Those of us who are within the Christian churches surely need to reckon with these results without minimising or excusing them. At one level,there has been for a long time a gap between stated religious affiliation and actual attendance.
For a large part of Australia’s history,since 1788,religion has been tribal as much as a matter of personal faith. If you were Irish or Italian,you were Catholic;if you were English,you were Church of England;if you were Scottish,you were Presbyterian;if you were Greek,you were Orthodox. You went with the customs and rituals of your tribe. You had a place to get married and buried,and school for your children with people like you.
Otherwise,many people didn’t think too much about their religion as a “faith”,as such. It was more a general system of values and virtues. To be Christian was to be moral,and vice versa.
What the 2021 census reveals is perhaps the widespread breaking of this tribal link. Fewer and fewer Australians identify with those tribal groupings. But it’s not just the case that the “nominals” have simply left a church they weren’t really attending.
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It is no longer the case that “to be Christian is to be moral”,for many Australians. Not that many people dispute the teachings of Jesus (who remains much admired),but the behaviour of the institutional church,especially over child sexual abuse,has meant that our moral authority has waned.
It is well known that this loss of trust has impacted institutions of all kinds,from political parties to newspapers to banks to sporting clubs to trade unions. We are simply less inclined to join these groups and less likely to go along with them. We are a more individualistic society (and more lonely with it).