• Jeff Sharlet is one of the authors of Killing the Buddha and Believer, beware, and one of my favourite commentator on religion in American history, politics and journalism. He is about to edit a new book on American religious history, by collecting pieces of literary journalism. I look forward to seeing it out. He talks about it here and seeks help from his blog’s readers.
• Pew has released its fourth edition of The Future of the Internet, and it appears to be a test of people’s responses to arguments introduced by Nicholas Carr’s article, “Is Google making us stupid?” (see my short post on it here).
• Heidi Campbell writes on her reflections on attending a conference called “Theology after Google” and has got some links to interesting thinkers and talkers whom she met.

It seems now that the once-small Evangelical Christian voice is the great winner in Australian broadcasting deregulation. Its energies are not wasted by the strict authority regimes and ethical debates that confronted the mainstream churches (Lehikoinen, 2003: 165-166). American televangelism, such as the ministries of Oral Roberts, Pat Robertson, Marilyn Hickey and Benny Hinn, had enough resources to buy air time on Australian television. Their common message was the Bible is given directly by God and so must be read with a literal eye, that prayer brings rewards to the true believer, who is persecuted by a secular world unprotected from Satan’s influence, and is called to bring moral regeneration until the end of days, which are imminent. Though a very marginal Christian worldview, the rituals contained within the television programming, together with the ritual acts adopted by its consumers, helped legitimate the religious identity of viewers as part of a global movement. (Alexander, 1994: 3-5).

Evangelical Christianity has, since Billy Graham, been seen as a rapidly growing movement with a strong successful voice in Australian society, to the shame of Catholicism and mainstream Protestantism. Television has helped, not just by carrying the message, but by reinforcing the shape of the Australian religious milieu as a market, where religious identity is built by consumption, and where the success of an organisation is dependent, albeit somewhat, on the marketability of its products. This is indeed the basis of criticism of Australia’s “megachurches”, such as Hillsong in Sydney and Adelaide’s Paradise Church, labelled by some in the emerging church movement as more akin to businesses than religious communities.

Television is not the only transforming force of changes in Australia’s Christian landscape in the mid and late twentieth century. While ecumenical activities engaged dialogue between established denominations with increasing fervour, political debates asked Christians to take sides, producing divides within denominational structures. Whatever differences divided Christians into Catholics and Protestants would become less important than those that defined a “left-wing” and a “right-wing”, or a Liberal versus a Conservative Christian.

The Second Vatican Council spanned three years and involved two Popes, ending in 1965. It changed the face of the Roman Catholic Church, opening its doors to alternative methods of theological inquiry, greater freedoms of expression for congregational brothers and sisters, and interest in inter-denominational and inter-faith dialogue. In response to its global power, Catholics in Australia found a seat in the Australian Council of Churches (now known as the National Council of Church in Australia) and involvement in joint theological training organisations, such as the United Faculty of Theology and the Melbourne College of Divinity. Economic prosperity, social mobility, free education and urban sprawl since the 1950s closed distances between Catholics and Protestants in both geography and class. Pure Catholic families were growing at a slower rate, inter-denominational marriages were becoming normal. (Breward, 1993: 67)

But one Papal Encyclical would cause a disagreement among Catholics, creating a divide that is not yet resolved. Humanae Vitae, subtitled “On The Regulation Of Birth” was written by Pope Paul VI and released in 1968, reaffirming traditional teaching and unequivocally condemning contraception and abortion. Many Catholics began to question the infallibility of the Papacy, and clergy met those confessing to the sin of using contraception with acknowledgment that it was a matter of personal conscience (Breward, 1988: 73).

In Australia as in other parts of the world, political movements evoked responses by Christians that separated them from others. They would include the anti-war movement and feminism of the 1960s and 1970s, environmentalism and the gay and lesbian rights movement of the 1980s and 1990s. Wuthnow (1989: 32-34) describes the distinction between pro and con among believers as arising out of a perceived gap between political values and behaviour. The Liberals attacked the behaviour of government while the Conservatives critiqued values. Conservatives wanted out of political involvement, focussing more on changing personal beliefs, while Liberals saw this was not enough for the Church’s witness to the world.

