Australia’s inner spirit is strong.
Of the nation’s 24 million people, the overwhelming majority hold some sort of spiritual faith. And most of those are Christians.
More than 14 million Australians (61 per cent) have a religious or spiritual belief and 12 million of those identify as Christian, including the Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who is an evangelical Christian (a broad term that describes a person committed to the idea that Jesus Christ is the saviour of humanity).
Christianity is a monotheistic religion (a belief in one God) that is based on both the Old and New Testaments of the Holy Bible. They follow the teachings of Jesus Christ, who was “born of the virgin Mary” and claimed to be the Son of God.
Nearly 2,000 years before The Beatles, Christ was preaching that all you needed was love. He taught that we should “love thy neighbour” and that we should treat other people as we would like to be treated. He also preached that the only way to heaven was through him.
The vast majority of Australian Christians are Roman Catholics – including many Australian celebrities such as Nicole Kidman, who with husband Keith Urban regularly take their children, Sunday, 11, and Faith, 8, to church.
“That’s how we are raising our children,” Kidman, 52, told Vanity Fair. “Keith has his own beliefs but he comes, too. I had a very Catholic grandmother, and I was raised praying, so that had a massive impact.”
Of the more than 2 million Australians who identified with a religion other than Christianity, Muslims accounted for 600,000 people.
Muslims follow the monotheistic religion of Islam, which teaches that there is only one God, Allah, and that the prophet Muhammad was the messenger of God.
Nearly a quarter of the world’s population follow Islam, of which the primary scriptures are the Quran.
A well-known Muslim in Australia is academic and The Project host Waleed Aly, who has often spoken out against terror groups following attacks by Islamic extremists.
While Islam is a minority religion in Australia, in other parts of the world it is the main religion, with denominations such as Sunni and Shiite Muslims. It is the main religion of middle-eastern countries such as Syria, Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan.
Aside from Christianity and Islam, there are 560,00 Australians who follow Buddhism, and 440,000 who follow Hinduism.
Other religions include Sikhism (130,000 people) and Judaism (90,000).
Of the 650,000 Indigenous Australians, many still follow the traditional Dreamtime belief.
Of all the minor religions, including Taoism and Humanism, the religion with the highest proportion of females is Wicca – the religion of witchcraft.
And Tom Cruise might be dismayed: only 1,684 people described their religion as Scientology in the 2016 Australian census. This is down from around 2,500 in 2006.
Even so, the religion claims to have many more followers (they have boasted as many as 150,000 members in Australia).
Worldwide, Christianity is the most popular religion, accounting for more than 30 per cent of all religious followers. Europe and North America are predominantly Christian, while the middle-eastern countries are overwhelmingly Muslim.
Indeed, statistically speaking, what religion people follow, and in which God they believe, more often than not comes down to their place of birth and what their parents believe.
And let’s not forget the “religion” of George Lucas. In the 2016 Australian census, 48,000 people declared themselves Jedi (even though in the Star Wars universe being a Jedi is more about being a guardian of the galaxy and a master of the Living Force – rather going to church on Sundays).
Much to the disappointment of these Australians, “Jedi” is not recognised as a religion anywhere in the world.
