Unit 16 Religion in Australia Today (澳大利亚现行的宗教信仰)

Unit 16 Religion in Australia Today (澳大利亚现行的宗教信仰)

一、本单元重点内容

1. Protestantism and Capitalism(新教和资本主义)

2. Anglicanism and its decline(英国国教和它的衰败)

3. Catholicism（天主教）

4. Religion in a consumerist society（主张消费的社会的宗教信仰）

Fundamentalism and evangelicalism(原教旨主义和福音主义)

Secularism（世俗主义）

5. Non-Christian religions in Australia(澳大利亚的基督教以外的宗教)

6. Sport as a national religion(体育运动是澳大利亚的民族信仰)

二、本单元重、难点辅导

1. Protestantism and Capitalism(新教和资本主义)

Protestantism is the most dominant form of religion in modern Australian society. It was the religion of governing colonial class in Australia. It promotes values such as rationalism, individualism, hard work, worldly success and asceticism. Though its values are paradoxical(相互矛盾), they fit well with the principles of Capitalism, and support the development of Capitalism.新教是现代澳大利亚社会最主要的宗教形式。它曾经是殖民统治阶级的宗教。它提倡理性主义、个人主义、勤奋工作、追求现世成功和禁欲主义的宗教价值观。虽然这些价值观相互之间有些矛盾，但与资本主义的原则相吻合，支持资本主义的发展。

（*The compulsion to create wealth but not to spend it fits well with one principle of capitalism: that the primary purpose of profit is re-investment. The consequent further enlargement of one’s capital then fits the other essential capitalist principle of the necessity for growth.创造财富但不奢侈浪费的冲动与资本主义的一条原则相吻合：那就是，赚取利润的首要目的是再投资。这会带来资本的进一步增加，从而也就符合资本主义的另一条有关增长的需要的重要法则。）2. Anglicanism and its decline (英国国教/圣公会和它的衰败) (圣公会是新教的分支) Anglicanism was the religion of the British colonizers as well as the convicts and free

settlers(自由定居者). It was the dominant religion in Australia throughout the 19th and most of the 20th centuries. It has lost its demographic supremacy to Catholicism.

圣公会是英国殖民者的宗教信仰，也是罪犯和自由定居者的宗教. 在整个19世纪和20世纪的大部分时间，圣公会都是澳大利亚占主导地位的宗教形式，但是现在它已经失去了其信徒人数最多的地位，输给了天主教。

3. Catholicism（天主教）

Australian Catholicism was transported to the colony with the convicts. In the second half of the 19th century, the Catholics from Ireland played an important role in establishing the working class culture in Australia and in creating unionism and the political party (the Australian Labor Party) that represented the working class. The Catholicism has replaced Anglicanism as the most

demographic dominant (信徒人数最多的) religious group. Catholic schools today play an important part in Australian education system.

澳大利亚的天主教是随罪犯被运输到这片殖民地的。在19世纪后半叶，来自爱尔兰的天主教徒，在建立澳大利亚新型的工人阶级文化中起到了重要作用，他们参与建立了工会制度，并成立了代表劳工阶层的政党---澳大利亚工党. 天主教徒已经取代了圣公会成为了信徒人

数最多的宗教形式。如今的天主教学校在澳大利亚教育体系中有着重要的地位。

* Catholics, working class Protestants and Secularists combined to establish unionism and to create the Australian Labor Party. (天主教徒、工人阶级中的新教教徒和非教徒联合起来建立了工会制度，并组成了澳大利亚工党。)

4. Religion in a consumerist society（主张消费的社会的宗教信仰）

In the era of consumerism, the modernist values that stem from Protestantism conflict with the necessity to encourage people away from thriftiness towards continual self-indulgence. This shift to a globalized consumerist economy, based on the r ejection of “what was”, affected religious commitment in Australia.

在消费主义时代，由新教的节俭禁欲发展出来的一些现代主义价值观与提倡人们不要节俭，应该不断进行自我放纵的社会需要产生了冲突。这种朝着建立在抛弃“旧观念”基础之上的全球消费主义经济的转变影响了澳大利亚的宗教信仰。

One outcome has been the growth of fundamentalist religions in Australia.

1) Fundamentalism and evangelicalism(原教旨主义和福音主义)

Fundamentalism is basically a commitment to conservatism. Fundamentalism is often found in societies that are undergoing rapid changes, where Fundamentalists want to maintain or create what was the fundamental values of an earlier culture. The Protestant Evangelical churches share the fundamentalist values.

原教旨主义主要致力于保守主义。原教旨主义经常在正在经历快速变化的社会中出现。原教旨主义是要维持或创造早期文化的最根本的价值观念。新教福音派教会信奉原教旨主义的价值观.

(* Fundamentalism is not confined to any one religious belief原教旨主义不局限于任何一种形

式上的宗教. In Australia, there are fundamentalist forms of Protestantism, Catholicism, Islam, and Judaism. Nor is fundamentalism confined to religion. Fundamentalist and evangelical Christians tend to go to church more than people who commit to Anglicanism and Catholicism.) 2) Secularism（世俗主义）

There is a steady increase in the number of people who have no formal commitment to any religion. Most of the people do not attend church services regularly today. However Australia still can be seen as a religious society, instead of a secular society, as over three quarters of the Australian population is associated with some form of religion.

没有正式的宗教信仰的人数稳步上升。如今大多数澳大利亚人不再定期地参加教会的礼拜仪式。然而，澳大利亚仍然被看作是一个宗教社会，因为3 /4的澳大利亚人与某种形式的宗教有关系。