4
Utilitarianism contra Sectarianism
The Official and the Unauthorized
Civic Religion of Australia
Greg Melleuish and Stephen A. Chavura
4.1 The Myth of Australia as Secular
One of the great myths of Australian political, social, and cultural develop-
ment is the belief that Australia is an almost uniquely secular country
which has always been guided by secular principles. Australians are under-
stood to be worldly, materialist, and primarily concerned with the things
of this world. Hence the term‘utilitarianism’becomes code for a set of
these worldly materialist values which were considered to be the failings of
an immigrant society composed largely of people from the lower orders of
society. According to this view, Australia was‘born modern’(Kociumbas
1992, ix),^1 with‘modernity’including‘secular’. But what exactly is meant
by‘secular’? Does it mean the complete absence of religion? Does it mean
a social and cultural order devoted to a‘this world’view of the cosmos? Or
is it simply more code for the supposedly materialist predilections of
Australians?
The idea that utilitarianism is the supposed public philosophy of Australia
found its fullest expression in an essay by Hugh Collins (1985, p. 148), in
which he claims‘that the mental universe of Australian politics is essentially
Benthamite’. It must be said that his case is weak. Indeed, there is a mass of
(^1) A huge literature has since emerged which resituates Christianity, particularly Protestant
Christianity, at the centre of Australian civil society and order from colonial times to the mid-
twentieth century. A brilliant and recent study is Gladwin (2015). A popular but very thoughtful
one is Williams (2015).