s new army of chaplains), and the absence of any curriculum and teaching in support of 4 million non-believers, many of whom send their children into the public system rather than having them brainwashed in religious private schools.
Heck, I’d even settle for a comparative religion stream in public schools, so long as it includes the atheist option.
After all, children are all atheists when they are born.
mark says:
Family First, and Tony Abbott style politics, are more a symptom of a cultural shift away from strong religiously inspired social values rather than evidence of their revival. With any luck, they’ll be increasingly seen that way as the “social issues� culture wars fade from the scene.
Baloney. Mark has a tin ear for cultural data, as usual. The census data only registers vague attitudinal preferences, not those revealed by following the money.
Religious observances are only one marker for basic cultural values. And not all that reliable.
The Culture War rubber really hits the political road in the class room, rather than the church pews. Going to a religious church for one hour a week was always mostly cultural tokenism. Forking out big bucks to send your kid to a religious school is a real sacrifice.
And here the hard data points to a definite trend towards an increased religious or traditional value committments. A few years back the SMH ran a series on the revival of religious schools in the past decade:
As Phillip Heath, president of Australian Anglican Schools, sees it, parents are flocking to religious education for “the package” that provides “a moral and ethical educational framework”.
NSW is leading this spiritual revival in non-government education. Some 330,000 students, or 30 per cent of the state’s total, attend religious schools. And most denominations plan to open more schools in a wide arc on Sydney’s fringe and along the coast from Nowra to Tweed Heads.
Brendan Nelson, the federal Minister for Education, says religious schools offer the trifecta that parents are looking for: identity, discipline and values. “They increasingly want values that inform the personal development of their children.”
The shift to religious schools dates from the 1920s when values-based education in public schools was replaced by a “strong secularism”, says Professor Terry Lovat, pro vice-chancellor for education and arts at the University of Newcastle.
As the churches’ role in shaping personal values has ebbed, the job has increasingly fallen
to [religious] non-government schools.
And those values are old-fashioned conservative values, which emphasise family, faith and flag. Thats why Australian households have been much less prone to divorce, and more prone to marry nd have kids, over the past five years. And why they continue to send those kids to religious schools in greater numbers. And why those kids turn into flag-waving patriots, much to the disgust of Wets.
You need to read between the headlines and bottom lines to get the full story.
grace pettigrew wrote:
I think you’ll be waiting a while. The religious don’t seem overly keen on comparative religion (at our local school, the anglicans and catholics have different classes for their once-weekly school sponsored dose even though they seem to share handouts). There was no atheist box to tick on the list of choices either, so our kids either end up doing nothing for an hour or go along to the anglican bollocks (at least they hear the noah story and other stuff I suppose). If the atheists could be given a choice of comparative religion, we might be onto something, although I suspect the “chaplain money” dished out by the federal government will not be spent on something so subversive.
The whole pentecostal revival seems very odd to me. Are these seriously conservative people being attracted away from mainstream religion into Assembly of God reactionary paternalism, or young people just plain bored with old style christianity and requiring a bit of theatre with their religion?
Also, it would seem that testosterone poisoning or other artifacts of male aging seem to contribute to a certain late-stage conversion into christianity - pity there are no questions concerning who converted when (i.e. are you a from birth christian or born again etc).
Yes, I’m sure citing Tony Abbott and Brendan Nelson gives you an impartial picture, Jack.
Huh? Not at the Catholic school my brother went to, certainly not “flag” and not “family and faith” in your sense either. A lot of Catholic schools are quite progressive educationally, actually.
Much? You might want to have a dispassionate rather than a hyperbolic look at the data, and perhaps take into account facts like we’ve got less than 50% of adults married for the first time ever.
http://abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/06/27/1963251.htm?section=justin
And:
http://abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/06/27/1963560.htm
I guess you don’t include those who go to irreligious Anglican churches!
That’s pretty close to the mark, I’d say, David.
As usual, Strocchi has drowned the religious baby in the economic bathwater.
