{"id":2653,"date":"2012-02-16T13:10:30","date_gmt":"2012-02-16T02:10:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stumblingpast.wordpress.com\/?p=2653"},"modified":"2022-08-04T00:25:13","modified_gmt":"2022-08-04T00:25:13","slug":"religion-is-not-dead-and-neither-is-secularism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stumblingpast.com\/2012\/02\/16\/religion-is-not-dead-and-neither-is-secularism\/","title":{"rendered":"Religion is not Dead – and Neither is Secularism"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Buddhist<\/a>
This Buddhist Temple in suburban Sydney was first opened in 1992 and rebuilt in 2000.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

At the start of each meeting of the Bideford Council in England a guest minister of religion led the council members in saying prayers. \u00a0This practice had occurred for many years but in January 2008 Mr Bone, a newly elected councillor, objected to it. \u00a0Mr Bone was not Christian and he did not want to be involved with this religious practice.\u00a0\u00a0After various unsuccessful attempts to amend the Council’s practice, the issue came before the courts. \u00a0Last week the High Court of England and Wales rejected the claim that the practice contravened the Mr Bone’s human rights or discriminated against him under the relevant laws of the United Kingdom and Europe.\u00a0 However, the judge ruled<\/a> that the saying of prayers as part of the formal proceedings at council meetings could not continue.\u00a0 This decision may be appealed.<\/p>\n

For most of the twentieth century it was widely accepted by western scholars that modernisation would lead to the disappearance of religion.\u00a0 The ‘secularisation thesis’ became a fact in the academic world. \u00a0Most scholars accepted it unquestioningly and it became a largely unacknowledged assumption underlying research in the humanities. \u00a0However, towards the end of the twentieth century researchers noticed that religion had not disappeared.<\/p>\n

Surely if the secularisation thesis was correct religion would have faded away by this time?\u00a0 Yet young Catholics flock to World Youth Day, evangelical movements continue to thrive and churches are still crowded at important times for Christianity such as Easter and Christmas. \u00a0Christianity is not the only religion of influence in the west. \u00a0Islam is a growing presence in many western countries as is Buddhism and ‘New Age’ beliefs. \u00a0Having said this, it is also important to recognise the influence of those who do not believe in God or are ambivalent as well as the fact that many western nations are clearly more secular than they were two hundred years ago. \u00a0Clearly the historic processes that have been at play are more complex than the secularisation thesis suggests.<\/p>\n

I am interested in cases such as the saying of prayers at Bideford Council as much of my research has focussed on the interaction between people of different beliefs in Australian history and the growing secularisation of public life. \u00a0While Australia has been predominately Christian since the years after the British first settled here, there have always been believers from different religions who call Australia home. \u00a0Aborigines continued to live on this continent, Jews, Muslims and Chinese brought their religious beliefs to these shores, and some Australians did not subscribe to any religious belief at all. \u00a0Even among the Christian believers there were a variety of religious perspectives represented in the population. Anglicans, Catholics, Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans and other churches were represented in the Australian colonies. \u00a0The religious differences between the Christian churches were regarded as important for much of Australia’s history after European settlement.<\/p>\n

Currently I am examining Victoria’s Royal Readers of the late 1870s and 1880s.\u00a0 As I explained in an earlier blog post<\/a>, these readers were edited, in part, to make Victorian schools places where Catholics and Jews would feel comfortable to send their children.\u00a0 For my honours thesis I researched Queensland’s ‘Bible in State Schools’ Referendum of 1910<\/a>.\u00a0 This referendum was held and passed as a result of a protracted campaign by church leaders and Christians who were concerned that religious education had been removed from the curriculum in the wake of Queensland’s \u00a0education act of 1874. \u00a0Both the editing of the Victorian school books and the referendum in Queensland stemmed from the adoption of ‘free, compulsory and secular’ education acts in those states during the 1870s. \u00a0Politicians during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries faced a delicate task to create an education system that included all children, irrespective of their beliefs, but one that was also acceptable to the majority of the voters.<\/p>\n

Education was not the only issue relating to religion and the emergence of the secular state that concerned colonial political leaders during the nineteenth century. \u00a0When the Australian constitution was drafted at the end of the nineteenth century the following section was included:<\/p>\n

The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth.<\/p>\n

s. 116, Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Currently this section is being examined by the High Court of Australia in a case about whether the Federal Government funding of the school chaplaincy program contravenes the constitution.\u00a0 Some states have also joined this case, arguing that the Federal Government does not have the power to directly fund an education program.\u00a0 Rather, they argue, the Federal Government can only fund such programs if they give the funding to the state governments who can then fund it.\u00a0 Thus two significant issues are being examined in this case – ‘separation of religion and state’ in Australia and ‘state rights’.\u00a0 This\u00a0ABC World Today<\/a>\u00a0program gives an overview of the issues.\u00a0 Submissions and hearings before the High Court can be read\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In my research I am not interested in determining whose point of view is correct. \u00a0What interests me is how Australians of different beliefs interacted with one another. \u00a0While I realise that those who do not believe in God or don’t know God exists may object to their views being described as a belief, I include their views in the category ‘belief’ for want of a better word. It is important that their position is included in a discussion of the role of religion in society. \u00a0Through this research I hope to gain a more nuanced perspective on the process of secularisation.<\/p>\n

What I have learned thus far is that belief has impacted many aspects of our public life. \u00a0In many cases the effect is subtle and we don’t notice it, in other cases it becomes the subject of controversy. \u00a0These issues need concerted effort by everyone to negotiate and seek to achieve what is not only fair to ourselves but also fair to others in our society. \u00a0The difficulty is in determining what is fair and recognising that was fair at one point in history may not be fair now.<\/p>\n

Further Reading<\/h3>\n