This book provides new perspectives on the relationship between religious thought and social reform in Australia. It argues that religious thought can be found in many intellectuals in Australia, both in the religiously inclined and in those who were not conventionally religious. Drawing together existing and new research, this book opens up new perspectives and re-thematises the field in six exploratory studies. Each study is revisionist in some respects. Shapes of disbelief are explored in intellectuals of many types. The concept of sacral secularity is used to complex and contest discussions of 'the secular' in Australia. Religious liberalism is interpreted as transnational and as often a source of social reform. Interactions between religious thought and philosophy are discussed in some detail, as is the development of theology, which has received relatively little attention from historians. Account is also taken of what might perhaps be called post-secular consciousness in many intellectuals. Taking religious thought more seriously suggests possible revisions to the way the national story has been told. There was more serious intellectual life in Australia than some historians have claimed, and a considerable part of it was in a broad sense 'religious'.

'Wayne Hudson tells the story of a previously underestimated religious dimension of Australian cultural and intellectual history with assurance and zest' -Frank Bongiorno