2. What does the research state?
Even when we describe Australia as a ‘Christian country’ (reflecting the way 69 percent of the population describe themselves on a census form), this masks some intriguing complexity: church attendance has plummeted to an all-time low, there are more than twice as many Muslims as Jews living in Australia, and our fastest growing religion is Buddhism.
Hugh Mackay
Generations1
Records on matters of religion have been kept in Australia from the time of Australia’s first chaplain, Rev. Richard Johnson. I will focus on four sources of statistics to build up a picture of denominational nominalism within Australia. The advantage of using these four different sources is that each one represents the research of a different type of group within society. These sources cover a nationwide census, a Christian in-house survey, a governmental department investigation and research undertaken as part of a university’s research program. It is my hope that this methodological approach will provide a picture in which any institutional bias is negated by the results of the other surveys.
The major source of denominational information in Australia has historically been ascertained through data collected in the official census. A question concerning religious affiliation has been part of the questionnaire since the first official census in 1828. The question became optional in 1861, though the public were not informed that it was no longer a penalty not to state their religious denomination until the 1933 census on which the numbers not stating jumped by nearly tenfold.2 A similar sized increase occurred in ‘no religion’ category in 1971 when the statement ‘if no religion write ‘none’’ was inserted into the census.3 In 1991, the form changed from a write in response to a tick-box response for the most commonly reported religious groups and a write in for the remainder.4 It is likely that this change accounted for much of the increased share of the seven top denominations, which increased by 3.32% of the general population, while the overall numbers claiming a denominational attachment reversed historical downward trends increasing by 1.05%. As such, the ABS census is an ideal tool in this research project. By providing a range of denominational options and the opportunity of declaring non-affiliation, the need to opt for a denominational category by default is greatly reduced. Therefore, we can state that those who claim a specific denomination do so intentionally, and not out of a need to provide an answer that fits the options given by the surveyor.
In 1991, a partnership between the Uniting Church Board of Mission and the Anglican Diocese of Sydney through its Home Mission Society witnessed the development of the National Church Life Survey. This survey was conducted in 1991 and again in 1996 by sampling attenders at weekend church services. The 1996 survey involved 6,600 congregations from 23 different denominations. A total of over 312,000 church attenders provided responses to survey questions. In order to maximise the effectiveness of the survey, 22 different surveys encompassing a total of around 1000 questions were randomly distributed among participating denominations.5 The benefit in using this survey is that it provides a snapshot of religious activity within the Christian church. We can discover with a very large degree of accuracy who was involved in church activities and which specific denomination they belong to.
A perceived disadvantage for this subject is that its approach involved only surveying those who were actually in church. However, we would expect that some non attenders who are usually absent would have been picked up by the survey. Further, if religiosity were multi dimensional, then we would expect to discover some significant variance in the different measures of religious commitment.6 This may result is some people who are present in church actually being regarded as nominal by the denominations in that their attendance does not reflect their underlying reality.
My third source of information was the National Social Science Survey of 1993 (NSSS). This survey, conducted by the Australian National University, involved a random sample of 2200 individuals. Within the survey, there were two pages of questions commissioned by the Christian Research Association designed to gain an understanding of the way in which people related to religion in Australian society.
The final survey to be used in my examination of nominalism was undertaken by the Office of Multicultural Affairs entitled ‘Issues in Multicultural Australia 1988.’ This information will allow us to understand the way in which migrant communities interact with religious organisations, and how this relationship changes over time as migrants settle into their new homeland.
A drawback with the use of census figures and sample surveys is that respondents show some tendencies to answer questions the way they feel they ought to answer, rather than answering in a manner that is accurate and objective. Further, the respondent’s understanding of the survey question may differ to the surveyor’s intended meaning. Kaldor suggests that these types of surveys tend to overestimate the actual connection to a denomination as the social desirability of church attendance may prompt respondents to state their ideal church attendance rather than actual attendance despite non-attendance being the social norm.7 It may be that in the participation of surveys, respondents tend to work within the context of an underlying worldview that regards Australia as still being a ‘Christian Country’, and that they in some way should reflect this perceived reality.
It is my firm belief that such statistical skews exist throughout the range of questions on religious beliefs and practices. If people report that they attend more than they do, then it is quite possible that they might report for example that they pray more than they do in reality, or have more spiritual experiences than they actually do. Even claims along the line that 'interest in things spiritual has not decreased' may be based on research influenced by this social desirability factor. Unless the question relates to a dimension that is measurable in an objective manner, the results will be open to such skewing.
