Reasons for the rise of non-religion and new religious expression: HSC Studies of Religion

What this dot point is asking

In Religion and Non-Religion (a Studies of Religion II topic), the syllabus section New religious expression asks you to:

1. Recognise the reasons for the rise of new religious expressions as people:
   • search for personal fulfilment,
   • seek ethical guidelines,
   • seek to clarify their relationship with society.
2. Explain how the following have influenced the growth of new religious expressions and spiritualities:
   • the rise of materialism,
   • scientific progress,
   • growth of ecological awareness,
   • disenchantment with "traditional" religious practice and guidance.

These are tested almost entirely by multiple-choice questions, often with a short stimulus about a person: one or two a year from 2021 to 2025. You also need the wider context of the rise of non-religion (secularisation and disaffiliation), which explains the environment in which new religious expressions grow and links to the non-religious worldviews studied next. For atheism, agnosticism and humanism see Religion and Non-Religion and the search for meaning.

The answer

What counts as a new religious expression

A new religious expression is a religious or spiritual movement, belief or practice that has emerged or grown outside the established traditions, particularly since the 1960s. Scholars also speak of new religious movements (NRMs) and alternative spiritualities. Common examples:

• New Age spirituality. An eclectic, individual-centred spirituality that grew from the 1970s, drawing on Eastern religions, Western esotericism, psychology and ecology. Practices include meditation, yoga, crystals, astrology, tarot, channelling and energy healing. Its hope is personal and global transformation into a new "age" of consciousness. It has no central authority or creed, so people combine elements freely.
• Neo-paganism and Wicca. Nature-centred religions that revive or reimagine pre-Christian traditions, honouring the earth, gods and goddesses and the cycle of the seasons. Wicca was publicised by Gerald Gardner in England in the 1950s.
• Scientology. Founded by L. Ron Hubbard in the 1950s, it teaches that humans are spiritual beings (thetans) and offers a technique of "auditing" for spiritual progress, using the language of science and technology.
• "Spiritual but not religious." Many people construct a personal spirituality from several sources (meditation, retreats, nature, wellbeing practices) without joining any organisation.
• Secular or semi-religious practices. Mindfulness, developed for clinical use by Jon Kabat-Zinn (Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, 1979) from Buddhist meditation, shows how spiritual techniques move into secular settings.

Key features that distinguish them from traditional religion: individualism (the self as the authority), eclecticism (combining sources), experience over doctrine, little or no institutional hierarchy, and often holism (mind, body, spirit and nature as one).

The reasons for the rise of new religious expressions

The syllabus frames these as needs that people bring to spirituality.

1. The search for personal fulfilment

In an individualistic society, many people want a spirituality that helps them grow, heal and find meaning on their own terms. New religious expressions offer personal experience, self-discovery and wellbeing rather than obedience to an external authority. NESA's 2023 question on "spiritual and personal development" at wellbeing events and its 2025 question on "expressing my individuality" both test this reason.

2. Seeking ethical guidelines

Some people find traditional moral codes out of step with their values or too tied to institutional authority, yet still want guidance on how to live. New religious expressions often offer simple, positive ethics: do no harm, live sustainably, respect all life, take responsibility for your own growth. Wicca's principle, commonly summarised as "an it harm none, do what ye will", is an example of a flexible ethical guideline.

3. Clarifying their relationship with society

Rapid social change, mobility and the decline of traditional communities leave some people unsure of their identity and place. New religious communities and networks (festivals, workshops, online groups) offer belonging and a sense of purpose within, or sometimes as an alternative to, mainstream society. The 2021 HSC answer "searching for a sense of belonging" reflects this.

The influences on their growth

1. The rise of materialism. Materialism places the highest value on money and possessions. It influences new religious expressions in two ways:

• Reaction. Some people find consumerism spiritually empty and turn to spirituality for meaning that possessions cannot provide.
• Accommodation. Spirituality itself can become a product in a "spiritual marketplace" of books, crystals, courses and retreats, chosen and consumed like other goods. Critics argue this reflects materialism rather than escaping it.

2. Scientific progress

Scientific explanation of the natural world has made some traditional religious claims (for example literal readings of creation stories) harder for many people to accept, weakening inherited belief. Yet science has not removed the desire for meaning. Some new religious expressions borrow scientific language (Scientology's "technology", popular talk of "energy" and "vibrations"), and some practices, such as meditation, are promoted because research suggests benefits for wellbeing. Others react against a purely mechanistic view of the world by seeking the mysterious and the spiritual.

