Hans Mol, who, though of Dutch birth, has many ties with Australia, is professor of Sociology of Religion at McMaster University in Canada. His Religion in Australia being out of print, he has now produced a new book on the same subject. The opening passages inform us that religion is on the periphery of Australian society and that it is ethnically based.

The historic mainline churches, Anglican, Catholic, Presbyterian and Methodist, demonstrate both theses amply, while the post-war influx of adherents of Orthodoxy and Islam are further instances of the latter. The first chapter provides a detailed demographic study of religious adherence, followed by a discussion of the sects. This highly charged term is used in a -non-pejorative sense to indicate a ‘particular religious body [which] tends to stress its marginality and separateness in a particular society and tends to attract individuals who are marginal.