How Did Christianity Influence Australia

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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 …show more content…

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

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