The same apathy allowed for the growth of religious diversity and the development of a unique religious character for the land that would be a nation. Colonial governments supported the importation of both Protestant and Roman Catholic clergy and professionals to build charities for migrants and freed convicts, the majority of whom were Irish Catholics (Breward, 1988: 11, 13). The copper and gold boom of the mid 1800s attracted both miners and evangelists who gained followers more by their practical piety than formal theological education. It was in this period that Methodist and Baptist churches grew rapidly, by the deployment of lay preachers (Breward, 1988: 28). Finke and Stark notice a similar expansion in the history of the United States’ expansion. In the absence of an established national church, as in Europe, religious diversity thrived and the growth of denominational communities were fuelled by a process akin to market forces: those that grew were those that could provide religious products that the wider community would be attracted to consume (Finke and Stark, 2005: 15-20).

Even this early in the history of White Australia, common sense pointed to an ecumenical Christian presence, if at least a common Protestantism. Anglicans, Presbyterians and Wesleyans shared resources to build churches in marginal areas, including the support of clergy (Breward, 1988: 23-24). This common sense survived into the next century, where a federated Australia saw the union of all Lutheran churches (previously divided by ethnic origins), a Baptist Union, and an Australian Anglican General Synod (Breward, 1988: 66). Even Methodism, Congregationalism, and most Presbyterian communities were lost to a Uniting Church in Australia.

It is argued that this ecumenical sensibility fuelled the separation of church from state in the nation’s development. For example, a passion for justice united Christians to the campaign of state-funded education in the second half of the nineteenth century, that led to the dissolution of most Protestant schools. It could have ended all sectarianism, but it paved the way for a Roman Catholic system that aimed for a religious alternative to secularist education, and then new Protestant schools that aimed for prestige and refinement (Breward, 1988: 32-33). The same passion in Christian community service led to the ideal that the professional skill is more important than the religious affiliation of service agencies’ staff, and would eventually mean the independence of many from their Christian roots (Breward, 1988: 86-87). Examples include the Brotherhood of St Lawrence, Mission Australia and the Australian Workers Union. Even organisations that carry a denominational label, such as Anglicare and UnitingCare, ensure the culture of the workplace remains primarily secular, even where chaplains are employed.

Against the historical backdrop of consensual secularism and latent ecumenism, the mid 1900s saw a convergence of various global social and political factors that led to a watershed in Australian religious history, among the effects of which the Australian emerging church now sees itself. These include, but are not exhausted by, the Billy Graham crusades, the Second Vatican Council, the arrival of television, the Asian Wars, the World Council of Churches, the Death of God, and communism.

Evangelical crusades and revivals have been with Australians since before the Gold Rush. They focussed on simple pragmatic doctrines balanced by a fervour for community harmony and service. Evangelists were often gifted with more charisma than formal education, and understood the plight of their congregations. Billy Graham entered Australia with the same properties, but his style led to a new flavour of Evangelicalism that will be the key characteristic for Evangelicalism in that century and the next. Graham’s works had earned him many devotees in North America, and arrived down under with a large capital outlay to produce large musical and dramatic events in our capital cities, that drew unusually large crowds (Breward, 1988: 77). With Graham came the idea that the spectacle is as important as the message.

Graham’s crusade, like other evangelistic pursuits to follow, was worded in the language of new media of the period, television. Schofield Clark (2003: 30) notes the four main tenets of Evangelicalism are:

1. That humans are in need to salvation
2. That Christians are charged with bringing others to the faith
3. That the Bible is free of errors and must be understood literally, and
4. The Rapture will mark the end of days, vindicating the plight of believers.

As television became the dominant form of mass media in Western culture, the late twentieth century saw both religious and secular polities increasingly submissive to its discursive structure. Television was, as it still is, a medium packed with stories of good versus evil, where even journalism shows contain a narrative and ritual structure that is filled with drama. The Evangelical Gospel found a comfortable place among the messages beamed into homes of this period.