ABSTRACT
Australia has a rich and diverse religious and spiritual life. Religious traditions including Islam, Buddhism, and Christianity have many devoted practitioners. Spiritual practices like tarot cards, mediumship, and astrology are also popular. Concomitantly, an ever-increasing proportion of the population declare that they have no religion at all. The discipline of sociology offers the means to document and make sense of this complex religious and spiritual mosaic. Accordingly, this chapter introduces the sociological study of religion and spirituality in contemporary society. It defines religion and spirituality and outlines the features of the sociological study of religion. It then examines various dimensions of recent religious change in Australia: the decline of Christianity, the growth of religious diversity, and the rise of alternative spiritualities and offers a sociological explanation of these trends.
