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So I have just finished reading this excellent book on the reformation called the unquenchable flame.
It goes through all the main people and events of the period by telling stories and interesting anecdotes as opposed to simply listing dates and places. It is a really great book to read if you have never really looked at church history before, or if you are a history buff and enjoy a good pop history book.
Anyway in the book I read this fantastic story about my Presbyterian forbears. I simply had to share it with you all:
Talking about King Charles in the mid 1600s – a king who was very much of the ‘high church’ flavour of anglicanism – who tried to get the Scottish Presbyterians to come into line with the high church anglicanism of England. Ha! Good luck! Enjoy:
“That same year, 1637, Charles decided it was high time for his realm of Scotland to be brought into line with England: from now on everything there would be done from the prayer book (amended to be more high church than it was in England, to help the Scots get up to speed). Unfortunately for Charles, while Knox had been dead for more than 60 years, his spirit was alive and kicking in Scotland. In St Giles’ Cathedral, Edinburgh, as soon as the newly appointed bishop tried to read out of the new prayer book, a member of the congregation threw her stool at him, precipitating a riot in which the bishop was lucky to get away with his life. Up in Brechin, the bishop was taking no such chances: he led the service from the new prayer book with a pair of loaded pistols pointed at the congregation“
Dr Timothy Keller
I recently read an excellent book by Tim Keller called:
The Reason for God.
It was so good in fact that I have given it away to a few friends who were thinking about Christianity.
You should buy this book and then read this book and then give this book away to a friend.
The book is split into two halves:
1/ The main objections people have about God (Christianity)
2/ The reasons for God (Christianity)
I have put the word Christianity in because Keller is a Christian himself and though he does at points argue for theism he is intentionally biased in arguing the reasons for God as revealed in the Christian bible and in the life of Jesus of Nazareth.
Anyway I am not the only person who thinks the book is good. Google invited Keller to come and talk about his book, to speak to them on the reason for God…
That is impressive, to be invited by google to speak on the reasons that there is a God! Wow. I have added the video below. Its quite long but its excellent. You should definitely watch it, especially if you want to get out of reading the book (though that would be a mistake!)
Enjoy.
Keller has also written other books including:
The Prodigal God
and my favourite book of all time… Ministries of Mercy
Its now time for our weekly segment here at Micaiah Sells Out called:
“4 quick questions and 1 strange one with…”
Our next ”4 Quick Questions and 1 Strange one with…” is with Alison Moffitt. Alison works for Anglicare collecting and analysing demographic information to find areas of need and help with strategic planning (read more about that below). Alison is lively and vivacious and is also known by hundreds of people as “Spally” or Spal (the roots of which and reason for I think are lost in time). Alison has a great for heart for cross cultural ministry as well as international student ministry. Alison is also the author of Ακροκορινθος and is a guest contributer to absurdity of absurdities. Alison attends St John’s Anglican Church in Ashfield and is married to Matthew Moffitt.
Alison and her husband Matthew
1/ You work for Anglicare? What do you do with them?
I work for the policy unit, which is a small team responsible for writing policy and doing research to support all the work that Anglicare does. We also do research to support mission in the Anglican Diocese of Sydney, and to support the National Church Life Survey (NCLS), 
which is an interdenominational research organisation that supports a range of churches in Australia.
I particularly focus on gathering information from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) and other government departments and organisations that provide demographic data online. Then I get to represent data in a whole lot of fun and fantastic ways, including maps (fun and fantastic) charts/graphs (somewhat fun and fantastic) and tables (more boring than fantastic). The demographic data I collect and analyse is used to identify areas of need in Sydney, to assist in strategic planning both in Anglicare and in the wider church, to evaluate projects, and to help Anglicare apply for tenders.
2/ What do you see as the main demographic trends in Sydney?
Here are a few that have stood out to me from my research with Anglicare:
- The population is getting older
There is increasing religious diversity, with more and more migrants coming from non Christian countries- There is rapid clustering of immigrants on humanitarian visas in west and south west Sydney, particularly migrants from Iraq and Sudan
- Middle income families are flying to fringe suburban areas where larger houses are cheaper, particularly in the north west, west and south west
- Sydney’s multicultural communities are clustered to form an arc that reaches from Hurstville in the south, then north west to Parramatta and then west and south west to incorporate the area from Blacktown to Liverpool (try tracing that out in your street directory)
- Areas with low median family incomes (earning less than $1000 a week) are clustered in pretty much the same pattern
3/ How can the church respond well to these trends?
Most of these trends concern populations that the church is already struggling to reach out to. Elderly people or refugees who don’t speak English don’t come streaming through our church doors on Sunday. A good place for the church to start responding is to realise that if it going to minister to elderly people, persons from non Christian countries, newly arrived refugees and low income families, it needs to take more initiative in reaching out.
Two people groups that I think the church can definitely do more for are the ageing population and refugees.
Sydney’s ageing culture is something like this. People get old, and they realise that they won’t be able to live independently forever. If they are asset rich, they sell their home and move to a trendy retirement village. If they are not, the stay where they are and struggle until they HAVE to move. Then they go to a hostel or nursing home, where they live until they die. To pay for the fees they must sell their family home. If they don’t own their home, they have to find money from elsewhere, or go to a very poor quality nursing home where they can pay fees with their pension.
As far as I can tell, churches are doing alright at caring for elderly people in nursing homes, but Christians need to be doing more to ensure that quality care for elderly people is available to all, not just people who can afford it. The church needs to model what it means to care for people regardless of their personal resources, by caring for all elderly people, in all sorts of aged care facilities and from all kinds of cultural backgrounds.
