Christian leaders have reacted without surprise to the latest Australian Census figures which show significant declines in the number of people saying they are Christian and a rise in the number of people who say they are of ‘no religion’.
Census data released this week shows that the proportion of people affiliated to a Christian denomination dropped from 61 per cent in 2011 to 52 per cent while the proportion of people who reported they were of ‘no religion’ rose from 22 per cent to 30 per cent.
Roman Catholic Archbishop Mark Coleridge said the figures – which showed 22.6 per cent of people identified themselves as Catholic compared to 25.3 per cent in 2011, meaning it remains the largest Christian denomination – “tend to confirm what we already knew”.
“It doesn’t necessarily mean that people, young or old, are less religious than they were; but it does mean that they’re religious in very different ways than in the past,” the Archbishop of Brisbane told The Catholic Leader. “And the church needs to look carefully at that, lest the communication gap between believers and non-believers grow even wider.”
Kanishka Raffel, the Anglican Dean of Sydney, said the figures, which showed the proportion of Anglicans declining from 17.1 per cent in 2011 to 13.3 per cent, do not show Australians were losing faith.
“Over 60 percent of people said they had some affiliation with religion and the number of people who say they have no religion – it doesn’t really tell us much about them,” he said in comments published on the Sydney Anglicans website.
“Some of those people are decided atheists perhaps, many are just not committed and we know that some of those people would certainly say they have a spirituality, some kind of connection with God but they just don’t identify with institutional religion. So I think that number is a bit opaque, we don’t get the whole picture from the figures.”
Meanwhile, Stephen O’Doherty, a board member of Christian Media & Arts Australia (CMAA) – which ran a campaign encouraging Christians to tick ‘yes’ to the optional religion question in the lead-up to Census night last August, said the results must have been disappointing for atheist organisations behind a campaign which had called on people to tick ‘no religion’.
He said that despite the campaign – and the movement of the ‘no religion’ option to the top of the question, “60 per cent of Australians clearly indicate a religious affiliation with the vast majority of those affirming Christian adherence”. “The atheists have clearly failed again in their attempt to kill off the important place that religion plays to a majority of Australians.”
Mr O’Doherty, who is the host of radio show Open House on Hope1032 and affiliated stations, added that the Census results tell “a story consistent with other research around this area: which is that the proportional representation of faiths is changing with the change in migration patterns, and that younger people are less likely to identify as religious”.
“To me, this shows what a powerful influence our secular culture is on younger people, and shows how important it is to live out our faith, continue to serve and love our communities, and never be afraid to tell the reason for our hope. Australians are open to Christianity especially when we properly and authentically live out the Jesus mandate.”
For more, see our feature on the Australian Census data.