The move to schools that badge themselves as religious is a consequence of the crisis in confidence over state school education. If state schools could sack troublesome kids like private schools can and do, much of this crisis would be allayed. State schools are much more prone to be the warehouse of uncontrollable, unmotivated, and unemployable post 15 year olds. This syndrome has a depressive effect on ENTER scores, the holy grail of secondary education, and the primary economic driver in school choice for post-compulsory education.
Moreover, it is now cheaper to send a child to one ofthe non-elite denominational schools than it ever has been. I would hazard a guess that more parents grit their teeth and tolerate the religious component of school at such schools rather than seek it out.
Indeed, some may even see this kind of schooling as vaccination against religious enthusiasm, as indeed it is.
As for citing Phillip Heath, president of Australian Anglican Schools and Stud Nelson, VC, former federal Minister for Education. Oh Puhlease.
What evidence is there that parents are looking for the trifecta: identity, discipline and values?
“They increasingly want values that inform the personal development of their children.�
Huh? This is what parents have always wanted.
Reading through the comments on Salt’s piece, I quite liked this one:
posted by John of Eumundi (28 June at 08:02 AM)
Yes, and if he took any interest in actual non-elite religious schools, he might find some of those values relate to things like conflict resolution and tolerance, not manly stoushes in the playground to the tune of “I vow to thee my country” or whatever.
I’ve always thought the South Park conservative was rather silly. SP might be in some respects right wing, but it generally libertarian not conservative. In general though the people promoting gen SP (Devine et al) would be as horrified by the liberal social attitudes of these people as they are pleased at any anti-left attitude they might have.
Bit like people who still buy their music on vinyl. Not many, but by Crom do they go on about it.
Interesting.
Jack Strocchi observation concerning religious schools is significant, but is he conflating religion and spirituality with a self-abnegating form of reification outwardly resembling “cultural observance”(avoidance)?
Isn’t sending children away from the including egalitarianism of state schools to the Stepfording cocoon of religious schools just a cowardly, precious and muddled response from parents themselves brainwashed earlier in life?
Spirituality is not the same thing as reaction and so much of this crap from mortgage belt mental strugglers comes down to insecurity through identity suffocated by authoritarianism, resulting lack of consciousness and (consequent) unresolved neuroses about sex.
Ah well, back to the middle age again, or at least the ‘fifties and early ’sixties
Anthony:
“by Crom”
????
Indeed. Action against the culture war’s first warriors: The Luvvies of the 1970s.
David, are you perhaps confusing religious instruction with comparative religion? I have a couple of nephews in Catholic schools and apart from Catholic instruction (non assessable) they also have a religion class where they focus on two religions, in their case Christianity and Islam (assessable). Others are in state schools who have an optional non-denominational Christian RI class. And down here, not so long ago, the demand for (Christian) chaplains in state schools - both primary and secondary - was exceeding supply.
I enrolled my kids in the local state school. Very middle class, very academic, very white.
Very dull.
I pulled them out after six months and decided to send them to a catholic school (incidently with far less of an academic focus) after talking with other parents who had kids in that school and speaking extensively with the principal.
My kids are very bright, and sometimes the school isnt as academically challenging as their old school. But I was impressed by the fact that there were kids from other backgrounds including african refugee’s, that the principal and literature actively spoke of eco-spirituality, justice, and equity. And we decided that being immersed in strong community and spiritual values, and a more represenative bunch of kids was a far better alternative to the vile affluenza the permeates mainstream middle class society by default.
ANd i am one of those who doesnt go to a church ’service’, but would identify as a believer, if perhaps a rather fraught and torn one.
AS to hight school, thats a far more problematic choice. I actually like St Peters at Indro (incidently Noel Pearson went ) in Brisbane, but financially that ain;t gonna happen unless the kids get a scholarship, and despite being bright, i’m not keen to get my kids on the brainiac treadmill.
Another option is moving to Highgate Hill to get them into State High as one of m y New Farm friends have just done, but i dont know…..
Just sharing…
Mark on 29 June 2007 at 3:06 pm
About the same level of partiality I find on this site. Perhaps excluding your good self.
mark says:
YOu might want to have a dispassionate, rather than hyperbolic, look at the data, instead of jumping to politically convenient conclusions.
Also, you might want to have a re-think about the difference between absolute levels and relative trends.
