Australia: day four

Wow. Today has been great, but intense and exhausting. We spent most of it in conversations with key Australian journalists: Rachel Kohn, who writes and produces “The Spirit of Things” and “The Ark” (both productions of the Australian Broadcasting Company), Chris McGillion, the Sydney Morning Herald’s religious affairs columnist and professor at Charles Sturt University, and Barney Zwartz, the religion editor for The Age (the Melbourne newspaper of record).

I have 17 pages of notes, and I imagine I'll be pondering this day for a long time. Our discussions ranged across a variety of issues, from the question of Australia's "soul," to issues concerning the rise of evangelical non-denominational Christianity in Australia, to the ways in which various elements of "secular" society in Australia play the role previously played by religious institutions.

We talked about the "family first" party, ANZAC day celebrations (increasingly attended by youth), Australian notions of "mateship," Edward Linenthal's work on commemoration, Jack Lule's "Daily News Eternal Stories," the role of place (or land?) in spirituality, and much, much more.

Some links I don't want to lose include the podcasts of The Spirit of Things, the Hillsong church, and the Columbia Journalism Review article on faith-based news.