Leaps of faith: women who choose to convert
As Australians drift away from traditional Christian churches, a growing number are converting to new faiths. Clair Weaver meets three women who have undergone life-changing spiritual transformations.
LIKE many tee nagers, Susan Carland was trying to figure out her identity and direction in life when she began questioning the religion she’d been raised with. Growing up in a loving family in a regular suburban Christian home, she’d attended the Uniting Church as a child before switching to the Baptist Church as a teenager.
“I was very happy with the Christian faith I had grown up with,” she says. “It was so positive, I started going to my [church] role models with my questions.”
Yet her spiritual curiosity was still not quenched, so the then 17-year-old decided to embark on an exploration of other religions.
“I started to wonder why I believed what I did,” recalls Susan, who is married to Waleed Aly, Gold Logie-winning TV host. “Was it because I genuinely believed it to be true or was it because it was what I was raised to believe?”
There was only one religion she really wasn’t interested in – Islam. “I thought, why would anyone want to be part of a barbaric, outdated, sexist religion?” Susan says.
Two years later, she became a Muslim.
When you sit down and fill in a questionnaire about the personal details of the people in your household in August, you may well be contributing to a historical shift in Australia’s religious landscape. For the first time, it’s quite possible “no religion” will become the number one single answer to the Census question on religion.
If so, it will overtake Catholicism, which has been the top response for the past three decades, and Anglicanism, which had been number one since records began (although Christianity will likely stay on top if you combine all its denominations).
However, this is not the only change that’s been observed. Minority nonChristian religions, such as Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam, are bucking the trend, swelling in numbers as the larger churches downsize. A big part of the explanation, of course, is migration and population growth. Yet there’s another reason, too: people converting to faiths that resonate more deeply than the ones they were raised with.
Islam is growing in Australia, although contrary to public perception, Muslims still make up only 2.2 per cent of our population at last count (a survey in 2014 found Australians on average guessed the figure to be 18 per cent). When Dr Susan Carland, now a sociologist and academic at Monash University in Melbourne, converted at 19, that figure was just 1 per cent.
Despite her early avoidance of
Islam, Susan says, “I kept coming across information about Islam in my reading and on TV until my interest was piqued.”
Given the internet hadn’t taken hold yet, she turned to books and a Muslim women’s group at university to find out more. After two years of research, a series of small epiphanies and much soul-searching, Susan decided she was ready to commit.
“Before I felt a spiritual connection to Islam, I felt a logical connection to it,” she says. “I found the emphasis on social justice appealing; I noticed there was a real concern for the vulnerable people in society. Islam codifies their right to be protected.”
Of making her new faith official, Susan says, “Becoming Muslim felt like coming home. It felt like a natural fit for me as a person.”
Susan’s intellectual interest in Islam continues to this day, with her PhD examining how Muslim women tackle sexism. “Anyone who says there’s a contradiction between Islam and feminism doesn’t understand either,” she says. Living according to Islamic values, dressing modestly and praying five times a day helps make her more mindful and reminds her to strive to be the person she wants to be, rather than surrender to her innate traits, such as selfishness, laziness or sarcasm, she says.
Nevertheless, her decision to convert came as a shock to her mother, who opposed it at first. “Mum had some hesitations,” says Susan, “but I can see as a mother myself that if my kid came to me at 19 and said they wanted to get involved in something that I have only ever heard negative things about, it would be hard. Things are great with my mother now.”
It’s worth noting this was before 9/11 and exposure to Islam for many Australians was limited to foreign depictions on TV, film and in books such as Betty Mahmoody’s Not Without My Daughter, in which an American woman flees Iran and the tyranny of her Muslim husband. Since then, of course, the public perception of Islam appears to have become inextricably linked to terrorism.
“There’s definitely still the fear and belief among certain people that Muslims are all terrorists and kill people or, if not, they are sleeper cells,” says Susan. “Ninety-nine per cent of what people see about Muslims in the media is negative. As consumers, we need to be switched on.”
Susan and her husband, Waleed, who won the Gold Logie in May as co-host of Network Ten’s The Project and with whom she has two children, are helping challenge such attitudes and stereotypes, although they face backlash for doing so.
For every hate tweet she receives, Susan donates $1 to UNICEF. “I can’t change them [the online trolls],” she says, “but I can respond in a way that reflects my values.” Since October last year, she has donated about $4000.
JUDAISM PROVIDED ANSWERS
Getting dressed in the morning has been transformed for Cosmopolitan magazine’s online fashion editor Nikki Kinstlinger, who converted to Judaism in 2014. Five years ago, denim shorts, skinny jeans and short-sleeved tops were staples in her wardrobe. Today, the married 29-year-old is just as stylish, but wears only modest attire that covers her elbows, knees and collarbones.
As an Orthodox or observant Jew, she also covers her hair with a wig or scarf. “My religion dictates every part of my life, from how I dress to what I eat and my social life,” she says. “It’s a constant consciousness that didn’t exist for me before. That would drive some people crazy, but for me, it’s reassuring.
