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Multifaith Society 1 CHRIST AMONG THE ‘GODS’ Responding to 5, 2015 Religious Plurality Today Part 1 RESOURCE PAPER RESOURCE PAPER Contemporary religious plurality, and the social marginalisation of Christianity, is an opportunity for Christian mission Religious plurality in Australia today What we can do is think about how we respond to this diversity. And try to Today, Australia is visibly a religiously respond in a way that’s driven, not by fear plural society. Christianity is no longer and self-protection, but by love – love for the ‘normal’ religion. Religious diversity is God and a desire for his honour, and the new normal. And we experience that because of that, a love for people who diversity daily. There are enough Muslim believe these false religions. women wearing their head coverings in public to cause a social issue. The media This is the first of three articles about has focused a lot on Islam, but Islam is responding to religious plurality in not the only religion that’s increasing in Australia. The first article will look at Australia. Hindu and Buddhist temples are how this religious plurality developed, and being built in various parts of our cities. how we can respond to it in a Biblical Some people from India walk around with manner. The second article will analyse a very prominent red dot on their the contemporary secular view of forehead. That’s the bindi1, or tilak2 which ‘tolerance’, and critique it from a Biblical is a Hindu religious mark.3 perspective. The third will show you how to engage with people in a way that Religious diversity is now a social fact. simultaneously holds to the uniqueness of We can’t reverse it. These people are Jesus and his gospel, and respects people’s Australian citizens. They work, pay tax, right to choose whether they’re going to and vote. We can’t just chase them out of follow him or not. country. !1 of !7 Historically, Australia privileged This didn’t mean that everyone in Europe Christianity as the ‘normal’ religion became a Christian. It did mean that Christianity, and Christian values, became socially ‘normal’. This cultural Christianity Religious diversity in Australian society is has been termed ‘Christendom’. When relatively new. For most of Australia’s European settlers arrived in Australia, European history, Christianity was they brought 1400 years of Christian accepted as the ‘normal’ religion. Until social normality with them. recently, even if someone didn’t believe in Unsurprisingly, they created a country God, it was taken for granted that the where Christian values were taken for God they didn’t believe in was granted. Not everyone believed that Jesus nevertheless the Biblical, Christian God. is God, that he died for their sins, and Even if they were not a Christian, their rose again. But people generally believed personal values of truth, goodness, and that it was good to “do to others what beauty, and their ethics – their sense of you would have them do to you” (Matt right and wrong – would have been 7:12); that marriage was between one man heavily influenced, if not determined, by and one woman; that telling the truth is Christian values. good, and lying bad; and, if a God existed, he (the masculine pronoun is This is because European settlers to deliberate) would be something like the Australia brought hundreds of years of Biblical God. Believers gathered in church Christian culture with them. Early buildings (not mosques or temples), Christianity, from the evidence of the wearing their ‘Sunday best’ (not hijabs, or New Testament, was misunderstood, the orange robes of Buddhism). hated and persecuted. But then the Roman Emperor Constantine (reigned 306–337) But notice: while Christendom is informed became a Christian. In 313 he issued the by Christianity, it’s not the same as Edict of Milan, making Christianity a Christianity. It’s merely secular culture. recognised religion. This didn’t (yet) grant In itself, it’s from the world, not from Christianity any particular privileges, but God. Living by Christian morality doesn’t it did stop the persecution, and gave make you Christian; it just makes you Christianity a certain degree of social morally conservative. Christians are respectability. Christianity’s special status people who have accepted that they are came when the Imperial Triumvirate of themselves sinners, under God’s Theodosius I, Gratian, and Valentinian II condemnation. And because of that, they issued the Edict of Thessalonica in 380. put their trust in the Jesus who came to This imperial decree made Christianity the call, not the righteous, but sinners (Matt official religion of the Roman Empire – 9:13; Mark 2:17; Luke 5:32). i.e., of Europe. !2 of !7 Global Christendom declined in the late 20th century Christendom began to crumble in the second half of the 20th century. The 20th century saw the ‘Christian’ West tear itself apart in three wars – World War I, World War II, and the Cold War. Sixteen hundred years of ‘Christian’ morality seemed to have culminated in the mass