How Did Christianity Influence Australia

Christianity has had a significant influence on Australia in the nineteenth century in relation to public morality. Public morality refers moral and ethical enforced in a society by law or social pressure. Conservative elements were used within Christian denominations to enforce certain moral values and issues, such as sabbatarianism, sexual morality and the consumption of alcohol and gambling.

Since the established religion that the colony set up with was the Church of England, this provided a strong influence of this religion in the colony. This is evident through the demand for Sabbath observance. The requirement from the colonial government of Sabbath observance was for compulsory attendance of Church of England services for everyone. The intention of this was to try to improve the moral character of the people. This also brought in legislation to abolish recreational activities on Sundays, which was unpopular among many. Evangelical protestant

denominations, however, attempted to maintain and enforce the legislation.
Despite the attempts of the Evangelical protestant denomination, the community began to ignore the attempts. For example, In the 1930s, people would attend sporting activities on Sundays. As a result, the Evangelical protestant denomination started to lose the battle to enforce Sunday observance.
Another public moral initiative taken by Christianity in Australia was sexual morality.

Christianity had a very significant concern regarding sexual morality. At this time in England, women were regarded as members of an inferior sex and were subject to varying degrees of oppression. An example of sexual morality was that in the early colonial Australia, men and women were not allowed to bathe together as mixed bathing was not allowed.

Furthermore, another initiative that was taken by Christianity in Australia was The Temperance movement, which was an attempt to reduce alcohol consumption. It called upon men to take a pledge to abstain from alcohol. This was because it was believed that alcohol consumption was the cause of behaviour that was conflicting with Christian teaching. Women were used to convince their husbands, brothers and sons to take the pledge. As a result, thousands of pledges were given by men to abstain from alcohol. The temperance movement had a profound influence on early Australian

society.
The Temperance movement then started to turn their focus to alcohol consumption through government legislation. The Temperance movement tried to convince people that “drinking leads to neglect of duty, moral degradation and crime.” Despite the previous influence of the temperance movement, legislation to prohibit the selling alcohol in Australia was never achieved. This was because the Church of England and Catholic Church authorities saw no harm of the drinking of alcohol in moderation.
Additionally, Christianity was also played a strong role in the banning of gambling. Christianity believed that people should not be able to earn money by methods other than honest labour. The Catholic Church, however, did not hold any moral objections to gambling providing that it was not excessive.
These initiatives in the area of public morality show how significant Christianity was, as well as how strong Christianity’s influence over the Australian society during the nineteenth century was. They also show how much power Christianity had in Australia, however they also created and heightened the tensions between the Church of England, the Catholic Church and the Protestant denominations in Australia.