Merry Christmas in Australia

It’s a debate we have every year. A school changes the words of a Christmas carol, or a council puts up a banner saying “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas”, sparking debate on all sides. Are we too Christian? Not Christian enough? Festive feasts never fail to bring out questions about Australia’s religious identity.

In one sense, the label doesn’t really matter. It’s the reality that counts. But the debate does matter because people are not just making claims about what Australia is, but about what Australia should be. In other words, the debate influences how Australians define themselves, and so behave. We are social creatures and what others do and say matters to us.

How Christian are we, anyway?

Those who wish to deny Australia is a Christian country rightly point out that there has been a significant change in religious affiliation amongst Australians in the last 50 years, as well as a large influx of non-Christian migrants. There are often assertions from some that don’t pay enough heed to this reality.

Because of this change, many have difficulty with Australia’s Christian heritage, and its continuing influence. At the heart of this debate is Australian self-identity. What are we, if we are not Christian? We sometimes feel a lack of identity, especially in relation to other nations, without some sense of religious affiliation.

What many do to answer this question is to say Australia is a “secular” country. But what does this mean? Secular is not an easy term to define. What many mean by secular is non-religious. Some also use it in the sense of religious pluralism or religious freedom. Beyond that, the “secular” category becomes problematic.

To make the category “secular” work, one has to go through all kinds of mental gymnastics to separate religion from culture, and deny religion’s central place in it. In other words, secular has been used primarily as a negative doctrine to exclude “religion” from public life.

An example of a common way secular is used is: “But as we have become a secular country we have secularised our laws, to their betterment. Religion has its place in private lives but not in our public processes, and no religion should be part of our judicial systems.”

Reclaiming religion

The problem with most arguments against religion, and religion’s role in the public sphere, is that they based on an illusory notion of religion. Religion is constructed as some particular kind of entity that, by its nature, is foreign and inappropriate within the public sphere. But if one was forced to provide a consistent, trans-cultural definition of religion, one would run into serious difficulties. Famous atheists like Dawkins and Hitchens have this exact problem.

Religion is often identified with groups of people who hold common beliefs, undertake common activities and rituals, and have common scriptures, shrines, relics and values. But, this definition cannot be confined to what we ordinarily label religion as opposed to, for example, culture or nationalism.

For example, American nationalism can be defined as a “civic religion”. According to William Cavanaugh, “Carlton Hayes had identified the American religion’s saints (the founding fathers), its shrines (Independence Hall), its relics (the Liberty Bell), its holy scriptures (the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution), its martyrs (Lincoln), its inquisition (school boards that enforce patriotism), its Christmas (the Fourth of July), and its feast of Corpus Christi (Flag Day).”

In the Australian context, we could identify our saints (the diggers, sportsmen), shrines (war memorials, sporting stadiums), relics (war and sporting medals), martyrs (Gallipoli soldiers), Christmas (ANZAC Day), inquisition (media enforcing patriotism around national days and achievements), and scriptures (Constitution) and so on. Thus, religion is not an absolute category, but can be used relatively to point out ways in which humans beings build certain types of community in certain ways.