RELIGION AND POLITICS IN AUSTRALIA Lecture 2 (19 July 2007) INTERACTIONS BETWEEN RELIGION AND POLITICS 1. Definitions and Terminology • Religion: “ any faith or belief at least where it involves a supernatural being and is connected to ritual or practice” (Saunders, The Australian Constitution); Thompson: “a fixed relationship between the human self and some non-human entity, the Sacred, the Supernatural, the SelfExistent, the absolute or simply “God” • Denomination: variety of Christianity, such as Anglican or Baptist • Sect: sub-group within a religion, like Sunni or Shia (faction?) • Protestant: term used in Australia to describe all non-Catholic Christian denominations (sometimes usage excludes Anglicans) • Church: “voluntary religious societies whose right to practice their religion and hold property is legally recognized (Ely). Legal recognition by the state, as with other NGOs, is politically and financially important • Clergy: person ordained for Christian ministry (distinct from lay/laity) • Secular: non-religious/worldly • Secularism: the rejection of religion (normative term) • Secularization: decline of religious belief (descriptive sociological term) • Rationalism: beliefs founded only on experience/reason • Humanism: concern for human experience rather than God or nature • Sectarianism: institutionalized conflict between denominations/sects or state/party support of one denomination/sect over another 2. Some Key Questions • How do regions/churches interact with politics: ideas, institutions, organizations, individual and group behaviour? Religions and churches have independent and differing ideas about politics and law. • In what ways, if any, does religion exercise primacy as a category or is it of minimal significance? It needs to be disentangled from class, ethnicity and race. We speak, for instance, of the Irish-Catholic-working class and the Scottish-Presbyterian-middle class. 3. Church and State • Theocracy: rule by religious leaders and religious laws (Sharia law?) • Established church: early experiment in colonial Australia (like C. of E. in UK today; could Tony Blair become a Catholic while in office?). The church is part of the state. The monarch is head of church and state. Doctrine, discipline and governance is defined and regulated by parliament/government. • Australian Constitution: s.116, “The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public
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trust under the Commonwealth” (Constitutional Preamble: “humbly relying on the blessing of Almighty God) • A Christian or secular nation? Blasphemy (vilification of Christianity remains an offence); charities (churches qualify for tax exemptions); observances (public holidays like Easter and Christmas);schools (financial support for religious schools); census statistics • Church Influence in a pluralist Society: Jelen versus Segers; one among many; asserting a higher morality; positive or negative Political Attitudes and Behaviour • Religious Denomination and Voting Choice: differences in party support • Religiosity (church attendance): frequent church attendance correlates with higher levels of conservative political support (Why?) • Christian/religious attitudes to individualism/capitalism, community, gender, collectivism, poverty, democracy, nature etc are often distinctive • Religion and Conscience: conscience votes in Parliament Non-Christian Religions • Religion’s overlap with ethnicity/race (e.g in case of Jews) • Non-Christian observances in a Christian society (e.g separate holy days, distinctive dress, food preparation; building of mosques and temples • Like Christians, Muslims and Jews may be inclined to be separatist, and religious rather than secular figures may serve as community leaders Secular (non-religious) Politics • Constitutional issues: should separation of church and state bar government financing of church schools or faith-based service delivery • Organisations: organized irreligion may decline alongside religion • Issues: e.g embryonic stem cell research has religious dimension? Aboriginal Spiritual Beliefs • Religion or spirituality without church organization is a different type of belief: what test of belief, if any, ought to be applied in law/politics? • The status of sacred sites: what evidence? Who is to be believed? Pressure Groups, Public Policy and Public Administration • Censorship: state protection of religious beliefs (see David Marr)? • Organisations: Family First Party; Right to Life Association, Christian Democratic Party • Discrimination: a ‘state within a state’. Can churches defy the norms of society within their own organizations (e.g marriage rules, employment rules, hospital services, like hospices and IVF services) • Can society impose community standards on religious believers (e.g recent case involving Scientology and hospital care) • Education: “free, secular and compulsory”: should teachers in multicultural public schools teach about /celebrate Christmas or Easter? • Church schools: “state Aid” continues and the religious school sector, including Muslim and Jewish schools, is growing amid controversy. • Churches as State agents: church Aboriginal missions and orphanages
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