“Decline of the Wets” is mostly about how the majority changed its political attitude towards minorities since the mid-nineities. But the majority have been having a bit of cultural change of heart themselves, since the early noughties.
And I take it no-one, not even a Wet, is disputing the fact that family formation is on the increase, given the mini baby-boom. This is surely a real sign of family values, especially amongst late-breeding feminists who want to avoid the tragic fate of Virginia.
Religious school enrollment is on the increase, an inconvenient truth that mark blithely side-steps. And most religious schools are more devoted to traditional values than secular schools.
And finally, the increased involvement in family and faith schools has spilled over into an increasing nationalism amongst the young, most obviously in sport and Anzac day attendance.
Bottom Line: the decline in religious observance does not portend a turning away from conservative familial, parochial or national cultural values.
Moral: Dont give a drowning Wet a dodgy statistical straw to clutch.
The sort of ethos at that school sounds similar to what was around when my brother was at St James a couple of years ago, SC.
I’ve had a few pentacostal friends and so attended a few AOG events. Especially with the younger crowd its almost like its a bit of religion with their theatre rather than the other way around. Those churches do provide a sense of community and something that many people find genuinely fun and entertaining in a venue that doesn’t include alcohol or other drugs (if you don’t include include religion as a drug). A bit of an escape from the usual peer pressures.
The “mini-baby boom” is pretty mini, Jack. And as with the stories here about religious schools which incarnate quite different “values” from yours, I have quite a few friends in their 30s with kids - none of whom would celebrate a model of family which could be described as conservative or authoritarian. Choosing to have kids doesn’t equate to acceptance of “family values” in the culture war sense.
I think you’re quite out of touch with the reality of schooling and parenting, Jack, which is quite different from what it was 30 years ago, no matter how many religious schools open up or whatever. In any case, many of the new religious schools are Pentecostal and Islamic ones. Others are cheap Catholic and Anglican systemic ones. I think sc and Katz have pinged the motivations for parents sending their kids to the latter much more effectively than you have. And as Charles Richardson himself observes, Pell doesn’t think most Catholic schools are anywhere near conservative enough for his taste.
Nor for that matter is it inconsistent with feminism, despite the OFFICIAL CULTURE WAR STRAWFEMINISM stereotype.
Since when did we put an ‘only’ before a 70% or 64% result? I’m sure Howard or Rudd would be delighted with either at the next opinion poll. Now 15% or an 11% result, yes, that’s worth an ‘only’, even if contextually it shows a slight increase.
Look, these are grown ups who have stated that they adhere to some form of belief. There was no question which determined how devout a person is, and neither should there be. The fact that they took the time to decide that, yes, they do believe, is an indicator of how many people conside God to be real. Given that having any kind of belief is more of an option in the 21st century than ever before, these figures are quite encouraging for anyone who is involved in faith projects.
It could be that the latest census gave a clearer indication of the outcomes of past censi had the questions been better defined, or had the idea of being able to admit to no religion been more acceptable.
That is hilarious, totally ridiculous, but absolutely hilarious!!! I nearly fell off my chair. What pompous priggery! I mean, come on, Crikey can’t be serious! Mate, we’re having to plan a new nursery department to accommodate the babies that are being born in our church, and we’ve plans being drawn up for a youth and children’s centre. Young parents haven’t stopped attending church, or believing, or being converted, and children accept Christ easily. There may be many unsaved young people, but by the time they reach their thirties they will have had at least five encounters with the gospel, and many will convert, or at least consider themselves to have faith of some sort.
But I must say that you’re correct to point out the lower averages of church attendance. This is an area most churches will have to look at, and are. The reason Pentecostal churches continue to grow stems out of their willingness to act on the demographics of change and adapt their presentation of the gospel to attract their generation without watering down the essential values or doctrines of Christianity.
No, FaceLift, it’s a percentage of the entire Australian population. And obviously, if people who are having kids are not religious, then they won’t ascribe a religious belief to kids under 5.
And 64% comes as a surprise to me. From memory, it was up in the 80s until relatively recently.
