The Magnificat Meal Movement (MMM) emerged in the early 1990s as one Australian example of the mi... more The Magnificat Meal Movement (MMM) emerged in the early 1990s as one Australian example of the millennialist belief system sometimes referred to as ‘Roman Catholic Apocalyptic’ associated with a series of alleged apparitions of Virgin Mary. Like many of the other Marian apparitional movements which have emerged from the Roman Catholic spiritual milieu since the Second World War, the MMM soon spread internationally and caused some concern to the Roman Catholic hierarchy, especially in Australia and Ireland. Following an ecclesiastical investigation between 1997 and 1999, an official statement emphasizing the group’s lack of institutional approval or affiliation was issued by the then Bishop of Toowoomba (Queensland, Australia) William Morris in 1999. Since this time the group has undergone a radical transformation. Utilizing insights from the study of Roman Catholic apocalyptic, ‘improvisational millennialism,’ ‘conspirituality,’ and scholarship on the development of Marian apparitional movements, this article seeks to illustrate some of the ways in which the MMM has developed from its roots in the Catholic Charismatic Renewal (CCR), to a cohesive and communal conservative Catholic apocalyptic group, and finally to a loose-knit online community with an increasingly eclectic millennial vision, and to identify some of the factors that have contributed to this development.
Among all the controversial New Religious Movements to emerge since the Second World War, the Chu... more Among all the controversial New Religious Movements to emerge since the Second World War, the Church of Scientology has arguably been subject to more scrutiny by domestic and international intelligence agencies than any other non-Islamic alternative religious group. While owing to the nature of intelligence gathering scholarly accounts of this have often been one-dimensional and brief, the situation in Australia resulting from the Archives Act 1983 has meant that historians of both intelligence agencies and new religions now have access to a significant amount of documentation illustrating the interactions between the Church of Scientology and the Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO) for the period from 1956 to 1983. This period witnessed vacillating fortunes for the Church of Scientology which saw it become the subject of legislative bans in three Australian state jurisdictions during the late 1960s, as well as it launching a high profile, but ultimately unsuccessful, legal case against ASIO in 1979. While never considered a serious security risk by ASIO, the Church of Scientology played a minor role in a number of important events in the history of ASIO particularly during the 1970s, including participating in a wider activist campaign which sought to curtail ASIO’s operations during this period and making submissions to the first Royal Commission into the Australian Intelligence Services under Justice Robert Marsden Hope.
A study of the early years of the Marian Work of Atonement and the career of alleged visionary Wi... more A study of the early years of the Marian Work of Atonement and the career of alleged visionary William Kamm ("The Little Pebble").
A sociological study of online mobilization against the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church (the '... more A sociological study of online mobilization against the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church (the 'Exclusive Brethren').
Beginning in the late 1950s what was to become the Church of Scien- tology in Australia had becom... more Beginning in the late 1950s what was to become the Church of Scien- tology in Australia had become a topic of public concern. In response to a highly critical report issued by an official Board of Inquiry in the State of Victoria, held over the course of 1963-1964 under the auspices of Kevin Victor Anderson Q.C., state governments in Victoria (1965), Western Australia (1968) and South Australia (1969) passed legislation to restrict the activities of Scientologists. This legislation proved controversial and largely ineffective and was eventually repealed in all three state jurisdictions. This article provides a preliminary account of the circumstances that occasioned the original Board of Inquiry and the background and parliamen- tary debates surrounding each piece of legislation. Utilizing archival documents and public records this article examines how this controversial legislation passed into law and how Scientology initially responded to attempts to curtail its activi- ties. The article concludes with a brief account of the circumstances surrounding the repeals of the legislation in Western Australia (1973), South Australia (1974) and finally in Victoria (1982).
