Enter an established seminary of any mainstream church and ask to see the room where graduation photos are displayed. There in the shrinking classes, the ranks dwindling to a handful in the 1980s, is one of the most poignant records of the decline of religion in Australia. Whether this change is seen as the march of reason or a loss of soul, many would find it hard not to sense pathos here in the clear images of some great cause in decline. What appears in this photographic history to be irrefutable evidence of a massive fall off in religion is, however, somewhat misleading. Mol’s major study of religion in Australia showed that in the early 1970s the decline in religious adherence did not necessarily indicate a continuous long term trend. Church attendance rates were not markedly different from the nineteenth century. The decline has occurred more recently from a high in the 1950s with sharp fall offs in the 1960s and 1970s.