Lacey Herchek on Easter in Australia

By: Lacey Herchek

April 14, 2010

Having just celebrated Easter, religion is a fitting topic for this JYAN reflection. For the first time ever, I did not spend this holiday in a church, but instead was on a Fiji-bound plane. I was able to travel on this holy day because public universities in Australia get a week off for Easter. This vacation struck me as somewhat surprising given the country's secular tendencies, though the majority of Australians do associate with Christianity. Unexpectedly, this topic came up on my first night in Fiji, thus fitting some religious discussion into my first Easter away from home.

The conversation transpired with an Australian couple that my friends and I met at a hostel in Nadi. The man was a superintendent at a school in Queensland, and the woman was a university lecturer. Both of them agreed that religiosity in Australia does not carry the same weight as it does in the United States or United Kingdom. However, they affirmed that Christianity does dominate religious communities. Employed by the Australian public education system, the couple also offered interesting points about religion in schools. Religion is not very prominent in Australian schools aside from theology courses, and they attributed this partly to the fact that most Aussie schools, especially universities, are public and not privately owned. Since they receive government funding, they have strict regulations on what religious elements can and should be incorporated into the curriculum. The superintendent explained that if teachers and professors do not regulate their religious interjections, they can be charged with proselytizing and potentially lose their jobs.

While these strict religious constraints intrigued me, the most thought-provoking element that I took away from my conversation with the Australians was a quote that the lecturer referenced. She shared her personal religious philosophy with me, and in doing so cited Tolstoy. The philosopher once compared reinforcing the teachings of Christ with stories of miracles to holding a lighted candle in front of the sun to see it better. That is to say that if one does not inherently believe in Jesus, then stories of his great work cannot be used to validate his existence. This led me to think about such an inherent belief, and whether or not it can be taught or acquired. My guess is that religious tendencies are a combination of innate faith and religious teachings. It seems unlikely that one of those variables alone would be powerful enough to produce a genuinely religious individual.

In addition to this stimulating Easter chat, I have also talked to a couple of religion professors at the University of New South Wales to get their opinion about religion in Australia. They noted that while religion does not flood daily discourse in the same way that it might in other countries, there are still religious undercurrents in things like Australian politics and ethnic disputes. Political figures have tried to exploit religiosity by identifying with one religion over another which has caused significant controversy. Similarly controversial are ethnic disputes with religious connotation, particularly with immigrant populations, though it is difficult to unravel which elements pertain to religion and which to ethnicity.

In summation, religion in Australia is nuanced as it is in many parts of the world. It is sacred, diverse, and exploited all at the same time. Though the best word to describe Australian religion is probably secular, it is nearly impossible to use one word for defining such a large concept. Intrinsically, religion is an important part of life for many Australians. Extrinsically, strong religious undercurrents affect how religion is perceived by Aussies and other inhabitants of the sunburnt country.

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