2. Spirituality is as old as recorded human history, if not older. Religion
and faith have been a important aspects of all societes from our
earliest hunter-gatherer ancestors and their mysterious death-cults
and patron deities, to the more complex pantheons and mono-
theistic faiths that followed as the world continued to grow more
and more complicated and people continued to search for answers
and make sense of the world around them.
‘Abraham’s Journey from Ur to Canaan’. Image Source:
Wikimedia Commons, produced by Jozsef Molnar (1821-1899)
3. Pre-colonial Australia
Prior to colonization Australia’s indigenous communities had a rich and diverse
mythology characterized by a mythical dream-time in which the world was formed
and a pantheon of ancestor spirits, all somehow connected to the land. This belief
system didn’t only serve a spiritual function, like most ancient religions in addition to
instructing followers in proper living and worship it also served to pass on a tradition
of history and geographical knowledge.
4. Colonisation: Anglican Arrival
With the arrival of the First Fleet and subsequent
domination of the continent by settlers of European
descent Australia became an overwhelmingly
Christian nation, at first mostly represented by the
Church of England.
The Reverend Richard Johnson,
Chaplain of the First Fleet and builder
of the first church in Australia in
1793. (Image source: Wikimedia
Commons (Public Domain). Produced
by Terry Garnet. )
5. The Early Diversity
For most of Australia's early modern history the country was settled entirely by
Christians, with significant numbers of Irish Catholics arriving as convicts beginning to
shift the balance somewhat away from Church of England domination. Australia grew
to be quite religiously tolerant quite quickly and in the 19th century settlers from
European Jewish and Asian backgrounds began to arrive, particularly when the gold
rushes created a demand for labor and opportunities for fortunes to be made.
Image: The Great
Synagogue, produced by
Wikipedia user J Bar,
Wikimedia Commons:
https://commons.wikimedi
a.org/wiki/File:The_Great_
Synagogue_Sydney.JPG
Image: Sister Mary
MacKillop, Wikimedia
commons, public
domain:
https://commons.wikim
edia.org/wiki/File:Mary_
MacKillop.jpg
6. Modernity
In more recent years, particularly in the aftermath of World War 2 and the abolition
of the White Australia immigration policy finalized in 1973, new waves of immigrants
from a remarkably diverse variety of backgrounds have significantly changed the face
of Australian society in a variety of ways, religion being no exception. For example,
the number of Australian’s marking their religion on the census as a non-Christian
faith has more than quadrupled between the censuses taken 1986 and 2016, rising
from a mere 2% to a far more notable 8.2%.
Image: Gurdwara Sahib Sikh
temple in Glenwood,
Wikimedia Commons,
produced by user ‘crico’
:https://commons.wikimedia
.org/wiki/File:GlenwoodNS
WGurdwaraSahib.jpg
Image: Nan Tien Temple,
produced by user ‘Adam’,
Wikimedia creative
commons,
https://commons.wikime
dia.org/wiki/File:1.-
Nan_Tien_Temple_front.j
pg
