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Contributions from a conference sponsored by the Institute for Christian Studies in October, 1988.

Durkheim imposed his own totemic or ordering principle on the interpretation of Australian religion. Unfortunately his frame of reference did not fit well, and as a result the data received short shrift. In fact, totems are assigned to six relatively independent, salient units of social organization: tribe, moiety, clan, manhood, femalehood, and personhood. Totems reinforce boundaries around each of these "identities," but since Durkheim's focus on social solidarity demanded harmonious interlocking, he overlooked the tension between these units of social organization. The data fit better in a model which stresses sacralization of various intertwining and conflicting units. The model employs sacralization not just in terms of: (a) objectification (i.e., the totem sums up a particular order), but also: (b) commitment (i.e., asceticism and sacrifice reinforce salient loyalties), (c) ritual (i.e., initiation strengthens manhood), and (d) myth (i.e., territorial myths reinforce tribal identity). The alternative account is then linked to territoriality as a pre-eminent means for primate adaptation.

As IN other Anglo-Saxon countries, Australians think of interfaith marriages as CatholicProtestant marriages. There are too few Jews in Australia to make a Jewish-Gentile marriage at all common. In the 1961 Census, 2,465 or eight percent of all married Jews, were married to a Christian spouse. As elsewhere the Jews apparently realize that ethnic survival depends on whether or not they follow the injunction of Deuteronomy 7:1-4 not to make marriages with foreigners, for the latter "will turn away thy son from following me." Unions of members of different Protestant denominations do not draw much attention. On the other hand, CatholicProtestant marriages raise eyebrows, mainly because of the antenuptial agreement, by which the non-Catholic partner promises to bring up the children of the marriage as Catholics. This, together with the fact that a Catholic will have to marry in his or her church in order to have church approval has made for ruffled feelings. The Catholic Church has not always been able to prevent or monopolize interfaith marriages. In the early convict days the first two Catholic priests (Therry and Conolly who arrived in 1820) were expressly forbidden to solemnize a marriage if only one partner was Catholic (O'Farrell, 1968: 28). These rules were later relaxed, but some priests such as Archbishop Polding, the first Catholic bishop in Australia, were more concerned with getting couples to convert liaisons into marriages than putting obstacles in the way of mixed marriages, for a mixed marriage he thought, was better than none at all (O'Farrell, 1968: 141). It was not until the middle of the latter half of the nineteenth century that the Catholic bishops became seriously concerned with the frequency