Beginning within decades of the violent death of philosopher Hypatia at the hands of an Alexandri... more Beginning within decades of the violent death of philosopher Hypatia at the hands of an Alexandrian Christian mob in A.D. 415 St Cyril of Alexandria has frequently been cast as the agent provocateur behind this lynching, a malevolent and scheming ecclesiastical tyrant who imposed his will on Alexandrian affairs with an iron fist. Since this time, but particularly since the Enlightenment, both professional historians and popular cultural productions have coalesced to make the complex events surrounding this tragedy a powerful rhetorical weapon with which to attack Christian belief and also the person of St Cyril. This article looks at a recent depiction of these events as they appear in the 2009 film Agora, directed by Chilean-Spaniard Alejandro Amenábar. This paper demonstrates that Agora, aside from being an entertaining sword-and-sandal epic, can equally be interpreted as the latest link in a historical chain of interpretations which have used carefully framed accounts of these historical events in late antique Alexandria as an ideological weapon with which to attack aspects of Christian belief and praxis or Christianity in toto. This paper places Agora both in a historical context of earlier interpretations of the relationship between Cyril and Hypatia and the events of Cyril’s episcopacy and in its contemporary social context of the rise of the New Atheism, widespread concern about religious fanaticism, and ongoing debates about the relationship between science and religion.
The Magnificat Meal Movement (MMM) emerged in the early 1990s as one Australian example of the mi... more The Magnificat Meal Movement (MMM) emerged in the early 1990s as one Australian example of the millennialist belief system sometimes referred to as ‘Roman Catholic Apocalyptic’ associated with a series of alleged apparitions of Virgin Mary. Like many of the other Marian apparitional movements which have emerged from the Roman Catholic spiritual milieu since the Second World War, the MMM soon spread internationally and caused some concern to the Roman Catholic hierarchy, especially in Australia and Ireland. Following an ecclesiastical investigation between 1997 and 1999, an official statement emphasizing the group’s lack of institutional approval or affiliation was issued by the then Bishop of Toowoomba (Queensland, Australia) William Morris in 1999. Since this time the group has undergone a radical transformation. Utilizing insights from the study of Roman Catholic apocalyptic, ‘improvisational millennialism,’ ‘conspirituality,’ and scholarship on the development of Marian apparitional movements, this article seeks to illustrate some of the ways in which the MMM has developed from its roots in the Catholic Charismatic Renewal (CCR), to a cohesive and communal conservative Catholic apocalyptic group, and finally to a loose-knit online community with an increasingly eclectic millennial vision, and to identify some of the factors that have contributed to this development.
Among all the controversial New Religious Movements to emerge since the Second World War, the Chu... more Among all the controversial New Religious Movements to emerge since the Second World War, the Church of Scientology has arguably been subject to more scrutiny by domestic and international intelligence agencies than any other non-Islamic alternative religious group. While owing to the nature of intelligence gathering scholarly accounts of this have often been one-dimensional and brief, the situation in Australia resulting from the Archives Act 1983 has meant that historians of both intelligence agencies and new religions now have access to a significant amount of documentation illustrating the interactions between the Church of Scientology and the Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO) for the period from 1956 to 1983. This period witnessed vacillating fortunes for the Church of Scientology which saw it become the subject of legislative bans in three Australian state jurisdictions during the late 1960s, as well as it launching a high profile, but ultimately unsuccessful, legal case against ASIO in 1979. While never considered a serious security risk by ASIO, the Church of Scientology played a minor role in a number of important events in the history of ASIO particularly during the 1970s, including participating in a wider activist campaign which sought to curtail ASIO’s operations during this period and making submissions to the first Royal Commission into the Australian Intelligence Services under Justice Robert Marsden Hope.
A study of the early years of the Marian Work of Atonement and the career of alleged visionary Wi... more A study of the early years of the Marian Work of Atonement and the career of alleged visionary William Kamm ("The Little Pebble").
A sociological study of online mobilization against the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church (the '... more A sociological study of online mobilization against the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church (the 'Exclusive Brethren').