Sorry, Facelift, that quote is from The Australian, not Crikey. And it’s a simple statement of fact, drawn from the census data, not interpretation. Your church may well have lots of parents with young children, but the whole point of census data is to relativise judgements we may make from our own observations and understand that they may run counter to trends which are taking place across the whole Australian population.
That Salt thing yesterday infuriated me on so many levels. I was almost tempted to write a letter to the editor but when I went back to refind the article I couldn’t. As if every baby boomer in this country was affluent, propertied and all their kids had a plasma screen in every room. The media is so in love with this fairy tale. Puke.
I won’t even start on the religious BS in it, I wish to enjoy the rest of my Friday arvo. Bah.
I’ve got no idea what value KPMG get from employing him! They may as well hire Caroline Overington…
It was at 71%, Mark. But look, what does it matter if non-religious parents ascribe ‘no religion’ to their infants, who couldn’t possibly make a decision. It may be that the catholic tradition of christening is diminishing as part of the culture. It is perfectly correct for parents to say their pre-school children have no belief. But it can’t assumed from this stat that none of those children will have an encounter which leads to a religious decision.
In fact, the census confirms that at least 70% of the population have made some kind of religious decision between their formative and adult years. there is no reason to believe that this will drop significantly in the near future. In fact young people are more open to spiritual matters than previously, so there is a probability that they will embrace some form of religious belief.
No one is saying religious belief will disappear overnight, or at all, FaceLift.
What’s being observed is a historical trend:
That’s from 1996.
http://www.suburbia.net/~fun/scn/gov/census-1996.html
To have gone from 7.1% stating “no religion” in 1971 to 19% in 2006 indicates a major shift.
And on your other point, kids don’t fill out their own census forms. I’d suggest you download the data and have a look at the proportion aged between 6 and 14 who have no religion stated. In some instances, it’s possible that they will come into contact with organised religion, but with irreligious parents, it’s a lot less likely.
It’s very important here to consider how nominal much of the religious belief stated is - particularly among Anglicans, but increasingly among Catholics as well. That’s one of the reasons why I was pointing to Pell’s comments - research done on behalf of the Cardinal has found that very large numbers of young people who’ve just left Catholic schools have little understanding of core Catholic beliefs, and a very low rate of religious practice.
What in fact we’re seeing is an increase in those who’ve probably made a definite decision against religion. The “religious decision” nominal Christians have made - as I said, particularly among those claiming affiliation with Anglicanism - is often not much of a decision at all but more of a default statement about identity. The Anglican Church is well aware of that - I had some discussions with them last year and the National Church Life Survey people about the research.
If you could provide some evidence (eg survey) for that statement, I’d be grateful.
I was expecting you to show up on this thread, FaceLift. I don’t mean that as an insult, as I always find your perspective very interesting. So, an expectation happily met.
I would be interested in some kind of qualitative research being done within some of these denominational categories because you may be able to locate further interesting divisions in terms of the ‘orientation’ towards their stated religions. My theory is that a large minority within each denomination will have become more church-centred than their parents, and that would reflect the observation that FaceLift has made. I think there are important distinctions between those within that 19% as well, speaking as a member of that statistic.
It depends what you mean by that, Adam. Yes - if you’re talking about people who are active in religious practice, and no, if you mean people who are nominal adherents who will be less likely to go to church than when it was more of a social/traditional obligation.
If you’re interested, I’d suggest you check out the National Church Life Survey research - I’m just about to go out, but it shouldn’t be a difficult google!
Religion is on the decline. Australians are slowly waking up. Woo hoo!
I’ll check it out. Thanks Mark.
Do any parents filling in the census identify their children as the Spawn of Satan?
Jus’ askin’…
FDB, this is the chap who makes his oaths by Crom:
Interesting observations are made in one of the occasional papers from NCLS on the effectiveness of churches versus the ineffectiveness of schools as contexts for fostering faith. A lot to wade through, but there’s some interesting stuff there. A lot of the occasional papers etc seem to be based on 2001 data. Further digging needed…
FDB:
Crom - just the usual stuff - singing, clapping, the making of steel. Hey if you’re free this Sunday why don’t you come on down, some really nice people…
Ooh nice pic tigtog, anyone for the gym?
don’t you mean the pharmacy?
Don’t celebrate too soon, silkworm. Check the figures first!