slaughter of God’s historical people, the Jews; the threat of global nuclear holocaust; and environmental degradation. In the West, Christendom’s home, ‘Christian’ cultural morality no longer had credibility. People started searching for new things to believe, and new ways to shape their lives.4 The latter half of the 20th century also saw global ‘decolonisation’. In the 16th and 17th centuries, European nations explored the world and built vast international empires. England controlled values. Now, no-one assumes that all India and Sri Lanka; the Dutch ruled what ‘good’ people are Christians. In fact, is now Indonesia (the ‘Dutch East Christianity has gone from apparently Indies’); the French controlled what is being the dominant world religion, to now Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam being the one religion which no-one, (‘French Indo-China’); etc. After WWII, anywhere in the world, takes seriously. these colonies steadily threw off European rule and reasserted their national independence. This independent Australian religious plurality today nationalism was frequently accompanied by a renewal of traditional religions. This, then, is the social context for Christianity was associated with imperial religious diversity in Australia today. oppression, whereas traditional religion Christianity is no longer the socially was associated with ethnic identity and privileged religion. Other religions are nationalism. accepted as being at least as valid as Christianity. In fact, in response to its Christendom, which had existed for some perceived prior social dominance, 1600 years, appeared to crumble almost Christianity seems now be actively socially overnight. ‘Christian’ cultural morality marginalised in order to ‘make room’ for was discredited in the West and had never these new religions. really taken root in the ‘colonies’. With the collapse of Western imperialism came But the social impact of non-Christian a surge of both native nationalism and religions is not uniform. Recent traditional religiosity. immigration, and the social policy of multiculturalism, has led to the ethnic and In one generation, Christianity’s social religious diversity we mentioned earlier. status became exactly reversed: not merely Immigrants tend to clump together. This ‘from hero to zero’, but from ‘hero’ to is partly the normal human tendency to ’villain’! In the past, everyone assumed bond with people that we have some that a decent, morally upright person was natural connections with. Immigrants find a Christian – or at least lived by Christian additional strength in community: their !3 of !7 shared cultural heritage provides practical, emotional, and religious support as they seek to establish themselves in a new land. So, certain parts of Australia – usually particular suburbs in the major cities – become characterised by significant numbers of immigrants from a certain ethno-cultural background living there. Religions are not the same as race. Just because someone comes from the Middle East doesn’t automatically make them Muslim; not everyone from India is Hindu; Christianity has been in both of those regions for a long time.5 It’s true to say, however, that certain religions tend to dominate certain parts of the world. So, Islam is the major religion of the Middle East, Pakistan and Bangladesh; Hinduism is the major religion of India. As immigrants from a particular ethno- cultural background move into particular suburbs, those suburbs will become characterised by the visible artefacts of their major religion – temples, mosques, people walking around in traditional religious attire. Our personal experience of religious diversity will, then, be different, according to where we live. The graphics at left show how different parts of Australia have been differently impacted by religious diversity. If we live in Cabramatta, we may feel the Buddhists are taking over; if we live in Parramatta, we’ll see a lot of Hindus; and in Lakemba, it may seem as if there are Muslims everywhere. This religious diversity can be confronting. Note the diagram that shows people’s attitudes towards three major religions. It indicates that, compared to Christianity and Buddhism, significantly more people are less likely to hold positive sentiments towards Islam.6 This is hardly surprising, given militant Islam’s international profile. People living in rural areas, older people, and those born overseas with English as their first language are less likely to hold positive attitudes toward Muslims.7 !4 of !7 This plurality and marginalisation is 8:34; Luke 9:23; see also John 15:18-23). Biblically normal Jesus didn’t expect his people to be socially powerful and privileged. He This new religious diversity, and blessed those who mourn, the meek, the associated marginalisation of Christianity, merciful, and those who are falsely has one great advantage: Australian persecuted because of him. These, he society is now closer to what the Bible said, are the true heirs of the Old considers normal.
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