CAPÍTULO I: MARCO TEORICO
1.4 Objetivos de la investigación
1.4.2 Objetivos específicos
The major influence which has shaped contemporary Australian culture has been immigration, and for most of the last 200 years, the dominant influences have been European. The major flows of migrants were from England, Scotland, and Ireland in the 18th and 19th centuries. While there were many migrants who arrived in Australia from China, India, and the Pacific Islands in the 19th century, non-European peoples were not given the opportunity to develop social infrastructure or to play a role in the development of the government of the colony. Most were discouraged from staying in Australia and their numbers dwindled significantly in the early 20th century.
The immigrants from Europe brought with them their various traditions, beliefs, their skills in craft and farming, their education in European ways of thinking and their European ways of living. The dominant forms of Australian culture, as it currently exists, is an offshoot of European culture, planted by those immigrants. Each group brought with them their own version of Christianity. The Scottish brought the Presbyterian traditions
and the Irish the Catholic traditions. From England came the Anglican traditions, along with the Methodists, Congregationalists, Baptists, Brethren, and many other smaller Christian denominations.
Immigrants have continued to flow into Australia in the 20th and 21st centuries. There were huge numbers of migrants from many parts of Europe after World War II including many from other parts of Europe. Italians, Poles and many other Europeans added to the variety of cultures within the Catholic Church. Greeks, and many other Eastern Europeans, brought to Australia various forms of Eastern Orthodoxy. The Dutch brought the Reformed tradition to Australia.
Wars have continued to be a major push factor in immigration, including: • the Lebanese Civil War (1975 - 1990);
• the Vietnam War (1955 - 1975);
• the Sudanese Civil War (1955 - 1972; 1983 - 2005); • the Iraq War (2003 - present)
All of these wars have resulted in significant flows of immigrants into Australia since 1970 when the ‘White Australia’ policy was discontinued.
Other immigrants have come pulled by the opportunity for making a good living through higher paying jobs than they would find in their home countries or through new business opportunities. Among these immigrants have been hundreds of thousands of immigrants from China and India, particularly since 1985. The handover of Hong Kong by the British to Chinese authorities in 1997 was a push factor for many Chinese who migrated to Australia.
Every group of migrants has brought with them their particular religious traditions. The immigration from the Middle East and Asia, particularly since 1975 has seen the rapid growth of Buddhist, Islamic, Hindu, Sikh and Baha’i communities in Australia. They have formed significant faith communities in Australia and created the unique multi-faith society that Australia now is.
From all of these countries have also come communities of Christians. Antiochian Orthodox came from Lebanon, Catholics came from Vietnam, Mar Thoma and many other Christian groups have come from India, for example. Hence, they have also brought considerable cultural and linguistic plurality into the Christian denominations.
CRA’s analysis of the 2011 Census showed that the factor which had the most influence on the growth and decline of Christian denominations in the period 2001 to 2011 was the extent to which denominational numbers have been supplemented by immigrants (Hughes 2012b). If it was not for immigration between 2001 and 2011, the number of people identifying with Christian denominations in Australia would have declined by 3 per cent. In fact, the number rose by 3 per cent. Most of the growth of the Baptists, Catholics, Pentecostals, and Seventh-day Adventists, as well as the Coptic Orthodox and other oriental Christian groups, was due to immigration. If it was not for immigration, the decline in Anglican, Presbyterian, and Uniting Churches would have been greater than it was.
The CRA has calculated that twice as many recent immigrants attend religious services monthly or more often than do Australians born of Australian parents. Almost half of all people attending a church monthly or more often in Australia are immigrants or members of immigrant families (Hughes & Fraser 2014, p.117). Many immigrants form local
religious groups where their own language is spoken and where the values and customs of their homeland are honoured and celebrated. Other immigrants form sub-groups within Anglo congregations.
One on-going theme in CRA’s research has been the challenge for immigrant faith communities in how to relate to the second generation of immigrant families. While the first generation sees the communities as a place where their language, values and traditions can be preserved, some of their children who are seeking to find a place in the wider Australian community do not share these priorities. Hence, some leave the immigrant faith group. On the other hand, some children of these families do not feel comfortable in the wider Australian society and find refuge within these immigrant faith communities. Indeed, in some cases, they can develop a strong opposition to the values and attitudes in the wider community and find nurture for themselves in the immigrant faith community.
