6th December, 2003  

PICTURE: iStockPhoto.com

We can take it for granted that people know something about who Jesus Christ is. Yet evidence is emerging that many school children don’t have any knowledge of Him except as a profanity. DAVID ADAMS reports...

Twenty years ago it seemed unlikely that Australian schoolchildren wouldn’t know who Jesus Christ was. Even if they didn’t go to church, chances were they had someone in the family who at some point had. Enough contact anyway to know of Jesus’ significance even if they didn’t understand it fully.

Yet research and anecdotal evidence is showing that today a scenario in which children don’t know who Christ is at all - at least as no more than a profanity - is one which is becoming increasingly common.

“It’s really a moment in history that we’re reflecting on... this is a first,” observes Dr Ruth Powell, a researcher at National Christian Life Survey Research - a joint project of the Uniting Church’s New South Wales Board of Mission, Anglicare in the Diocese of Sydney and the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference.

Dr Powell says that while previous generations of school children have had at least some sort of “residual memory of going to Sunday school” or having some experience of church through other family member, if they were rejecting it then they at least understood to some degree what they were rejecting. This is no longer necessarily the case.

“The majority of school age kids now have no reference point,” says Dr Powell. “They’ve got no story to reject, if you like, or even to think about.”

Dr Powell says the trend is part of “major societal changes” taking place across Australia at the moment - moves which have led to some social commentators describing the current age in which we are living as “Post-Christian”.

“It’s the repositioning all sorts of social institutions with the church being one...option on the landscape and that has all sorts of implications."

One of the most interesting implications of people walking away from the church surrounds the issue of a moral framework.

Dr Powell says that people - whose families had in the past looked to the church to provide this sense of what’s right and wrong - were now finding themselves operating in a moral vacuum. She adds that studies were showing this is having an adverse affect on the health of children.

“There’s big studies being done on all the mental health issues - depression and suicide and kids or young people that are in crisis - and they’re putting it down to this sort of ‘Look, it’s because we don’t have an ethical framework, a religious framework’. They’re going as far as saying that.”

Dr Powell says this growing recognition of the need for a moral framework for people to operate in opens up a real opportunity for the church.

“Moving into a ‘Post-Christian Age’ can either be seen as ‘Oh dear, everything’s going horribly wrong’ or ‘What a fantastic opportunity’,” she says.

“We’ve got this fantastic mission field - like the early church again, if you like - but there’s a freshness in having no preconceptions. There’s an openness, there’s a potential there, in terms of connecting for the first time.

“I think that’s a really big thing to hang on to...We’re being offered this fresh opportunity again to reconnect and try and think about how we express the Good News in the language for this mission context. How do we translate as we would for any missionary context?”

The lack of awareness among schoolchildren of who Jesus is underlines a broader social trend. While as many as 69 per cent of Australians claimed to be Christian in the last census, Dr Powell says that only around 20 per cent of Australians attend church once a month or more (only 10 per cent attend every week), a dramatic drop from the 45 per cent or so who did so during the Forties and Fifties.

“Through the Sixties and Seventies, that started to plummet. What we’re seeing in research... is that by the Eighties and then into the Nineties, it plateaued...where it was hitting around 25-ish.”

Dr Powell said that with the figure currently around 20 - even dipping as low as 19 on some surveys - the age profile of the large mainstream churches - such as the Catholic Church (who account for half of all church attendance in Australia), and the Anglican and Uniting Churches - meant that the church attendance percentage - barring a significant move of God in a revival - could be expected to continue to decline significantly.

“You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to see that if you’ve got high proportions of people who are currently in their 60s and 70s and 80s, you only need to add an other 20 years...and we’ve got this bulk of people who will no longer be with us.”

Church attendance figures do vary across denominations, however. Dr Powell says that Pentecostal churches in particular were doing well in terms of growth.

“One reason would be that churches that are adopting contemporary styles of expression are more effectively connecting with some sections of Australias population,” she explains.

“Now contemporary can mean all sorts of things - but it means you’re at least connecting with some sub-cultures. The cultural thing is important - it’s about language and dress and style and leadership patterns and things like that.

“(Those churches that are successful) have adopted some appropriate things there and that’s true across all demonations where you’ve got pockets who are trying to do things in a contemporary style. And that’s again about trying to understand the mission context and actually doing your translation.”

Dr Powell said some churches were also appealing to some sections of Australian society because of their certainty.

“It is attractive to some people when there’s a place that says, ‘We know how things are. We’ll tell you what’s right and what’s wrong. Here’s the boundaries.’”

NCLS Research suggests this aspect is of particular interest to couples with young children who are looking for a framework of values to instill within them. They suggest that because many people centre their activities around their children, providing activities and events centred around children is one way to make connection with the family as a whole.

Dr Powell notes that at present as many as 70 per cent of the adult population in Australia have had at least one contact with the church in a year - whether it was for a church service (particularly those at Christmas and Easter which attract 31 and 23 per cent of the population respectively) or for a wedding, funeral or memorial service.

She says that churches should be making the most of these opportunities.

“Seventy per cent of Australians have walked in the door...So it’s a case of thinking about, how you make your weddings the best weddings in town...How can you use those as a missional opportunity?”