10th July, 2007

Christianity remains by the far the largest religion in Australia but non-Christian groups continue to grow at a faster rate, according to information from the latest Census.

The data, compiled by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, shows that while the number of people who reported that they were Christian grew by 300,000 to 12.7 million between 1996 and 2006, as a proportion of the overall population the number of Christians fell from 71 per cent to 64 per cent.

Pentecostal churches were the fastest growing denomination - up 26 per cent to around 220,000 - but the most common denominations continue to be Catholic (accounting for 26 per cent of all Christians - up seven per cent on the 1996 figure) and Anglican (accounting for 19 per cent - a decline of five per cent on the 1996 data.)

The number of people claiming affiliation to the Eastern Orthodox denomination grew by 9.5 per cent to 544,200 while the Baptist church grew by 7.3 per cent to 316,700 and the Lutheran church by 0.4 per cent to 251,100. Those denominations experiencing a decline include the Uniting Church, which declined by 15 per cent to 1.1 million, and the Presbyterian and Reformed churches, which declined by 12 per cent to 596,700.

The three most common non-Christian religious affiliations were Buddhism (2.1 per cent of the population), Islam (1.7 per cent) and Hinduism (0.7 per cent). Hinduism experienced the fastest proportional growth since 1996, doubling to 150,000, followed by Buddhism, which doubled to 420,000.

The number of people who stated they had no religions increased from 2.9 million to 3.7 million, up from 17 per cent to 19 per cent of the population.

~ www.abs.gov.au

- DAVID ADAMS