Religious attitudes to Christian faith in Australia and Europe

Attitudes and hostility to Christian faith

Australia is probably similar in religious attitudes to most European countries, and Canada. Check the detailed infographic below of Australian views.

There are similar figures available for Europe from the Eurobarometer and Gallup Polls – unfortunately these do not measure animosity/hostility as such, though this may overlap considerably with the percent of non-theists in their research results.

USA is numerically very different, but George Barna Research recently reported that over the last decade, as a percentage of the population, there was zero gain in the number of Christians in America, despite the fact that $500 billion was spent on domestic ministry during that same period!

Some of our failures may be attributed to failing to understand the current context. This explanation and chart of ‘withreach’ versus ‘outreach’ is hugely helpful.

Note that around 20% of people in Australia claim a mild to strong animosity to Christianity. Understanding people’s attitude is a key to effective evangelism, and the Gray Matrix concept (a modification of the Engel Scale) is hugely helpful in visualizing this:

The church has historically fished in a very small pool – that of ‘churched’ people, ie. those with some degree of Christian background. We have often barely connected the other far larger segments of the popular, as this short story Emlyn and the Far Pools suggests. (Read in text form – available to freely reproduce.)

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