Religious Landscape in Australia

The current religious landscape in Australia consists of a very diverse range of people who have different religious beliefs. Christianity holds, at the moment, the largest number of followers in Australia but its popularity is decreasing. Considerations such as immigration, denominational switching, rise of new age religions and the growth of secularism can explain why.

Christianity has been the primary religion post 1945 to today. The British who first came to Australia and inhabited it were mainly Christians they formed a strong Christian base in Australia before the country let more immigrants enter. This base of Christians was split up into the different types of Christianity that came from different places for example: Anglican (British), Catholic (Irish/Italian) and Orthodox (Greek). In the census of 1947, out of the 7.5 million people in Australia, 88 per cent of the population (disregarding Aborigines) said they were Christian. The other 12 per cent was mainly made up from people who didn’t respond to the question.  With Christianity as the major religious tradition in Australia from 1945, today the percentage of Christians has been decreased due to the exposure of new religions. In the census of 2001 it is seen that out of 18.8 million people 68 per cent classed themselves as Christian and 4.9 percent said they were of a different religion. The number of people who said they had no religion was 15.5 percent. Today, however, the amount of other religions in Australia has risen significantly, notably Hinduism (the fastest growing religion in Australia), Buddhism and Islam. This is a huge difference since 1945 and one of the main reasons for this is immigration.

Immigration affects the present religious landscape the most out of all the contributing factors. Immigration leads to a very diverse range of people who come from all over the world, and with them their religious beliefs. Generally ethnic enclaves are formed when immigration leads to the grouping of people who usually speak the same language. This enables members of the enclaves to help each other in the new place they have immigrated to. These ethnic enclaves create a base for different religions to be introduced to the country. In the 1950’s Australia saw immigrants coming from Hungary, South Africa, Russia and Israel, with the Jewish religion being buffered the most by South African immigrants. More recent figures show a rapid growth of Hinduism due to immigration from India. Immigration has the largest impact on the Australian religious landscape and is the reason why religions reach new places.