The theological history of Australia’s constitutional separation of church and state provision

![CDATA[Section 116 of Australia’s Constitution states “The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth.” Section 116 was adopted by the Constitution’s drafters largely in response to petitioning organized by Seventh Day Adventists. The Adventists were worried that the Convention’s acquiescence to the Protestant Council of Churches’ demand for a reference to God in the constitutional preamble would allow the new Federal Parliament to legislate for religious observances. The Adventists also believed that referring to God in the preamble would create the new Australian nation with a definite religious character. My paper explores the theological and legal thinking of the Adventists to explain how they came to believe what, on a strict legal analysis, was absurd.]]