Question ten of the 1996 Australian Bureau of Statistics Census of Population and Housing asked ‘What is the person’s religious denomination?’ stating that answering the question was optional, and that if the person had no religion, they were to mark the last box. The following options were given in the survey; Catholic, Anglican (Church of England), Uniting Church, Presbyterian, Greek Orthodox, Baptist, Lutheran, ‘Other - please specify’, and ‘No religion’.8
The results from that census discovered that out of a total Australian population of 17,752,829 people, 12,582,764 people (70.88%) specifically identified themselves with one Christian denomination or another.9 This figure includes groups that tend not to be included in the more orthodox (or Christian in-house) analysis, such as Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Church of Latter Day Saints. A total of 1,550,585 respondents chose not to answer the question (8.73%) while 2,948,888 people (16.61%) were specifically recorded as having no religion. Other religions counted for 616,428 people (3.47%), and the bureau was unable to classify the answers for 54,164 respondents, which we can consider an error factor of 0.31%.
It is with the Christian figures that I am concerned. These figures give us a statistical picture of ‘denominational labelling’ within the Australian population. Orthodox thinking on this matter suggests that when a person indicates membership to a denomination that it is indicative of the context and tradition in which their personal religious experiences are expressed. The denomination will achieve this by the provision of associational and cultural ties, and by linking people together with a common cultural heritage.10 However, the issue of nominalism is one where denominational labelling is not considered to be representative of the underlying reality. Denominational labelling has always been recorded at levels that suggest that most people belong to a Christian Church. It may be that these figures represent no more than a preference for what some clergy refer to as ‘future funeral arrangements’. While these figures tell us how many people consider themselves as belonging to each denomination in the Australian population, they do not tell us how many people are considered to be members by the denominations themselves, or what their levels or participation within that denomination are. Therefore, we can say that there is a high degree of subjectivity in the responses given. The figures are representative of personal perceptions which may or may not have a reasonable material basis behind them. The fact that such subjectivity is almost encouraged by the question makes it an ideal tool for research on nominalism in that for a person to be described in a nominal manner, the categories that are utilised must have no objective basis in reality.
Interestingly, there is an aspect in which census figures do not record some members of society who actively belong to a denomination. There are some people who choose not to answer such questions specifically in order to hide their denominational labelling. The reasons behind such behaviour may be religious, or just a desire for anonymity.11 Meanwhile, some within society have stopped allocating a denomination for their children in order not to ‘make their mind up for them’. One could speculate that this activity could be taken up by either sections of Liberal Christianity who like to avoid distinct boundaries or those who take their status as nominal Christians seriously.
The Australian National Church Life Survey of 1996 suggested that the physical association with a Christian denomination as reported by the denominations themselves was much lower than these ABS census figures would suggest. This proposal was based on the average weekend participation in a service of worship. The survey made an approximation based on the number and type of congregations that they sampled, and suggested that approximately 1.4 million people partook in church life on a typical weekend, while around 2.8 million attended a service of worship at least once a month.12 Out of those who actually attended on the sample weekend, 5% reported that they never or hardly ever attended worship services and a further 2% reported that they attended less than once a month.13
An important function of the local church is to provide a place where people can gain a sense of belonging. The NCLS survey sought to measure this by asking ‘do you have a strong sense of belonging to this congregation?’ The options given for the question were 1. Yes, a strong sense of ‘belonging’ that is growing, 2. Yes, about the same as last year, 3. Yes, although perhaps not as strongly as in the past, 4. No, but I am new here, 5. No, and I wish I did by now, 6. No, but I am happy to stay on the fringe, and 7. Don’t know/not applicable.
Measuring the sense of belonging that attenders felt towards their congregation will give a likely indicator of potential nominalism under Hiebert’s centered set theory. We can say that those who have a strong sense of belonging relate well to the centre, while those whose sense of belonging is weak may be either facing away from the centre or moving away from religious commitment. The survey reported that 8% had a declining sense of belonging, while a further 9% stated that they had no sense of belonging, and were happy to remain on the fringe of the community. A further 3% did not have a sense of belonging but desired to have this sense.14 The implication of this under the centred set theory is that the 3% that were on the outer but facing towards the centre should not be regarded as nominal. Meanwhile, the remaining 17% of attenders that were either moving away from the centre or did not wish to be part of the group suggest that they might be regarded as being in some way nominal despite their attendance. Those 5% who recorded no real sense of belonging due to their recent arrival in the group are not considered nominal under either centered theory or transitional theory, though they may be regarded as nominal under the exclusiveness model in that they may not have completely fulfilled membership requirements at the time of the survey.