Numerically, the drop in actual Christian affiliation is only 78,506 out of 12.7 million (1.6%), and is almost matched by a decrease in affiliation involving two of the traditional churches, the Anglicans and the the Uniting Church, at 62,890 and 113,247 respectively, who have suffered, I think, from wishywashy synods, controversial decision making and the possibility of splits in the last few years, and lost folk as a result, some to other church groups, others altogether out of fellowship, which was predictable. If they make positive decisions towards evangelicalism in the near future they may recover many they have lost.
As Mark indicates the drop is also reflected in 0-14 year olds, who would not have filled out their own census forms, of course, and, an area churches will have to seriously look at, 35-44 year olds. In every other age group there has been a slight increase.
I think it’s more about community than theatre, to be honest.
Take a swing into one of these churches sometime and have a look at the wall calendar - these churches come with ready made communities, broken down by age, gender, interest, you name it.
The couple of times I’ve been in to one to have a gander I’ve seen everything on offer from playgroups and parenting classes, to ethnic film nights, through to golf days and indoor cricket teams. The strangest? A napoleonic era war-gaming night for church members - true story.
Signing up with one of the mega-churches gives you an automatic sub-culture with a pretty full social calendar - that’s their killer ap, I think.
Numerically, FaceLift, but not in terms of percentage of the age cohort.
If memory served, they were collecting data again last year, Adam. I got on to them to see if they were interested in collecting some on correlations between religiosity and political affiliation and behaviour, but they didn’t think it would be of great interest to the churches who pay for the surveys. It’s still something I’d like to do some research on - if I could convince someone to fund it!
The whole young-people-are-all-raging-conservatives thing was always unempirical tosh invented by baby boomer journalists.
Everyone loves paradoxical stories, especially in journalism or academia. This one generated a lot of copy a few years ago: ‘Young tories rebel against aging radical hippy parents by embracing old fashioned moral certainty and sexual abstinence.’ Only problem is that the story just isn’t true.
As for the minority who do go into Pentecostalism: the thing about these churches is that there is virtually no rigorous theology going on. Its all about the ‘feeling’ (ie. gushy sentimentalism), about being ‘relevant’ (ie. making money), about being ‘contemporary’ (ie. cheesy music and orgasm-inducing spectacle). Lifestyle, identity, feeling – modern consumerism.
I think it’s more a case of the incessant pluralisation of subcultures than a substantive religious revival. Some kids become Emos, some become Pentecostals. People just want to belong somewhere. The fact that it is a religion is almost irrelevant.
Now are you really on about statistical evidence of belief or otherwise, or the faith in statistics their gathering and interpretation.!? I both believe,and consider myself an atheist.Neither is appropiate,and I just couldnt answer the census question,not only because of that,but, to answer only affirms the categories,not the realities as they are,and whatever.Wilhelm Reich a well read author had a saying..love..work..and knowledge are the well springs of life..they should also govern it.How can anyone honestly make up their minds on these things of importance as belief or not,I just do not know!? I cannot claim agnostic values with the last statement,i could however claim that ritual isnt something I find easy to indulge in..and, life is too hard to sacrifice my own sense of the world,for ancient writings,that seem to of come centuries after the phenomena was dead.That remains ,an obviousand real problem of acceptance. David Icke is getting my superficial gong of support at the moment..but the ritual of buying his books would be quite a sacrifice. Dont poke your tongue out at me!?
Mark on 29 June 2007 at 3:59 pm
Mark,
You started off this post in a confident blaze of “data” dumping to prove the alleged rampant advance of liberal secularism. And now you are reduced to groping for some way to explain away facts that are inconsistent with this interpretation, such as baby booms, reduced divorce rates, increased religious school enrollments and so on.
You really need to do a basic Popper filter and weed out sillier interpretations before jumping to conclusions. You have to look at all the evidence, and where its going, not just cherry pick the data to suit your preferred narrative.
mark says:
True, but trivial. MOre marriages and larger families is inconsistent with notions of a decline in traditional “family values” that you are trying to sell. Parental conservatism is simply a function of the experience of bringing up “unruly minorities” [sic!]. Does “live under my roof, play by my rules!” ring any bells?
