Introducing the Queensland Atlas of Religion

The Queensland Atlas of Religion website.

Religious diversity is an acknowledged feature of Queensland society. Yet to date there has been no comprehensive overview of patterns of religious belief and practice across the state. The existing literature on religion is overwhelmingly tradition specific, and in that largely focussed on Christian denominations. 

We felt it was time for the story of religion in Queensland be told with a fresh set of eyes, informed by much more contemporary considerations given Queensland’s multicultural character today — an account of the large patterns of religious life that included the social contributions made by religious communities, and the personal stories of religious faith and experience.

In 2018 we started working on the Queensland Atlas of Religion (QAR), a new digital humanities resource to document and interpret Queensland’s diverse religious life. The completed online Atlas – filled with stories of people and places, belief and belonging – was launched in March at the State Library of Queensland. 

Funded by the Australian Research Council and SLQ, the Atlas was developed at the University of Queensland’s School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, in collaboration with many community partners and contributors. 

What is the QAR?

The QAR is a public reference website written and developed by academic researchers and contributors for a broad audience. It provides the first systematic scholarly account of the presence and diversity of religion in Queensland’s social life. Because we chose to deliver this project online, we can tell these stories about people and communities in novel and engaging ways, incorporating individual research articles and oral history interviews, images, documents, story-maps, and video content. 

The ultimate goal of the QAR is for it to become the go-to reference platform for educators, politicians, policy makers, journalists, researchers, and others seeking to empirically ground the place of religion (and religions) in Queensland. In this we hope the site will facilitate a much-needed improvement in Queensland’s and Australia’s religious literacy. 

We felt the project was needed because the role of religion and faith-based social practices in supplying meaning and civic cohesion to our multicultural society is little understood and poorly documented. Additionally, the QAR supports State Library's objectives in collection development, chiefly through gathering extensive oral history resources and developing new and on-going relationships with culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities.

The project takes a ‘place’ and ‘person’ centred approach to understanding religion in Queensland, embracing the disciplines of religious studies, history, oral history, anthropology, and sociology. ‘Place’ acknowledges Gary Bouma’s dictum that ‘Australian spirituality, both indigenous and more recently arrived, is grounded in place and land.’ ‘Person’ acknowledges that, whatever ‘religion’ is, it above all reflects the experiences, concerns and activities of individuals and communities, as part of their everyday ‘getting on’ in their immediate contexts. 

What kind of stories are in the QAR? 

By focusing on ‘place’ and ‘person’ the QAR approaches the story of religion in Queensland from the grass roots up, reflecting the every-day experiences of Queenslanders. We wanted a cumulative picture of the diversity of religion in Queensland, describing and analysing Indigenous, Abrahamic, Asian and African ways of being religious in the Queensland context, without ignoring intersections, fuzzy boundaries, and divergences. 

Migration patterns over the last two decades have led to growth in, for example, Sikh, Islamic, Buddhist, Hindu, and Pacific Islander Christian communities, though all these have had long connections to Queensland. Establishing religious focal points have often been key goals of migrant communities from the earliest non-indigenous arrivals. Once established, such sites have contributed significantly to the well-being of new arrivals, providing a sense of place and belonging, and contributing to the wider communities to which they belong. The contributions of religious communities to civic causes have often been under-appreciated. 

Through the QAR, several of these important contemporary religious phenomena have been the objects of targeted higher degree research projects. Prabuddha Mukherjee has studied the religious diversity of the South Asian diaspora in Brisbane; Elverina Johnson seeks to explain the cultural adaptations of Christianity in Yarrabah, an indigenous community east of Cairns which has Australia’s highest concentration of people identifying as Christian. Zerrin Afza has been exploring the continuities in Queensland’s Islamic communities, which have an old history but also experienced rapid recent growth; Jerrold Cuperus has been analysing the use of technology in Pentecostal churches; and Jessica White analysed with fabulous richness the objectives of the Hindu community that established the Sri Selva Vinayakar Koyil (a Ganesh temple) in South Maclean on the Logan River. 

Other Atlas entries are diverse not only because expressions of religion and spirituality are complex and varied, but also because the entries traverse the vast expanse of Queensland. 

Examples include indigenous peoples describing connections to place from Mithaka country, Gunggandji country, and Ghungalu country; the story of the Quetta Memorial Church on Thursday Island (Waibene), which explores the complex ramifications of colonial missionising and local adaptation; and an interview with members of the Bains family in Cairns, who established the first Sikh temple in Queensland in 1982, though Sikh families have lived in the region at least since the 1890s. 

There is also the unique story told by Nicholai von Tonslamann of his building of Hindu shrines and temples in the backyard of his Mt Morgan home, which subsequently came to be frequently visited by Central Queensland’s Hindu communities, who then also often became his collaborators. There is the tortured tale of Queensland’s first clergyman, John Vincent; an account of the many Chinese temples that once punctuated North Queensland’s landscape, only two of which remain; Queensland’s involvement with Spiritualism through the Brisbane Spiritual Church (launched in person by none other than Sir Arthur Conan Doyle), the globe-trotting story of the Abbey Church at Caboolture, and the Brisbane Society of the New Church of the Swedenborgians. 

Among many others, there is the story of the Sicilian families of North Queensland and their distinctive annual festival; the personal account told by Venerable Rinchen of her initiation into a Tibetan Buddhist tradition and her work in palliative care while establishing a temple in Cairns; and the modernist church architecture movement as reflected in the work of Dr Karl Langer, who designed St Peters Lutheran College Chapel at Indooroopilly. 

It’s a wonderful collection, rich and diverse, and there is a lot going on in these stories that tells us much about Queensland’s people and communities. And there’s much more to tell. With over forty entries already published, the project will continue to capture more voices and experiences to comprehensively document and analyse the contribution that religion has made to Queensland’s social fabric. 

QAR Editorial team

Adam Bowles

Geoff Ginn

Jess White

Visit the Queensland Atlas of Religion Website

https://qareligion.com.au

Watch 

• About the Queensland Atlas of Religion - about the project
• Queensland Atlas of Religion - website launch
• Belief and belonging: Queensland stories. Queensland Atlas of Religion talk