One possible method of calculating the incidence of nominalism is to compare the denominational labelling from the census with the estimated weekend attendance figures obtained from the NCLS. Hughes calculates that if attendance on a less than once a month basis renders a person as nominal, then the population of nominal Christians in Australia would be about 7 million, or about 50% of the adult population.15
Is this a fair statement given that Hughes’ assertion is based on only one of Glock and Stark’s five major dimensions for the measurement of religiosity? When we attempt to measure an individuals personal religiosity, we are doing so in an attempt to prove that they either are religious or non-religious. We seek indicators that point to that person’s underlying character. However, nominality is not the equivalent of failing the religiosity test. One is not either religious or nominal. A basic requirement to nominality is that the people intentionally describe themselves as being attached to a denomination. Therefore, those who describe themselves as belonging to a denomination fulfil the first major requirement for nominalism. As 70% of the population claims such an attachment in a society where the regular Christian church attendance is undertaken by a minority within the population, this would seem to act as a reasonable indicator of nominalism.
One of the most striking elements of Australian Christianity that the NCLS discovered in their first survey was the degree of switching between denominations and overall decline in denominational loyalty. People were more likely to go to where they were comfortable and felt catered for, rather than their denomination of birth/conversion. Denominational affiliation had in large part been replaced by a ‘Protestant Supermarket.’16 This was particularly true for those under 40, with only 15% viewing loyalty to one denomination for life to be important compared to 38% for those over 60. This leads Kaldor to suggest that many people with active commitments have ‘no great sense that a nominal membership of a particular denomination should have an overriding claim on their affections and loyalties.’17 If we contrast this with the way in which denominational labelling has remained around the 70% mark since the census question changes of 1971, it may be implied that denominational labels may actually be more important to nominals rather than attenders. Nominals are more likely to say ‘I am Church of England’ while attenders appear more likely to say ‘Currently I am attending x church.’
The NCLS also sought to explore attenders’ experience of God, their devotional practices and how their faith affected their lives, actions and values. This helps measure several of the religiosity dimensions in order to discover nominality within the church pews. A drawback in the use of these figures for analysis is the possible existence of a strong group desirability skew, as much of each congregation’s results were made available to that congregation for analysis and future planning. The 1991 survey found that in regards to subjective experiences of God, 8% recorded no moment of decisive faith commitment while 22% recorded that they either had no experience of the presence of God or were unsure. When it came to personal devotion, 6% regard personal prayer as being unimportant to their lives, and 9% replied that they hardly ever read the Bible on their own. When it comes to value based actions in daily life, 8% found that their faith and church involvement did not help them much in their home life, while only 3% regarded their faith as having no impact on priority management or lifestyle choices.18 From this we can say that there exists a degree of nominalism within church attenders. While they may attend, they do not necessarily rate highly on the other four measures of religiosity.
The 1993 NSSS enables a broader examination of nominalism within the Australian Protestant Church. This survey covered the views of a random sample within the Australian population, and as such ought to reflect the beliefs and values of the population as a whole, rather than that of a specifically targeted sub-group within society, as in the NCLS surveys.
From this survey, it was possible to group Australian society into three major categories on dual basis of church attendance and their general religiosity. ‘Attenders’ accounted for those who attended services at least once a month, and accounted for 22% of the survey population, ‘Religious non-attenders’ made up 29%. Those regarded as ‘Non-religious’ were the largest group in the survey at 42%. The final 7% were placed in an ‘others’ category for those who did not respond to the questions on religion.19 It is at least statistically possible to form another group that contains non-religious attenders, but such figures were not made available from the survey.