Robert Conquest’s Three Laws of Politics: Law 1. Everyone is conservative about what he knows best.
I predict that most parents are more conservative-authoritarian than non-parents of comparable age, class and race. As measured by partisan alignment and broader cultural attitudes. In fact I will lay money on it. Are you game?
mark says:
Now who is falling back on homely anecdotes and setting aside hard data?
mark says:
No doubt some religious schools tout fashionable progressive ideas. But their medium is the real message.
Mark is saying that no amount of religious schools opening up will budge him from the dogma that society is becoming less religious or parents less conservative-authoritarian. So his theory is now hardened into a dogma in the space of a few paragraphs of criticism.
The “reality of schooling and parenting” that I am in touch with is that most of my friends are, like myself, building nests and/or raising young families. As a result they have grown out of “free-for-all” libertarianism of our misspent youth. They are not necessarily “right-wing”, just pragmatic.
Libertarianism is the philosophy of immature or irresponsible people with not a lot at stake. Popular in my cohort, but it grew old fast. Perhaps you need to “get out of touch” with people who have not grown up.
mark says:
So Anglicans, Pentecostals, Islamics and cheap Catholics are not traditional religions any more? What is your point?
mark says:
Well if you say so. I am just going by what parents say. Call me old-fashioned but I dare say this is more relevant than leftist demonology.
mark says:
Well he would say that, wouldnt he?
No, Jack, I’m just being realistic in evaluating that data - neither the “baby boom” nor the reduction in divorce rates are all that statistically significant. I’m afraid you’re having yet another Tu Quoque moment.
Sorry, which parents are they? Sublime cowgirl is a parent, and so is my brother’s parent Brian. Anecdotal, I’ll give you, but real experience as opposed to ideological gibberish from Ministers. If I were you, I really would have a serious look at the ethos many Anglican and Catholic schools are trying to impart - in many cases, it has nothing much to do with your fantasy world of “conservative values”. Given your well known googling skills, I’m sure you could have a look at a few of the statements from systemic school authorities. Though I’m sure you’ll just cherry pick SMH articles or other websites to try to support your contentions.
No that’s not a dogma, it’s census data, Jack.
I predict that most parents are more conservative-authoritarian than non-parents of comparable age, class and race. As measured by partisan alignment and broader cultural attitudes. In fact I will lay money on it.
Are you predicting or betting? Or just asserting. (Wishful thinking, more like it.)
Instead of betting, fund a survey!
“If memory served, they were collecting data again last year”
Yes, but I was having trouble with getting to most of it through the front end of the site. Still some very interesting interpretation of the older data, especially about which contexts and which influences related to greater involvement in church activities, or coming to faith. Ah, if only I had time to pursue some of these things in more depth. I’m off to Brisbane tomorrow to give a paper on Kate Grenville and Inga Clendinnen…
Parents are more likely to vote conservative than non-parents…
Mark
If you want a more accurate indicator of Australian views towards secularism and religion check the stats on the mass exodus from the secular government schools.
Well married couples are anyway… Single parents are more likely to vote to the left…
Perhaps being a parent isn’t the relevant variable…
Oh, why do baby boomers hate the truth so much?
It was the inferior drugs, wasn’t it?
John, I’ve addressed that point already.
David, what’s your source?
I can assure you in the classes I share with gen-Y, I am Leon Trotsky and Courtney Love’s love-child compared to their Martha Stewart and Daryl Sommers.
Mark,
I believe David is referring to this Article in the Govt Gazette.
Nationally, the count of sole-parent households has risen from 10.7 per cent in 2001 to 16.3 per cent last year.
The grim news for the Coalition as it prepares to roll out the final round of its work-to-welfare reforms on Sunday is that much of the growth is occurring in Liberal and Nationals seats.
Eight of the top 20 seats for single parents belong to the Government, with six them being rated as marginal.
In the firing line are South Australia’s Wakefield, the northern NSW electorate of Cowper, Lindsay in Sydney’s outer west, Dobell on the NSW central coast, the Darwin-based Solomon and the seat of Page on the NSW north coast.
