Nominalism in the Australian Protestant Church

1. Defining religious nominalism.

We start by exploring the concept of nominalism in the religious context, and how such a philosophical doctrine has traditionally been measured. The major starting point in this research has been the work on nominalism by Philip Hughes, head of the Christian Research Association.

2. What does the research state?

This chapter takes a statistical overview of various surveys and census data that help build a picture of nominalism in Australia. With this information being sourced from four different institutional groupings within Australia, any institutional bias has been minimised.

3. What does history and sociology say?

Throughout the course of history, religious nominalism has been part of the Australian psyche. As a sociological concept, issues such as institutionalisation and secularisation will have a strong impact on the way in which Australians describe their religiosity.

4. Developing a new understanding.

If human faith is a universal characteristic within human existence, and the existence of institutions is a sociological necessity by the way in which they constitute our models for growth, development and morality, then there will be some tendency to be drawn towards various religious institutions. This is likely to occur to some degree regardless of any strict adherence to the credal or ethical statements of such an institution. Nominalism is also affected by the conduct of the particular religious institution.

 

Appendix A

Christian, Non-Christian, no religion and religion not stated as a percentage of total census population 1901-1996.

Appendix B

1996 Census results - Question 10 Religious Affiliation

Appendix C

How Australians use their time as percentages of day, 1993

Bibliographic Information

Synopsis

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Synopsis

Nominalism in its Christian context is a situation where a person claims to belong to a particular denomination but whose claim is questioned by the religious elite as not being representative of their underlying faith structure. Most work on this subject has focussed on attendance as the sole criteria. However, any labelling of an individual as nominal requires a multi-dimensional examination of their religiosity, both public and private.

While current research has supported Hughes' model of attendance related nominalism within the Australian Protestant context, Glock and Stark's model of religiosity causes us to re-examine the figures for instances of regular attenders who are not religious, and non attenders who are religious.

Nominalism has been present throughout Australian history. Classical sociology fails to explain why people continue to claim adherence to denominations regardless of their underlying religious nature, especially given that the institutional church is regarded as little more than a moral policeman in Australia.

However, given the universal nature of human faith, individuals will always be drawn to some type of institution to develop and nurture this faith. Nominalism occurs when either the individual's needs are not met by the institution, or institutional expectations are not fulfilled by the individual.

 

 

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