BEHIND the bumper crowds that traditionally file into churches at Christmas is the realisation that growing secularism in Australia has put religion on notice.
Religious affiliation is falling along with church attendance. Old allegiances have faltered, with 2.85 million Australians rejecting religious belief between 1996 and 2001. In 1971, 7 per cent of Australians rejected any religion at all, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. By 2001 this had more than doubled to 16 per cent.
In 1933, about 90 per cent of Australians declared they were religious, falling to 80per cent in 1980, and again to 73 per cent in 2001. Of the three-quarters of Australians who claim a religious affiliation, the number who go to a church, temple, mosque or synagogue regularly fails to reflect this. Christian observance has declined the most, down from 20 per cent to 7 per cent between 1996 and 2001.
Reasons for the decline have been attributed to everything from the growing reliability on new technology to terrorism. Deep divisions within the establishment churches on sharing power and sex roles have also caused casualties, as have the scandals of pedophilia and child abuse. Despite the battle to make Christmas more religious and less commercial, evidence for a Christian revival is meagre, and confronting this problem is proving to be the 21st-century battle for Australian Christians.
Sydney's Anglican Archbishop Peter Jensen judges secularism to be "pitifully ill-equipped to assess truth and meaning, though non-Christian spiritualities seem to be more attractive than Christ".
Paul Stenhouse, editor of Annals, a leading national Catholic journal, agrees that falling mass attendance throughout the year is "a cause for concern". "However, this is more a reflection of the pace and pressures of modern living and extent of the intrusion of secularism into most aspects of our lives -- especially our free time -- than credible evidence of widespread disillusionment with the basic Christian message and its relevance to our world," he says.
With an increasing trust in new technology, many Australians have developed a reliance on material improvement as the gauge of their success. The mobile phone has replaced the sign of the cross or the rosary beads.
If the 19th century equated churchgoing with respectability, the wars of the 20th and 21st centuries have led to disillusionment. The outbreak of terrorism, ongoing war and famine suggest a God who is ineffectual or indifferent. Science continues to threaten the integrity of the Bible and sometimes the response is a trendy liberalism from the pulpit selecting what seems palatable in New Testament teaching. But this has failed to satisfy in an age of increasing uncertainty, leaving churchgoers feeling short-changed.
Traditional practices such as marriage, baptism and Christian burial are being replaced by secular ceremonies by civil celebrants. Other indicators of a post-Christian Australia are found in bookshops, where the religion section is usually paltry. New Age and the occult find a more substantial presence than religion, with the exceptions being books by Barbara Thiering and Bishop John Shelby Spong, which gain enviable sales by questioning traditional Christian beliefs.
Nor are worshippers rusted on to one religion any more, with a growing number of Christians practising church-hopping like changing TV channels. There is a fluid market between those who offer a Bible-believing moral ground-plan and those who prefer a more permissive, liberal and less demanding conviction.
Perhaps the greatest symptom of division among Christians is over human sexuality -- abortion, euthanasia, gay ordination, same-sex marriage and inclusive language. The Uniting Church, with just less than 7 per cent of the population, has faced constant discord on these unresolved issues.
Among Catholics, there is tension between those who respect the magisterium, the teaching authority of the church, and those who want streamlined dogma. Restoration of individual confession is proving problematical and mass attendance is down by 13 per cent.
The priest shortage has reached a nadir, with so few seminarians that the shortfall cannot be met. The shortage, however, has encouraged greater lay participation in church policy-making and, in some places, rebellion.
The role of women and female ordination are issues that refuse to be silenced. The Catholic Church has other internal problems. With Sydney Archbishop and Cardinal George Pell the pre-eminent figure, the Catholic system of solidarity with the Pope gives an appearance of unity that is belied by the jealousies and varieties of interpretation dividing Catholics.
