Religion News Australia
June 26 – July 3, 2022
Religion news stories from Australia
(Research: Greg Spearritt)
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
Brothers Abdul-Rahman Abdullah and Abdul Abdullah explore Australian Muslim identity (ABC News)
July 3 – They flicked on the television just in time to see the second plane crash into the World Trade Centre.
ANGLICAN CHURCH
The Sydney church at odds with its conservative rivals (Sydney Morning Herald)
July 1 – Churches are turning into religious versions of political parties, in which adherents must toe the party line and publicly attest to views with which they privately disagree in order to remain a member, a dissident Anglican rector has warned.
EDUCATION
St Catherine’s appoints ‘active Christian’ principal amid same-sex marriage row (Sydney Morning Herald)
June 28 – St Catherine’s, the school at the centre of a controversial push by the Sydney Anglican Diocese to force new principals to avow their opposition to same-sex marriage, has brought a former principal out of retirement to be its interim principal for two years.
Private school funding exposes the nation’s lack of heart (Sydney Morning Herald)
July 2 – (Opinion: Jordan Baker) The King’s School suffered a bruising backlash after allowing its headmaster to install his own pool – the school’s third – and to use school dime to fly business class, with his wife, to a British rowing regatta.
‘Reimagining the college’: One of Sydney’s oldest Catholic schools considers co-ed move (Sydney Morning Herald)
July 2 – One of Sydney’s oldest Catholic schools is considering becoming co-ed, with inner-city St Mary’s Cathedral College putting a proposal to parents this week that could see it expand to a dual campus.
INTERNATIONAL STORIES
Islam
Meeting of Afghan clerics ends with silence on education for girls (The Guardian, Australia)
July 3 – A gathering of thousands of Afghan clerics and elders has ended with a call for international recognition, but silence on the country’s ban on secondary education for girls.
Religious Violence
Indian state shuts down internet after Hindu beheading sparks unrest (Sydney Morning Herald)
June 30 – Mumbai: Fearing outbreaks of religious violence after two Muslims killed a Hindu tailor and posted the footage online, police in the Indian state of Rajasthan have banned public gatherings and shut down the internet.
Other
The struggle to challenge India’s caste system remains real, still (ABC News)
June 28 – Beena Pallical’s family didn’t really talk about caste.
Without Camino pilgrims, rural villages in north-west Spain ‘wouldn’t have a reason to exist’ (ABC News)
July 2 – Amid the vast grain fields of Spain, a medieval church stands guard over the handful of mudbrick homes where about 50 people live — and twice as many travellers along the Camino de Santiago will spend the night this summer.
Welcome to Oklahoma, the hardest place to get an abortion in a post-Roe v Wade America (ABC News)
July 3 – When Texas introduced its ban on abortion after six weeks, then among the strictest in the United States, new patients flooded the Tulsa Women’s Clinic in Oklahoma.
ISLAM
Muslim rights group pursues Twitter in Queensland (Brisbane Times)
June 27 – An Australian Muslim rights group is pursuing Twitter in Queensland claiming the platform is responsible as a publisher for vilifying Muslims.
JUDAISM
‘I’m prepared to apologise’: Principal says sorry to student in anti-Semitic bullying case (The Age, Melbourne)
June 29 – The principal of a Melbourne secondary school has apologised in court to a student who says he left because of anti-Semitic bullying by fellow students.
RELIGION & SOCIETY
Indigenous songwriter Kev Carmody opens up about his secret stolen childhood (ABC News)
June 28 – Australian songwriting legend Kev Carmody has shared fascinating details of his secret childhood and eventual discovery by the authorities, all of which occurred long before he ever uttered the phrase “from little things, big things grow”.
Census 2021 data shows Australians are less religious and more culturally diverse than ever (ABC News)
June 28 – Australians are increasingly unlikely to worship a god and more likely to come from immigrant families.
Also: Abandoning God: Christianity plummets as ‘non-religious’ surges in census (Sydney Morning Herald)
June 28 – Australia has become strikingly more godless over the past decade, with the latest census data showing the proportion of self-identified Christians dropping below 50 per cent for the first time and a soaring number of people describing themselves as “non-religious”.
Also: Census results mean religions should stop getting special treatment (Sydney Morning Herald)
June 29 – (Opinion: Heidi Nicholl) I last went to Sunday school some time back in the mid-’90s.
Also: Not my tribe: Australians have turned their back on religion, but not on their faith (Sydney Morning Herald)
June 29 – (Opinion: Michael Jensen) The 2021 census result showing that self-designated Christians now make up less than 50 per cent of the population is not unexpected.
Also: The census shows Australians are becoming less religious; why have we chosen to live without God? (ABC News)
July 3 – (Opinion: Stan Grant) So Friedrich Nietzsche was right, God is dead and we have killed him.
Also: Fewer Toowoomba residents identify as religious according to 2021 Census results (ABC News)
July 3 – Pastor Bill Whyte has been answering the call of God for more than 20 years in “Christ-centred” Toowoomba in southern Queensland.
Australia’s only Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster brings visitors to new Pastafarian ‘religion’ (ABC News)
June 28 – When Census night 2021 rolled around, Pirate Priestess Angela Carter and her husband Captain Colin “Cupcakes” Carter followed an instruction from their leader and selected the “no religion” option where the nationwide survey asked respondents about their religious affiliations.
Spiritual homes that are perfect for the soul (The Australian)
July 1 – Once they were the thriving hubs of communities, tending to their spiritual, social and even welfare needs. Now they are increasingly sought-after homes.