“Married women cover their hair and dress modestly for myriad reasons. It also means your husband is going to be the only person who gets to see you in your natural form. I find that quite beautiful.”
Raised in a Christian family in the regional NSW town of Dubbo, where she went to Catholic school, Nikki says religion was always in the background of her life, but didn’t shift to the forefront until she discovered Judaism. It was moving to Sydney’s eastern suburbs at 18 and making Jewish friends that sparked her interest.
“I was immersed in the culture and I fell in love with it,” she explains. “I love the community togetherness. It’s very familyorientated and no matter where you are, everyone feels every other Jew is their brother, whether you are in Israel or sitting around at Shul [synagogue] in Bondi. There was also an attraction to my now husband at the time – but I didn’t convert for him.”
Judaism provided answers to questions that Nikki hadn’t felt were adequately answered by Christianity, she says. “I was a curious kid. I did religion at HSC level, but I never really understood the timing of events [in the Bible]. I remember saying, if Jesus was Jewish, why aren’t we all Jewish?”
Today, Nikki says she loves discussing theology with her friends and family, drawing on the Torah and practising ancient rituals. While Cosmopolitan’s focus on sex and celebrity may seem like an anathema, she considers her career separate to who she is.
When Nikki decided to embark on a two-year program of learning in preparation for her conversion to Judaism, her family were supportive, if sceptical. “At first, I assume, they thought I was just doing it to get married,” she says. “Dad was more shocked I was not going to eat pork or bacon again. When they realised it was because I wanted to be religious, there was some concern and questions came flooding in.”
There are some aspects of Nikki’s life that separate her from family and old friends – such as her strict adherence to a kosher diet and being unable to attend events during the weekly Sabbath – but they manage to work around it. “From Friday night to Saturday night, I am pretty much out of touch on my phone or anything,” she says. “We just exist in the world as it is.” This includes no turning on switches, cooking or driving.
While Judaism is non-proselytising (meaning Jews don’t actively try to convert others to their faith, which is practised by 0.5 per cent of the Australian population), Nikki admits some people may have found her early evangelism annoying. “Some people took it personally,” she says. “They saw it as trying to dictate how they live their lives. That was hard. Because I was a little too eager and probably overbearing at times.”
Becoming Jewish, she says, has given her more empathy for minority groups and the prejudices and hardships they face. Nikki is expecting her first baby and hopes her children will keep the faith, which is passed down the
“Dad was more shocked I was not going to eat pork or bacon again.”
mother’s line. Her husband Jeremy’s family has always been very welcoming and supportive, she says, even before she’d decided to convert. “For some people, a convert isn’t good enough,” she says. “But they are really amazing.”
BUDDHISM MADE ME CALMER
In her teens, comedian Meshel Laurie became sceptical of the Catholicism she’d grown up with. “I was a big Jesus fan,” she says, “but there were aspects of Christianity that didn’t make sense to me.”
In her early 20s, the popular radio and TV personality began reading about Buddhism and earmarked it for her future. “But by the time I was in my early 30s, I was in a terrible depression,” she says.
“I went to a Buddhist centre in Brisbane and thought, yes, this is what I want. At one of those first sessions, [the Buddhist scholar] Lama Zopa Rinpoche was quoted as likening the Dharma centre to a triage or emergency centre. My mental health was so fragile, it was like I was in the right place at the right time for my soul.”
So what was it about Buddhism, which is slightly more prevalent than Islam, at 2.5 per cent of the population, that resonated? “It’s all about emotional discipline, selflessness and seeing yourself as part of something bigger,” Meshel says. “That first ‘triage’ reminded me that emotions are my responsibility: they aren’t happening to me, they are my reactions to thing and people. As soon as that switch was flicked, I immediately felt better, like life was back on track. It keeps me grounded.”
As a result, Meshel believes she has become calmer, which probably helps with juggling her many roles, including co-hosting KIIS 101.1 breakfast radio, various TV appearances, producing stand-up comedy, recording podcasts and raising her twins, now aged six.
“I don’t leap to reactions in the way that I used to,” she says. “Instead, I say to myself, ‘Take a minute to figure out what your reaction is and what it should be.’ Often, I realise my first reaction is
“It was like I was in the right place at the right time for my soul.”
out of fear, jealousy or something else, so then I can stop myself from acting out of emotional chaos and creating problems from that.”
The independence and lack of formal rituals in practising Buddhism also appealed to Meshel, who kept her conversion quiet at first. “People at work in Brisbane at the time noticed [a change in me],” she says, “because I was a bit of a hellcat before that. My parents thought it was a bit of a fad at first, but they’ve been really supportive.”
Meshel is now an official ambassador for the Dalai Lama in Australia. Her faith has been her anchor, she says, in getting through her recent divorce from ex-husband, artist Adrian Lewinski, (so much so that she’s written a book about it, Buddhism For Break-ups, which is due for release in September).
It’s been a long emotional journey for all three women, but they are happy with where they are now. Like Susan and Meshel, Nikki feels certain her chosen religion is for life. “You have got to let go of the convert part,” she says.