The most recent Australian census figures show that the number of non-believers is growing.   The proportion of people who reported no religious affiliation grew to 22.3 per cent in 2011 from 18.7 per cent from the last census in 2006.

At first glance that would seem to be a pointer to the growing secularisation of society.   There are however a few things that we should keep in mind.

First of all, in the lead up to the census atheist and humanist associations waged a fairly intense campaign for people to mark their census form as having “no religion”.   That may have convinced some ‘fence sitters’ to deny any religious affiliation.   Secondly, the figures could simply mean that while in the previous census in 2006 some may still have indicated a religious affiliation (for example: being born of parents that had some church connection) they now stood back from that tenuous connection with religion.   In other words, rather than society being “less religious” our society may simply be just a little more honest about its agnosticism.

The latest census figures also identified Christianity as still being the dominant faith in Australia with 61.1 per cent identifying as Christian, down from 63.9 per cent in 2006.

I have some mixed feelings about that statistic.   On the one hand it’s nice to know that nearly two-thirds of our society identify with the Christian faith.   Governments please take note!

On the other hand we should not kid ourselves that this means that 61 per cent of our society are Christians.   Among those claiming the name Christian will be many who are Christian in name only.   There are numerous people who still own Christianity as their religion but for whom this is basically just a set of moral values.

Indeed one of the more sobering statistics is that a mere seven per cent of the population said that they regularly attended a Christian church.   And then we have to ask: “and how regular is ‘regularly’”?   In view of that it’s not surprising that in five years there has been a drop in the overall percentage of Christians.   Faith needs to be nurtured by worship and Christian fellowship.   The Bible knows nothing of this so called idea that “you don’t need to go to church to be a Christian”.

Statistics are interesting – but they certainly don’t tell the whole story.   For me the above figures are an encouragement to do two things.

First, to keep looking for opportunities to share the gospel with others because at least one-third of our society does not identify in any way with Jesus or the Gospel.   Second to keep encouraging God’s people not to neglect meeting together while they have that opportunity lest they too fall away from the Lord and join that one-third that have no desire to identify with things Christian.

John Westendorp