3. Growth of ecological awareness

From the 1960s, concern about pollution, species loss and later climate change made many people see nature as precious or sacred. Some felt traditional religions had not valued nature enough. Nature-centred spiritualities responded: neo-paganism and Wicca celebrate the earth's cycles; eco-spirituality draws on ideas such as the Gaia hypothesis of the scientist James Lovelock (the earth as a self-regulating system) and the deep ecology of the philosopher Arne Naess (the intrinsic value of all life). These spiritualities give ecological concern both a sense of the sacred and ethical guidelines.

4. Disenchantment with "traditional" religious practice and guidance

Some people have become disillusioned with established religions because they experience them as authoritarian, formal or out of touch, disagree with their teachings (for example on gender, sexuality or reproductive health), or have lost trust after institutional failures, including those exposed by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (2013 to 2017). New religious expressions offer freedom, flexibility and personal experience instead. The 2024 HSC stimulus about Taylor and Charly, "unhappy with their faith's strict adherence to worship", tests exactly this.

The rise of non-religion as context

New religious expressions have grown alongside a much larger shift: the rise of no religion.

• Australia (ABS Census). No religion rose from 0.8% in 1966 to 6.7% in 1971, when instructions for answering "no religion" were added to the question, and then steadily to 30.1% in 2016 and 38.9% in 2021 (about 9.9 million people, an increase of more than 2.8 million in five years). Younger Australians are much more likely to report no religion: 48.4% of 25 to 34 year olds, compared with 23.8% of people aged 65 and over.
• Most are not committed atheists. In 2021 the "no religion, so described" response accounted for almost all of this group; atheism, agnosticism and other secular and spiritual beliefs together were only 1.2% of responses. Many people with no religion still hold spiritual beliefs, which is where new religious expressions fit.
• Globally. Pew Research Center (2025) found that the religiously unaffiliated grew to 24.2% of the world's population in 2020 and that Australia had one of the largest increases in its unaffiliated share between 2010 and 2020 (17 percentage points).

Reasons for the rise of non-religion:

1. Secularisation. Government, law, education, health and welfare are organised on secular lines, so religion is less central to public life and affiliation is less expected.
2. Science and reason. Confidence in scientific explanation leads some to see religious explanations as unnecessary.
3. Individualism and choice. Belief is increasingly chosen rather than inherited; many choose none. (NESA's 2022 answer: "the rise of individualism within society" accounts for increasing secularism.)
4. Disaffiliation and loss of trust. People raised in a religion stop identifying with it, partly because of institutional scandals and disagreement with teachings. Pew identifies disaffiliation as the main driver of the growth of the unaffiliated worldwide.
5. Pluralism. Living among many worldviews can make inherited belief seem one option among many.
6. Generational change. Each younger generation is less affiliated than the one before.

How religious traditions have responded

Religious traditions have responded to non-religion and new religious expression in several ways, which you can evaluate:

• Renewal and relevance. Contemporary worship, youth ministry and small-group courses introducing faith to newcomers aim to make traditional religion accessible.
• Recovering contemplative practice. Christian, Jewish and Muslim communities have promoted their own traditions of meditation and mysticism (for example Christian meditation groups and Sufi practice), meeting the search for experience from within.
• Ecological commitment. Traditions have strengthened environmental teaching, for example Pope Francis's encyclical Laudato Si' (2015), addressing the concern that religion neglects nature.
• Apologetics and dialogue. Reasoned defences of belief, and dialogue with humanists and scientists, respond to intellectual challenges (see new atheism).
• Reform and accountability. Safeguarding reforms after the Royal Commission aim to rebuild trust.
• Cooperation on shared values. Religious and secular groups work together on justice, welfare and the environment.

Evaluation. These responses have renewed some communities, but the overall trend toward non-religion has continued in Australia, suggesting that deeper social forces (individualism, secularisation, generational change) are at work.

In one sentence

New religious expressions have grown as people search for personal fulfilment, ethical guidelines and a clearer relationship with society, shaped by materialism, scientific progress, ecological awareness and disenchantment with traditional religion, against the background of a sharp rise in non-religion, which reached 38.9% of Australians in 2021.

Try this

Q1. Recognise ONE reason for the rise of new religious expressions. (1 mark)

• What the marker wants. Personal fulfilment, ethical guidelines or relationship with society.

Q2. Explain how disenchantment with traditional religious practice has influenced the growth of new religious expressions. (4 marks)

• What the marker wants. Causes of disenchantment and how new expressions meet the need, with an example.

Q3. Using statistical data, describe the rise of non-religion in Australia since 1966. (4 marks)

• What the marker wants. Accurate Census figures with years, the age pattern, and a qualification about what "no religion" means.