The night of Tuesday, 9th August, is Census night in Australia. DAVID ADAMS speaks with Nathan Brown about a push to educate Christians about why – and how – they should answer the ‘religion question’…
“What is the person’s religion?”
Question number 19 on this year’s Australian Census may seem simple enough (and, after all, it is optional), but it lies at the centre of a controversy over what people – including Christians – should tick, particularly whether it’s the ‘no religion’ box.
In the lead-up to Census night next Tuesday (9th August), the Australian Atheist Foundation has been running a national campaign urging people to tick the ‘no religion’ box – which for the first time this Census sits at the top of the options rather than at the bottom, with the organisation’s president, Kylie Sturgess, inviting people “born into a religion” who may “consider themselves spiritual and moral, but no longer religious” to tick the ‘no religion’ box.
The Yes Religion website, produced by CMAA
“What we’re trying to actually do through this is have people of faith think about the question and answer it in terms of what the question is actually asking…rather than just glossing it over or not answering it or being confused about how to answer it.”
– Nathan Brown, CEO of CMAA
The campaign, which is using billboards and social media, has sparked a sharp response from some Christian quarters.
Writing in The Sydney Morning Herald earlier this week, Rev Dr Michael Jensen, rector of St Mark’s Anglican Church, in Sydney’s Darling Point, said while the campaign made some convincing arguments – that having Christian “values” doesn’t make you a Christian and writing ‘Jedi Knight’ doesn’t count toward the ‘no religion’ total, for example – it was guilty of “laughable over-reach” on two counts.
The first was in arguing that children and teens should be counted as having ‘no religion’ because only an adult can have a religion, and the second, that you should only indicate you’re a Christian if you sign off on the Nicene Creed, an ancient statement of faith agreed to by all the major churches but not all Christian groups. “You have to love it when the atheists try to tell us how to define a Christian!” Rev Dr Jensen wrote.
The discussion around the religion question on the census has also prompted one Christian organisation, Sydney-based Christian Media & Arts Australia to consider how Christians should answer the question on religion. Described as a “catalytic” organisation aimed at helping Christian media and arts organisations work towards the goal of the redemption and transformation of lives, society and culture, it has launched a website, Yes Religion, which is aimed at explaining why the question matters and how Christians should consider answering it.
Nathan Brown, CEO of CMAA (formerly known as Christian Media Australia), says while it’s incorrect to say the ‘Yes Religion’ website was launched in response to the atheist campaign, the campaign certainly “may have prompted us to think, ‘Well, what do we know about the ‘religion question’ on the census?’”
Apart from Australia Christian Churches – which is providing resources on the question to its member churches, Mr Brown says they found there were no resources to educate Christians about how to answer the question and so it was decided to produce a site which wasn’t alarmist and didn’t come with a “big social engineering agenda like the atheist site” but was aimed at educating people about how they may answer the question.
He says confusion among some Christians was due to the use of the word ‘religion’ – a word which many people of the Christian faith “would really run from” and which may led them to ticking the ‘no religion’ box.
“[B]ecause they’ll be going ‘I’m not religious as such, I don’t like that word and I don’t like the connotation of it, I’m non-denominational. But that’s not how the government or the Census-takers use and interpret a response to that question, as I understand it.”
THE ‘RELIGION QUESTION’
• A question on a person’s religion has been included in all Australian Censuses.
• Answering the question has always been optional (about 90 per cent of respondents provided an answer to it in 2011).
• In 1933, the optional nature of the question was made explicit.
• In 1971, the instruction ‘If no religion, write “None”‘ was added.
• In 1991, ‘No religion’ was introduced as a mark box underneath the ‘Other (please specify)’ box.
• In 2016, the ‘No religion’ box has been moved to the top of the answers.
Source: ABS
CMAA is encouraging Christians to either choose the Christian denomination that they’re affiliated with – those on the form include Catholic, Anglican, Uniting Church, Presbyterian, Greek Orthodox and Baptist – or, for those who aren’t affiliated with any of those mentioned – to simply write the word ‘Christian’ in the ‘other’ space at the bottom.
Mr Brown says how question 19 is answered does matter. “There are [implications], otherwise they wouldn’t ask the question in the first place. It always leads to something.”
He points to information on the website of the Australian Bureau of Statistics – responsible for the organisation of the Census, which states that the information gathered from the question “is used by religious organisations and government agencies to plan activities and community services”. The ABS website also points out that while the question is optional, about 90 per cent of respondents did answer it in 2011.
The CMAA Yes Religion website, which features a series of videos including some hosted by Karl Faase, director of Sydney-based Olive Tree Media and a CMAA board member, points out that this can include how Christians organisations, ministries, churches and radio stations are “categorised, prioritised, enabled and funded to be operate in our community”.
It says the collated answers to the question will influence policy decisions in the coming years concerning the placement of government resources – possibly including where chaplains are placed, the funding of church-run educational or aged care facilities – and it is important to let policy-makers know that religious faith and affiliation are important in the community.
“What we’re trying to actually do through this is have people of faith think about the question and answer it in terms of what the question is actually asking…rather than just glossing it over or not answering it or being confused about how to answer it,” Mr Brown says.
“Too often as Christians we are silent on these things and we’re just indifferent to them. And, you know what, possibly it does make a big difference so let’s answer honestly and lets be part of shaping the future of country [with regard] to the values and beliefs that we hold as a people.”
