It's the Easter Kangaroo, Charlie Brown

Australia is overrun with rabbits... If only they
were all made of chocolate.

Well it is Easter, a time when we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus as a rabbit that lays chocolate eggs. (Both the Pope and Darwin are rolling in their graves.) So in celebration of this time, I decided to get myself some religion, which turned out was harder than you might think in Australia. There is a phenomenon in Australia that has been gaining increasing popularity over the past decade, and that is the growing rejection of religion in Australia.

Now I am not going to sit here and claim that the Aussies are all atheists, but according to the 2006 Australian census, 29.9%  of Australians claimed they had no religion, or refused to identify their religious beliefs altogether, (and, perhaps more importantly, 70,000 Aussies (.37%) claimed their religion as Jedi.) These numbers show a 3.2% growth from the 2001 Australian census. According to a 2005 study conducted by Cambridge University, Australia is ranked as having the 25th highest population of atheists in the world (roughly 5 million people). By contrast only 14.1% of Americans claim no-religion, (though keep in mind that most other countries have this belief that America is an overly religious country with a fervor on par with some Islamic nations. Which is even more ironic when you think that we are one of the only countries with laws expressly separating church and state.) More startlingly, the Australian Prime Minster, Julia Gillard, has publicly proclaimed that she has no religion. In America, this sort of admission by a President would be scandalous. In Australia, it is more likely the populace will be shocked by the way their PM pronounces the word "religion," than by her claiming that she doesn't follow one. (They all hate her accent.)

I am also compelled to point out one more thing: I knew none of this when I set out on Easter Sunday to find myself a little hymnal goodness. I am the first to admit that my religious beliefs are my own and perhaps not what you would call mainstream, but that is neither here nor there. In an attempt to make the day memorable and for fear of being haunted by the ghost of my beloved grandmother, I made the decision that I would attend church like a good little boy on Sunday morning. I found a Presbyterian church right in the heart of the neighborhood I am currently living in and woke up bright and early so I could walk 30 minutes to attend the 10 am service. I showered and even dressed in my best collared shirt and tie (I mean my only collared shirt and tie), and made my way to St. Cuthberts Presbyterian Church or Brighton Beach.

I arrived 15 minutes early and found myself in front of a beautiful Gothic-like cathedral. Since I forgot my camera, you will have to be satisfied with my description. It was a quiet stunning and impressive building complete with stained glass windows depicting the usual sort of Christian scenes (Jesus watching over lambs, Adam and Eve in the garden, Indiana Jones opening the Arc of the Covenant, etc.) The real shock was that it was 9:45 and there was one car in the parking lot. Immediately, my own curiosity was piqued. I mean its Easter Sunday. In America, its one of the only days that people actually feel guilt ridden enough to go to church, and here I was faced with a parking lot filled to the brim with a single car.

However, I thought to myself, Melbourne is a very transit oriented town and maybe most people arrive by bus. This was my hope anyway, as my original plan more or less called for me to sneak into a packed church, sit quietly in the back, and slip out unnoticed at the end of the service. But the best laid plans of mice and men... I suppose. Upon entering I found exactly seven people, including the minister and the piano player. I was (unsurprisingly) the youngest person in the church by at least 50 years, and more alarmingly I found myself being rushed by all the other members in attendance.

You would have thought that Bob Hope came back from the grave and walked through the door the way these people were coming at me. The congregation's interest was doubled when they discovered that not only was I currently not drawing a pension, but that I was American. I was quickly passed around and introduced to people with names such as Dorothy, Milton, Willard, and Mildred. I was even personally greeted by the minister, Graeme Webber. I, of course took, all this in stride and did my to talk and engage everyone I met. I was treated to several interesting stories about hip replacements and I was given a seat of honor in the third row.

The pews in the church were rigid wooden benches, that only had (what appeared to be) hand-crafted throw pillows, which one could place under them, like those cushions they make for people to sit on when at baseball or football games. I grabbed a pink and yellow one and settled in for a sermon I never would have expected.

Again, I feel obligated to give you my expectations versus the reality. I have attended many Easter day sermons, and what I was expecting was the usual sort of mundane sermon concerning the story of Easter followed maybe by a few remarks about the greatness of the resurrection and its importance in the sacrifice made to grant mortals eternal life in heaven, etc... etc... etc... What I got was the kind of fire and brimstone sermon that I thought died out with frocks and corsets. I was expecting the Easter bunny and what I given the hounds of hell. (However, it was the most entertaining sermon I have ever sat through.)

Apparently, the minister fashions himself as a Biblical traditionalist. In other words, every single word in the Bible must be interpreted as the absolute unmistakable word of God, even the typos and parts that contradict the other parts. Now, in a growing atheistic culture like Australia, you can imagine how such a traditionalist might have some problems with the growing statistics I offered at the beginning of the blog. So the sermon pretty much turned into one big tirade against the national push to take Jesus and the Resurrection out of everyday life. He told us stories where he presided over funerals and was not once allowed to mention anything about eternal life or even heaven. He railed against the government for having a debate about taking the teaching of religion out of schools (because they still do that here.) He derided the population of Australia for considering Easter as nothing more than a holiday that gets you a day off of work and being more concerned with chocolate bunnies than the word of God. Then he really got into it and basically told us how Science was a tool that was being used to kill the faith of all believers. (The rain doesn't fall because of precipitaion, dammit, it falls because God said so.) I tell you, I didn't really agree with a lot of his points, but I didn't fall asleep either.

Even better, I was invited for Sunday tea after the service (which I happily accepted,) and I had a chance to engage the minister in a theological discussion on some of his more hard-line points. I did this hesitantly at first, as he seemed pretty adamant about them, but he was more than happy to hear my American perspective on things (after all, he is Aussie and they are the nicest people behind maybe the Canadians.) He told me how mainly he believed that religion was disappearing rapidly in Australian culture (and he seems to be right.) Unlike in America where we all just sort of pay lip-service to our religious ideas (even if we don't fully believe,) Australians have stopped doing even that. He gave me a few stories of when he gave a eulogy at a funeral and mentioned God, resurrection, eternal life, etc, and was actually approached by the family afterwards and told that what he said was offensive to them. I found that shocking, because at home those are the basic lines I would expect to hear at a funeral, almost without fail. (You always say things like, "he's in a better place," or "I'm sure he's looking down on us right now," etc)

My theological discussion really came to a crescendo when my new friend told me how the influx of Muslims, Chinese, and other non-Christian immigrants to Australia were being sent to the continent to test the Christian faith. He believed that all these non-believers were God's way of forcing Australian Christians to strengthen their own faith by rejecting the heathen views of outsiders. I of course nodded, and sipped my tea, not sure on what to say. After we moved passed that he gave me some great ideas on scenic places he recommended I visit while in the northern parts of Australia, and other travel tips and places to stay. When we were done, I thanked him thoroughly for a great sermon and for the tea. I bid farewell to all my new (old) friends and set about my 30 minute walk back to my home.

It seems like there is never a dull moment in Australia. Even the things I think will be the most boring and standard experiences can surprise me. For instance, I originally intended to write this blog more on the fact that Cadbury Creme Eggs cost A$1.89 in Australia as opposed to $0.68 back home, but that fell apart the minute I was treated to an 1880's style sermon amidst an empty church, while sitting on a crocheted pillow. As for the rest, I did spend the remainder of my day eating a dark chocolate bunny, some Cadbury eggs, and I had dinner with a friend in the city. So, though, I missed home and my family, I could not have thought of a better or more interesting way to spend my holiday in this strange and amazing land.