How does the size of these groups match up with Hughes’ analysis? The ‘attenders’ figures line up reasonably well with Hughes’ figure of 20% attending at least once a month. The slightly higher rate could be explained by factoring in a percentage of the ‘other religion’ population as active participants in their own religious practices. A perfect statistic fit would be made if just over 50% of other religion adherents attended at least once a month. Though the other figures do not seem to line up with Hughes’ categories, a closer examination will bring together the two sets of data in a way that we can state that the National Social Science Survey, the ABS figures, and the NCLS data all line up with very similar results. This means that the attitudes found in the smaller Social Science survey can be said to be representative of the general population with a high degree of accuracy.
The actual numbers of non-religious attenders within the NSSS others category was not disclosed, though a comparison with the 9% non response rate in the 1996 ABS data would suggest that a majority within the others category did not respond to questions on religion. The 29% of religious non-attenders is significantly less than Hughes’ calculation based on those claiming a religious affiliation but who failed to turn up in church statistics of around 50%. Conversely, the 42% classified as non-religious is substantially greater than the 16.5% who claimed having no religion in the census.
It could be said that the error in such analysis is that membership within the non-religious category does not equate with having no religion. Rather, it signifies that the person considers that religion plays a minor role in the construction of their personal identity. The NSSS found that only 9% of this group considered that religion played any part in their sense of personal identity. Despite this, the survey found that 47% of this group allocated themselves to a denomination.20 This represents approximately 19.7% of the general population. Anglicanism is the by far the strongest denomination in this category. They represented 23% of all non-religious, ahead of Catholicism with 8%. Though these people do not regard themselves as religious, they seek to maintain a denominational affiliation for one reason or another. We could say that this sub group forms part of our religiously nominal group, in that by their own admission, they claim that they are in some way associated with a denomination without any religious attachment to that denomination. The remaining 53% of non-religious, or 22.2% of the population falls happily into the no religion, inadequately described, and stated categories that count for 25.45% of the population.
Further, it is not necessarily correct to include everyone in the religious non-attenders category as being nominal under our framework. The research with which we work is denominationally based. That is, when examining our data, we class a nominal person as one who claims membership to a denomination without some type of adherence to the membership guidelines of that denomination. The problem here is that 11% of religious non-attenders, or 3.2% of the general population, do not actually identify themselves with a Christian denomination.21 Their general survey answers suggest that they have some sense of being religious, but they do not claim a denominational label as part of their personal identity. These people could show up in several places within the ABS census data. If they were to write ‘Christian’ as their denomination, they would be categorised as ‘Christian, no fixed denomination (n.f.d.)’. While this category does find its way into our 1996 census/NCLS nominality calculation, it only accounts for 1.04% of the general population. This would mean that the approximate 385,000 people remaining in this category would either be recorded as having not answered the question, or having answered the question in a manner that is considered to be inadequately described. We would not expect that large numbers within this group would have entered no-religion, as the NSSS already accounts by and large for the no religion category. Our exception here would be the sub-category within no religion of ‘no religion n.f.d.’. Despite the ‘inadequately described’ category including ‘religious belief, n.f.d.’, it only accounted for 54,164 respondents. It would seem that most of the remaining 330,000 would have not answered the question.
Given the acknowledged presence of a strong social desirability factor within the survey responses in regards to church attendance,22 it could be that the data in the religious non attenders category came from sections of the community who are slightly more honest with themselves. This group scored well on a range of religious items, though interestingly the 12% of those with a level of tertiary education within this group was considerably lower than that of the other two groups which both recorded around 19%. The general level of class difference between groups was reported as being small, though there were more working class in the religious categories than the non-religious.
Many of the religious non-attenders affirmed orthodox Christian beliefs, though they displayed lower degrees of certainty about such beliefs. However, affirmation of credal beliefs tells us comparatively little about what is important to the individual. While this group had the sense that religion was something that they could draw a degree of comfort and strength from, only 9% of the group reported that religion made a significant contribution to their sense of identity. Rather, they tend to believe that religion primarily exists as a framework of general values on which they could base their lives.23 It also appeared that levels of attendance and to a lesser sense general religiosity decreased as a response to increased participation in the workforce. This was particularly true for females, who have traditionally used church structures to construct their social networks.
It is of note that within the non-religious group, 93% consider themselves as having been brought up with a denominational label. Anglicanism accounts for a majority of this labelling, accounting for 42% of the group; nearly double of the next denomination. However, half of these individuals no longer label themselves. Only 47% of this group maintain any denominational label.24
Given that Australia is a nation of immigrants, an understanding of the way in which newly arrived migrants relate to aspects of Australian society will help in our understanding of nominalism in Australia. We are able to explore the way in which migrants view religion and religious organisations on their arrival in Australia, and trace how these views change over time. These groups that make contact with migrants may be either mainline Christian, ethnic based Christian, or any other of the world’s religions.