The cardinal, however, is pragmatic. The decline in priest numbers has imposed a new strategy on the church. Parishes face rationalisation, with the services of each priest expanded. Pell's resilience and pastoral friendliness are winning support among what was a depressed and restive laity, resulting in Catholic identity rising in Australia. From being the dominant Christian body, Anglicans have been overtaken by Catholics, 27 per cent to 21 per cent. Jensen angered the Anglican Primate, Peter Carnley by saying Australian Anglicanism had a shelf life of about 20 or 30 years. Ample evidence supports this view, as most Anglicans continue to resist change, struggling to maintain little-used property and bureaucracies serving a diminishing constituency. Parishes that once attracted hundreds now find 50 or 60 acceptable. To be viable, a parish needs a budget of at least $70,000 to retain a priest. Many of the clergy spend much of their time simply raising their own stipend. Yet with their non-taxable perks, the clergy are better off than many suggest.
The Orthodox churches, accounting for 2.8 per cent of the population, were once considered idiosyncratic rather than a viable Christian presence. But they have real substance in Australian society.
Australian-born candidates for the ministry, trained locally at St Andrew's Theological College, ensure a stable ministry for the future. With a greater sense of community than many other churches, the old languages used in the liturgy remain, but English is used in many places to retain the adherence of younger people.
Greek Orthodox Archbishop Stylianos became an Australian citizen at the first opportunity, and his resilient church shows that tradition and hierarchy, when faithfully retained, need not be an obstacle to a vibrant laity. Stylianos says: "The role of the church, especially at Christmas, is to recall that God became flesh in human history to make all human beings one family."
Of course, one of the admired factors in Australian religious practice is the general tolerance to difference. Whether the strains of political Islam will adversely affect this, and the attribution of terrorist acts to fanatical Muslims fire up old prejudices, has yet to be seen.
Interest in religious questions remains high, though claims to be the fastest growing faith are often illusory. Statistically, Buddhism increased by 80 per cent between 1996 and 2001, and Hinduism and Islam by about 40 per cent -- mostly due to migrant influx. Converts to Islam find a sense of community that many churches have lost. If Judaism seems static, it is because Jews believe their role is to prepare for the Messianic Age, which will benefit all mankind. They account for only 0.4 per cent of the population.
The most successful Christian bodies are the least structured. With a typical Australian rejection of formalism, freewheeling worship has the greatest appeal. Pentecostal outreach churches have grown spectacularly, though Sydney's Hillsong Church, the most phenomenal, seems to purvey a gospel of prosperity and promises of financial reward for doing God's will.
"We certainly have not yet arrived but I believe God is entrusting us with heightened influence," says Hillsong pastor Bobbie Houston. "Secular Australia may not fully comprehend the God factor happening across this sunburnt land but they cannot deny that something is happening."
The Assemblies of God, which stood behind Family First in the October federal election, reveal pastoral opportunism and effective analysis of the increasing anxiety of Australians about a moral malaise. Politicians with religious convictions have begun to smudge the divisions between church and state, though they would be quick to deny any attempt to abrogate the Constitution, which prohibits the setting up of a state religion.
The Pentecostal movement rejects the establishment of big church buildings and equipment, developing congregations that are family-friendly and appeal to young married couples in a way mainstream churches fail to do.
The signs of the times, however, are evident in the determination of Sydney Anglicans to change from an Anglo-Saxon enclave into a more reactive body. Jensen challenged his synod to "become even more Australian" by embracing migrant and Aboriginal cultures. The Sydney diocese has registered 11 per cent growth, where most other dioceses reveal an annual fall of more than 2 per cent, and rural dioceses as much as 20 per cent.
His formula is simple. "The search for God should begin with what Jesus said and did," he says. "Christians must speak boldly and persuasively about the biblical Jesus or the opportunity to influence this generation will pass. Individualism, avarice and sexual liberty have created spiritual emptiness and pain. Our adolescents have been called 'spiritual anorexics'. Consequently and rightly, religion is again on the agenda."