Each electorate has a concentration of single parents at least 2.5 percentage points above the national average of 16.3 per cent. Wakefield, Lindsay and Dobell are also counted as members of the mortgage belt.
A further nine marginal electorates are above the national benchmark for single parents.
The findings are contained in The Australian’s exclusive electoral map of the nation that plots the 150 federal seats by a range of data from income to ethnicity.
Thanks, Frank. They might have read Andrew Leigh’s work on the worthlessness of extrapolating voting patterns from electorate by electorate data before rushing into print, though I know it’s Megalogenis’ thing.
“I can assure you in the classes I share with gen-Y, I am Leon Trotsky and Courtney Love’s love-child compared to their Martha Stewart and Daryl Sommers.”
Lol. I couldn’t speculate on this as a generational proposition. In my experience, a lot of those conservative seeming Y-ers have been involved heavily in sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll though.
Virtually none of my gen-Y friends are like those you describe, JG, but I spend a lot of time in the rarefied atmosphere of a university humanities department. It’s not exactly vanilla central, and thank Crom for that.
David,
When Charles Wesley started putting words to the popular tunes of the day, Booth introduced brass bands and street drama, and even in earlier times with the introduction of the organ to church music, their ‘contemporary’, ‘relevant’ approach received the same derisive commentary from short-sighted critics who couldn’t see the cause of the failure of the old methodologies, which had worked once, but had become outmoded, and in need of refreshing, because people move, trends change. The gospel is the constant, but its presentation is adaptable.
Old Charles Wesley was scorned for preaching outside the church sanctuary. But he went out where the people were; that is, he didn’t remain where they weren’t, in the pews! Their appeal to lifestyle and identity was also criticised, but it was effective. So now the Pentecostals, as well as the Baptists, and other evangelicals, bring us the ‘contemporary’ and ‘relevant’, which is basically the same age-old message of hope packaged for our times and our generation, and what do we hear from the stuck-in-the-muds? Criticism.
And it’s not entirely about ‘feelings’, if you listened closely. It’s about connection with God. It’s about applying faith and passion in the right way so that our feelings don’t run or ruin our lives, although, I have to ask you, since when did you leave home without your feelings? Don’t they have some sway over your life? And how do you deal with them when they overwhelm you? Get drunk? Get high? Find a friend and talk? Or do we have be like our ‘rigourously and theologically sound’ dispassionate forefathers and hide our feelings away lest they be a sign of weakness? Stiff upper lip, and all that. Hey, we like to sing…to God…and it works! We like to hang out with other contemporary, relevant Christians…and it works!
So are you saying that the growth in Pentecostalism isn’t worth counting because it doesn’t appeal to your concept of church, or could there be some lessons to be learned from their approach which would help the struggling denominations? These figures are fascinating and useful, and I think in many ways encouraging, but don’t try to blur the positives by producing prejudice.
I think it’s an interesting phenonemon, FaceLift, though perhaps you would accept that a lot of the US mega churches have been heavily criticised (by other evangelicals) for being very very light on actual theology and watering down the Christian message.
I do also think it’s important to put the Pentecostal growth in its proper proportion as constituting a very small percentage of Australia’s population. That seems to be completely lost sight of.
Ahh, yes, but arguably the significant relation is a transnational one. The nation as frame may downplay the significance of these movements. My understanding was that Pentecostalism, as well as other evangelical movements, are growing at an incredible rate in lots of places worldwide. As an example, I have heard that there is some serious ground being gained in parts of Central America.
Well, in different bits of Latin America - Brazil most strikingly.
Here’s a take on it from a Catholic priest:
http://www.providence.edu/las/Brookings.html
My main evidence is anecdotal, from my partner’s family in El Salvador. There is much lamentation from the older generation about the abandonment of the Catholic Church. I don’t know if that’s Pentecostalism, or something else, but it is evangelical Protestantism that’s causing alarm.
John Greenfield wrote:
There is so much wrong with this statement it’s hard to know where to start.
1) Where is the mass exodus? The majority of Australian children are still in “secular” public schools.
2) Where is your evidence that the motivation for private schooling lies with religious tuition rather than secular education.
3) Accurate views? Based on census data or a number you plucked out of your date?