It may be that the way in which migrants as ethnic groupings often interact with these groups can give us a microcosm of society as a whole, and provide clues as to the origins of nominal behaviour. If newly arriving migrants utilise the social structures provided by religious institutions, we can say that these institutions represent forms of behaviour that have come to be accepted as a legitimate role of religion within Australian society. In the provision of such orientation services, the institutions then legitimise their role amongst the new sections of society. As the levels of those within the Australian community who were born overseas increases, the proportion of those who came into contact with religious groups as part of their arrival process increases. If religious groups have played an important part on arrival, it will come to be accepted that this is an important aspect to how religion functions in Australia.
We can say that generally, immigrants do not come to Australia in religious groups. There were some exceptions, the major ones being the South Australian Lutheran community and some groups escaping Communist regimes post Second World War. Bouma finds that immigrants tend to establish themselves into various religious communities on arrival.25 However, the way in which migrant communities interact with such groups undergoes a large degree of change over time. The clearest example of this can be seen in the way second generation immigrants construct their social patterns.
This was demonstrated in the 1988 survey undertaken by the Office of Multicultural Affairs entitled ‘Issues in Multicultural Australia 1988’ which indicated a distinct pattern in religious adherence within the migrant community. Out of those who had migrated within the last 10 years, 10% nominated a religious group as the organisation with which they were most involved in, while a further 10% claimed that religious organisations were their second most important community group. These levels are twice those of the general population. However, immigrants who had been in Australia for more than 10 years, placed a lower emphasis on involvement within a religious organisation than that of the general population. Only 9% claimed that their top two organisations that they were involved in were religious groups. The figure for second generation immigrants was even less, with under 4% claiming that a religious group was their primary social group involvement, and a similar figure for the second most important group involvement.26 These figures suggest that nominalism may increase among migrants as they establish themselves in Australia.
From this survey, we can make some conclusions about the role of religious organisations in the lives of migrants. Religious organisations play a very significant role as a stabilising factor during the period in which migrants adjust to their new country. They provide a framework for social contact, a link with their culture and homeland, and a degree of practical assistance during the transition into Australian life. Some religious groups have departments dedicated to serving newly arrived immigrants. However, migrants who have been in Australia more than ten years, and second generation migrants tend to be less involved in religious groups. We can say that these groups display higher levels of nominalism. Bentley finds that these groups end up ‘half way between ethnic churches and other churches, they fit comfortably into neither.’27 From this survey we can suggest that nominalism increases among immigrants as they become established in their new country. The question raised by this 1988 survey is whether this pattern is in some way normative to the lives of people throughout Australian history as they settle in Australia. It would appear that such patterns are not new. In Australia’s immediate post war period, British and European migrants were met by members of their respective denominations on arrival. They were provided with a level of support that enabled a smooth transition into Australian life. As such, many joined churches as a way to make ties with their new country.28 I believe that this period was highly influential in setting the tone for both the conduct of religious organisations in their relationship with newly arriving Australians, and the way in which these immigrants drift into nominality after a successful integration aided by these institutions.
This brief overview of recent statistics enables us to make some statements regarding nominalism within the Australian Protestant community. They firstly tell us than nominalism is not a recent phenomenon. ABS figures have always been higher than the experience of church attendance. However, using Glock and Stark’s multi dimensional approach to religiosity, some who are not at church at least once a month may still be sufficiently religious to not be regarded as nominal within some religious traditions. Further, some who are in church are not overly religious, suggesting that they may be nominal despite their physical attendance.
When we compare the NSSS data with Hughes’ calculation of nominalism, we can state that the NSSS figures prove to a reasonable degree of accuracy Hughes’ calculation. It also confirms that the NSSS is representative of its parent population. However, an examination of the statistics allows for a more in depth definition of nominalism than that used by Hughes. Using the NSSS categories, nominalism can be understood as religious non-attenders that claim a denominational affiliation plus non-religious who claim a denomination. This gives us 51% of the NSSS population as being nominal; the same figures that Hughes arrives at using the NCLS and the ABS census in his 1998 paper.
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