The evolving presence of many immigrant faith communities in Australia adds to the rich and complex nature of Australian society. It is a reminder of the fact that there is no one Australian culture, but a continually evolving weave of cultures, interacting with and influencing each other. Understanding the shape, development and interactions of immigrant cultures has been one of the major aspects of charting the faith of Australians.
The Development of a Post-Traditional Culture in Australia
The other major influence on Australian culture, and particularly on its religious profile, has been the cultural changes which have taken place internally. Prior to the 1933 Census, the percentage identifying as Christian had been about 96 per cent. In 1933, it dropped to about 86 per cent and stayed in that vicinity through to 1971. Since 1971, identity with a Christian denomination has fallen gradually and may well be below 60 per cent in the 2016 Census.Other surveys, such as the Australian Survey of Social Attitudes, remind one that the identity measured by the Census does not necessarily reflect how people think about their own religious faith. For some, the identity indicated on the Census form is a matter of heritage. When people were asked in the Australian Survey of Social Attitudes (2009) if they had a religion, just 55 per cent of adult Australians indicated that they had. The CRA has charted not only the decline in religious identity since 1971, but similar declines in belief in God and in religious practices such as attendance at church and personal prayer (Hughes 2010a). The Boomer generation began the rebellion in the 1960s and 1970s. Most of them had been to Sunday School, but they left the churches in droves and have never returned. Neither have their children or their grandchildren. Many of the Boomers’ parents, members of the Builder generation, are still attending churches, but their numbers are gradually diminishing because in 2016, those remaining were over 70 years of age. Many of the churches they have maintained are now being closed. It is likely that hundreds of small congregations of mainstream denominations (Anglican, Uniting, and Catholic) will be closed in the decade from 2015 to 2025. Among the exceptions are those where younger immigrant congregations have taken over the churches.
The CRA has reflected extensively over the years as to why this exodus has occurred. Many see it simply as the inevitable rise of secularisation and replacement of religious thinking by scientific thinking. However, that theory of secularisation does not readily fit the facts, particularly at a global level. If it was secularisation, why should decline in religious identity escalate so dramatically from 1971? The CRA’s research has pointed to
the fact that much of the space taken by the decline of religious practices and beliefs in Australia has been taken over by a more spiritualistic individuality which is far from the secularism that is so often referred to.
The rebellion against the churches and the Christian faith more generally was not the only rebellion which occurred in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Another rebellion was against marriage. Many people decided around that time that marriage was
unnecessary, beginning a trend in ‘de facto’ relationships. While many people do continue to get married, 9 per cent of the Australian adult population was living in a de facto relationships in 2011. Seventy-eight per cent of Australians who were married in 2012 lived in a de facto relationship prior to marriage (Hughes & Fraser 2014, p. 34).
A significant factor in this rebellion against marriage was a dramatic change in attitudes towards sexuality. Sex was seen as a pleasurable activity in its own right, whether it occurred within marriage or out of it. The widespread attitude that sexuality did not need to be confined to marriage emerged in the 1960s, partly because the contraceptive pill had begun available. The churches, however, opposed the new attitude and were seen by many as repositories of the old traditions. Since the 1990s, another area of dissent between the churches and the wider culture has been over the acceptability of homosexual relationships.
A parallel rebellion took the form of the Women’s Liberation movement. The expectations that women should not be involved in the work-force, that they should not pursue careers, that their role should be primarily in the home, was rejected by most Australian women in the 1970s. Again, the churches tended to be repositories of those attitudes which saw women as having different roles to men in home and society. One expression of this has been the desire of many people that women be welcomed equally into positions of leadership in churches. Some denominations have done this, but others have not. The relationship of gender to attitudes to religious faith has been close to the surface in several CRA studies, most notably one commissioned by the General Synod of the Anglican Church published as Working in the Anglican Church: Experiences of Female and Male Clergy.
Also, a continuing question has been the different levels of involvement in the church among men and women. Our research has identified the major factor in this as the different set of values, allied to the great divide in Australia between what has been described as the business and knowledge or ‘people oriented’ classes. Those whose lives are dominated by business, finance, manufacturing and the production of goods tend to be less interested in religious faith than those whose lives are dominated by the differences they are making in the lives of other people, such as through family, health and education. More men than women are involved in the former ‘business and production’ culture. Women, probably largely because of differences in their up-bringing, tend to be more oriented to the ‘people-oriented’ or knowledge culture, and found more support for those values in religious faith (Hughes et al. 2000).