Beginning in the late 1950s what was to become the Church of Scien- tology in Australia had becom... more Beginning in the late 1950s what was to become the Church of Scien- tology in Australia had become a topic of public concern. In response to a highly critical report issued by an official Board of Inquiry in the State of Victoria, held over the course of 1963-1964 under the auspices of Kevin Victor Anderson Q.C., state governments in Victoria (1965), Western Australia (1968) and South Australia (1969) passed legislation to restrict the activities of Scientologists. This legislation proved controversial and largely ineffective and was eventually repealed in all three state jurisdictions. This article provides a preliminary account of the circumstances that occasioned the original Board of Inquiry and the background and parliamen- tary debates surrounding each piece of legislation. Utilizing archival documents and public records this article examines how this controversial legislation passed into law and how Scientology initially responded to attempts to curtail its activi- ties. The article concludes with a brief account of the circumstances surrounding the repeals of the legislation in Western Australia (1973), South Australia (1974) and finally in Victoria (1982).
Beginning within decades of the violent death of philosopher Hypatia at the hands of an Alexandri... more Beginning within decades of the violent death of philosopher Hypatia at the hands of an Alexandrian Christian mob in A.D. 415 St Cyril of Alexandria has frequently been cast as the agent provocateur behind this lynching, a malevolent and scheming ecclesiastical tyrant who imposed his will on Alexandrian affairs with an iron fist. Since this time, but particularly since the Enlightenment, both professional historians and popular cultural productions have coalesced to make the complex events surrounding this tragedy a powerful rhetorical weapon with which to attack Christian belief and also the person of St Cyril. This article looks at a recent depiction of these events as they appear in the 2009 film Agora, directed by Chilean-Spaniard Alejandro Amenábar. This paper demonstrates that Agora, aside from being an entertaining sword-and-sandal epic, can equally be interpreted as the latest link in a historical chain of interpretations which have used carefully framed accounts of these historical events in late antique Alexandria as an ideological weapon with which to attack aspects of Christian belief and praxis or Christianity in toto. This paper places Agora both in a historical context of earlier interpretations of the relationship between Cyril and Hypatia and the events of Cyril’s episcopacy and in its contemporary social context of the rise of the New Atheism, widespread concern about religious fanaticism, and ongoing debates about the relationship between science and religion.
In Australia, the most persistent fault line of what historian Michael Hogan famously dubbed the ... more In Australia, the most persistent fault line of what historian Michael Hogan famously dubbed the “sectarian strand” has been the issue of religion in schools. In particular the issue of whether confessional schools, whether Catholic or Protestant, should receive the greatly coveted benefit of State-Aid. With the increasingly plural complexion of Australian society, coupled with the increasing politicization of issues surrounding curriculum and accreditation, it was perhaps inevitable that minority religious groups would eventually be caught in the political cross-fire in their attempts to raise their children according to their own faith-based values. The Plymouth Brethren Christian Church, who over the past twenty-years have built up their own religious system, are no exception here and their high public-profile, coupled with their strict beliefs, have presented them with an acute set of challenges in an increasingly complex and heavily-regulated educational economy. This paper will look at the historical and contemporary issues surrounding the issue of religious schooling in Australia and how the Brethren’s particular response to this can be understood within the wider context of these debates.
In 1982 the Church of Scientology lost an important legal case in the High Court of Australia (Ch... more In 1982 the Church of Scientology lost an important legal case in the High Court of Australia (Church of Scientology v Woodward) in which they sought to take legal recourse against the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (A.S.I.O.), Australia’s domestic national security service, for its alleged campaign against them. This case, which became an important test case in the history of Australian legal debate regarding the accountability of intelligence agencies, was the culmination of nearly thirty years of interactions between Scientology and A.S.I.O as well as other international security and intelligence organizations. One year later, however, the Archives Act 1983 was passed, which facilitated the declassification of Cabinet and intelligence files following a thirty-year period. While A.S.I.O. was initially reluctant to release any files, beginning in early 2000s the National Archives of Australia began releasing the A.S.I.O files relating to Scientology dating back to the mid-1950s. This paper will seek to given an overview of the content and historical context of these files, situating the surveillance of Scientology within A.S.I.O.’s wider ambit of combatting subversion and perceived threats to the Australian state over the Cold War period. It will also examine what, if any, role A.S.I.O. played in the legislative restrictions on Scientology in Victoria (1965), South Australia (1968) and Western Australia (1968), all of which have since been overturned.
Uploads