Dr. Stephen Chavura teaches European and Australian history. Prior to Campion he taught the philosophy of social science and political theory and several Australian universities. He has published in numerous journals including History of European Ideas, Journal of Religious History, and Australian Journal of Political Science. His most recent (co-authored) books are The Forgotten Menzies: The World Picture of Australia’s Longest Serving Prime Minister (MUP, 2021) and Reason, Religion, and the Australian Polity: A Secular State? (Routledge, 2019). He is a contributor to The Australian and has also written for Spectator Australia and ABC Religion and Ethics. His recent co-authored book on Menzies was listed in the Sydney Morning Herald’s ‘Most Anticipated Books of 2021’. In 2021 he recorded a two-part interview with former deputy-Prime Minister John Anderson: Part 1, Part 2.
Dr. Chavura loves many things about teaching at Campion, including the community atmosphere, the excellent library, and the relationship between staff and students. Most of all he likes teaching in an institution whose mission aligns with his own: to come to grips with the present significance of the greatest events that have ever taken place and the greatest ideas that have ever been thought.
Many of Stephen Chavura’s scholarly publications can be accessed at https://independentscholar.academia.edu/StephenChavura.
They include the following:
Books
- (2021) The Forgotten Menzies: The World Picture of Australia’s Longest-Serving Prime Minister (with Gregory Melleuish) (Melbourne: Melbourne University Publishing).
- (2019) Reason, Religion, and the Australian Polity: A Secular State? (with John Gascoigne and Ian Tregenza), (London, Routledge)
- (2011) Tudor Protestant Political Thought 1547-1603, (Leiden, Brill)
Peer-reviewed Journal Articles
- (2023 with Gregory Melleuish) ‘Newspaper Leaders as Moral Exhortation: Understanding the Rhetoric of Civil Religion in Colonial Australia’, Religions, (14) (March, 2023): 1-14.
- (2020 with Gregory Melleuish) ‘The Forgotten Menzies: Cultural Puritanism and Australian Social Thought’, Journal of Religious History, 44(3): 356-375.
- (2019 with Ian Tregenza) ‘The ‘Secular’ Settlement and Australian Political Thought’, Australian Journal of Political Science, 54(2): 272-287.
- (2018) ‘The Christian Social Thought of Sir Robert Menzies’, Lucas: An Evangelical History Review, (2)12 (December): 19-46.
- (2015 with G. Melleuish) ‘Conservative Instinct in Australian Political Thought: The Federation Debates, 1890-98’, Australian Journal of Political Science, 50(3): 513-528.
- (2015) ‘Mixed Constitutionalism and Parliamentarism in Elizabethan England: The Case of Thomas Cartwright’, History of European Ideas, 41(3): 318-33.
- (2014) ‘“…but in its proper place….” Religion, Enlightenment, and Australia’s Secular Heritage: The Case of Robert Lowe in Colonial NSW 1842-1850’, Journal of Religious History(2014a), 38 (3): 356-376.
- (2010) ‘The Separation of Religion and State: Context and Meaning’, Nebula:A Journal of Multidisciplinary Scholarship, (December 2010), 7 (4), 37-47.
- (2003) ‘The Universes of John Calvin and Thomas Hobbes: Towards an Understanding of Calvin’s Anthropology and his Political Thought’, Churchman(UK), (February 2003).
Scholarly Book Chapters
- (2021) ‘Christianity and the Secular in Western History: How the Secular became Secularised’, in Simone Raudino and Uzma Ashraf (eds.) Religion and the Secular: Fracture and Composition, (Palgrave-Macmillan).
- (2019) ‘Culture, Utility, and Critique: The Idea of a University in Australia’, in William O. Coleman (ed.), Campus Meltdown: The Deepening Crisis in Australian Universities, (Redland Bay, QLD: Connor Court, 2019): 213-31.
- (2016 with G. Melleuish) ‘Utilitarianism contra Secularism: The Official and Unauthorised Civic Religion of Australia’, in W. Coleman (ed.), Only In Australia: The History, Politics and Economics of Australian Exceptionalism, (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp.62-80.
- (2015 with I. Tregenza) ‘A Political History of the Secular in Australia, 1788-1945’, in T. Stanton (ed.), Religion after Secularization in Australia, (New York: Palgrave Macmillan), pp.3-31.
- (2013) ‘On Separating Religion from Politics’, in J. Jose and R. Imre (eds.), Not So Strange Bedfellows: The Nexus of Politics and Religion in the 21st Century, (Cambridge: Cambridge Scholar, 2013), pp.15-25.
- (2011) ‘The Secularisation Thesis and the Secular State: Reflections with Special Attention to Debates in Australia’, in J. Barbalet, A. Possamai & B. Turner, Religion and the State: A Comparative Sociology, (Anthem Press, New York. 2011), pp.65-92.
Select Opinion Pieces
- ‘Western Civilisation Now an Optional Extra’, The Spectator Australia, 7/7/21
- ‘We Must Gather the Courage to Confront Cancel Culture Mob’, The Australian, 9/4/21
- ‘Religious freedom bill to test our national identity’, The Australian, 7/1/20
- ‘Beware the Choke Tackle of Diversity Inc.’, The Australian, 25/4/19
- ‘Free speech is Scott Morrison’s chance to lead like Menzies’, The Australian, 31/8/2019
- ‘You said that, you may have meant this, we’ll decide’, The Australian, 6/6/2018
- ‘Identity politics at odds with liberal democracy’, The Australian, 27/12/2017
- ‘The New Sectarianism’, The Australian, 11/12/2017
- ‘18 C on Steroids?’, The Spectator Australia, 18/9/17
- ‘A Favour to review Immigration’. The Australian (7/6/2017)
- ‘Don’t Deny Link between Islam and Terror’, The Australian (26/5/2017)
- ‘Either you are a Muslim, or you are a feminist – but you can’t be both’. The Australian (16/5/17)
- ‘Citizens with totalitarian hearts’, The Australian (6/5/2017)
- ‘Religion, not Race: Why Anti-Islamic Speech Matters for Liberal Democracy,’ ABC Religion and Ethics (14/2/17)
- ‘The Clash of Sentiments, or, The Monarchy-Republicanism debate in Australia,’ Online Opinion 19/1/17