There was also a dramatic change in attitudes towards drugs in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Why not enjoy the experiences that could come from marijuana or even cocaine and heroin? Churches have varied in their attitudes to alcohol. Many Protestant groups prohibited all use of alcohol but some of them have weakened their attitudes over recent decades. As in relation to sexuality, the churches were often seen by some as ‘kill-joys’. The 1970s saw a general rejection of many institutions. The policies of the Australian government were seen to have failed in relation to Vietnam. Service clubs such as Rotary and Lions found it more difficult to recruit members. The Freemasons declined rapidly.
Some political parties found it more difficult to get members. People were happy to be involved in events from time to time, but they were less willing than previous generations to be involved in institutions that demanded ongoing commitment and time and effort put into maintaining institutional structures.
The churches experienced significant decline partly, then, because they were seen as institutions which were demanding in terms of the time and effort needed to maintain them. They also experienced decline because they were seen as out-of-step with a ‘free sex’ society, with the idea that women could equally take positions of leadership and meaning in careers and with the rejection of other traditions such as marriage. In an early CRA research paper (Hughes 1994), the essence of the cultural change was described in terms of a change from seeing the world as a system, in which each individual had to abide by certain rules, to seeing the world as a maze, individuals had to personally negotiate. It was argued that this change in the way the world was seen led to new perceptions of religious faith. Older generations saw God as the One who maintained the system and set the rules. Worship was an acknowledgement of God’s control expressed through liturgical order. Younger generations saw God as One who walked with you through the maze of life. The essence of worship was seeking God’s help in negotiating the maze of life.
The cultural change did not occur by everyone changing their attitudes, values and behaviour. Rather, the new culture emerged among young people in the 1960s and 1970s who were different from their parents in many of the ways that they saw the world. This generation has often been referred to as the Boomer generation. While some social commentators have identified different characteristics of subsequent generations, the X, Y, and Millennial generations, in most respects the characteristics of the Boomer generation have continued.
In other words, since the 1960s, Australia has had two distinct cultures linked to different generations with roots in different historical contexts. The earlier of these cultures has been described as ‘traditional’ because of its valued traditions, while the later culture has been described as ‘post-traditional’ (Giddens 1994). The philosophical division between the two cultures has been referred to as ‘modern’ compared with ‘post-modern’ culture. The Lancaster researchers, Paul Heelas and Linda Woodhead have given another, although similar, account of this change arising from research in the United Kingdom (Heelas & Woodhead 2005). They have argued that prior to the Boomer generation, most human beings found meaning in fulfilling the duties which came with their birth and with their positions in home and society. Thus, fulfilment was found, for example, by most women in looking after their children and their homes well. Most men found their fulfilment by being good at providing the financial resources needed for their homes and their families. Other duties were associated with the ethnicity, social class, the political party and the religion into which one was born. Meaning came from living out those duties to the best of one’s ability.
However, in the 1960s and 1970s, Heelas and Woodhead argue, meaning began to be sought as personal fulfilment of what was seen as one’s unique potential as a human being. It became a more personal thing rather than a matter of duty. Hence, anything, such as tradition, which inhibited one’s attempt to find that fulfilment was seen as an obstacle to be discarded or overcome. Gender barriers to careers, for example, had to be removed, because these could be barriers to that personal fulfilment of one’s inner potential. Religion, too, was generally seen as promoting duty and tradition, and having little interest in individual personal fulfilment of one’s inner potential.
The result, however, has been a paradigmatic shift in the nature of how people find meaning in their lives in Australia, parts of northern Europe and the Anglophile world. For many, this has meant that religion is dismissed as part of an previous culture and now irrelevant. For some, it has been an adoption of the language of ‘spirituality’ which recognises the individual nature of the search for meaning rather than the language of ‘religion’ which continues to see meaning as deposited in institutions.
A large part of the work of the CRA has been describing this change and its outcomes in church and society. It has sought to help churches understand and address the challenges this cultural shift has raised. However, much more needs to be done if the churches are to connect with mainstream Australian culture. The trend has been for the churches to become increasingly marginalised.