Regarding refugees, I think the church can do much much more to serve this people group. Refugees come to Australia having gone through trauma that we can’t even imagine, and are then expected to negotiate their way through a foreign culture. However most of the people helping them are persons employed by the government or not for profit community organisations. A large number of these migrants are Christians, yet the Australian church largely ignores them. We find it daunting to care for people who have such complex social and psychological needs, but I don’t think that is justification for us to do nothing. Churches need to be bold, to take strength from the Spirit and show God’s love to newly arrived refugees, whether it be by setting up formal programs to counsel and assist migrants, or just to make en effort to meet, befriend and help people who are struggling to settle in Australia.
4/ What can individual Christians do to respond to this? How can we take initiative in our own church community?
Does your church reflect your suburb?
Firstly, we each need to reflect on the culture of our church and the cultures of the people that we want to reach out to. Are there any serious discrepancies? Do you go to a church full of wealthy aspirational types in an area where many people live in state housing, or earn low wages? Do you go to a church full of white people in an area where most of the population has migrated from a non English speaking country? Talk to your brothers and sisters at church and get people thinking about these issues.
Secondly, we need to work out who the people are that we should be ministering to. This can be as simple as walking through the neighbourhood and looking. It can involve investigating some data for yourself. The ABS has a free service called CData which lets you view a range census data in any area that you choose. You can access it here:
http://www.abs.gov.au/CDATAOnline.
Also try checking out your local council websites, they normally have information on who lives in the area.
Thirdly, talk to your leaders at church. It might be that your pastor or minister has already started thinking about reaching out to people in your area – be the person who encourages them. Encourage your leaders to engage with resources put out by the ABS, local councils and community groups. NCLS produces a resource called the Community Social Profile, where your church can nominate a location and the research team will produce a customised profile of the community within 5km of that point. Encourage your pastor or minister to look into the resources that NCLS provides. If you are going to talk about the challenges of demographic trends, you should be prepared to support your leaders when they take these challenges seriously. Pray and offer to be involved in new ministries.
5/ “Geography can be so much more than the simple learning of facts that will impress friends at the local quiz night.” This is a quote from the Geography Teachers Association of Australia.
Do you know any facts that would impress us?
Well Australia is the second driest continent on the planet, and over 2000 migrants from mainland China have settled in Hurstville in the last 5 years. Also there are lots of Presbyterians in Ashfield. Check out my map:
Number of Presbyterians affiliated with the Presbyterian Church by Suburb
Ashfield Presbyterian Church
I am a Presbyterian.
If you didn’t know that then you should hang out with me more often.
Anyway this Sunday evening following the evening service at Ashfield Presbyterian Church we will be having a question time on ‘what is Presbyterianism?’. It’s a fair question, and it raises a whole bunch of other questions with it! Why do we even have denominations? Are denominations good, bad or neither? Does it really matter what denomination I go to anyway? I go to a Presbyterian church but that doesn’t necessarily make me a Presbyterian… does it?
Well if any of this interests you and you are free tomorrow night then you should definitely come along. Tim Smartt will be facilitating the question time and Dr Ian Smith from the Presbyterian Theological Centre will be answering the questions.
There will also be a delicious supper served with baked goods and far trade tea and coffee!
Hopefully I will see some of you there!
Welcome to a new weekly segment here at Micaiah Sells Out called:
“4 quick questions and 1 strange one with…”
Our first “4 quick questions and 1 strange one with…” is with Tim Smartt who is currently studying for a Masters of Philosophy at the University of Sydney. Tim loves books, a good TV series (especially the West Wing), “good” music and a quality cup of coffee. He is also the obscure guy who gives a clap and a “Yeah!” whenever philosophy is mentioned in a talk. Tim is the author of Insane Angels a very insightful blog that is devoted to thinking through the relationship between philosophy and Christianity.
Tim Smartt
1) Tim, you are currently studying for a Masters of Philosophy at Sydney Uni, could you briefly tell us what philosophy actually is and what you specifically are philosophising about in your Masters?
I like to think of philosophy as essentially a human activity. It is something you do, and it is by no means something you have go to university to do. It is the activity of realizing that you are a complicated person, who lives with other complicated people in a complicated world; and then thinking about the best way to describe all this complication, and perhaps even the way we ought to improve all this. At university, this activity is done through reading and conversation – not for the sake of learning doctrines and truths, but for having others prompt you into the activity of thinking about how best to describe and improve yourself and the world. At university, this is done through reading some time-tested books, and applying yourself to some typical ‘philosophical questions’ – what does it mean to describe something as true? What exists? What is the best form of political organization? What does it mean to describe something as good? How does soceity work? etc. All of this can happen outside university, and of course, it does.
I’m researching what two brilliant philosophers had to say on the purpose of Philosophy – Plato and Richard Rorty. They are seperated by over 2,000 years, but I hope to show that they are closer than people might think.
2) Who is your favourite philosopher and why?
This is a toughie. Philosophy teaches you to question and to disagree, and so sometimes that makes it hard to have a favourite philosopher, because you end up disagreeing with everyone! Two philosophers who have been extremelly influencial on the way I think philosophically though, have been Plato and Ludwig Wittgenstein. I dig both for their inability to accept simple answers, and to reveal that the confidence that their opponents had in their simple answers was ill-founded. This seems like something the philosopher should be doing. They both also have a place for the spiritual in their worldviews – being unable to reduce everything to neat material causes and explanations. Special mentions also go out to John Rawls, Richard Rorty and Soren Kierkegaard.
3) I know as a philosopher you will have a natural bias, but is Philosophy important?
It seems that the majority of philosophising is reading the works of men who lived thousands of years ago or 100 ago who were discussing issues that were relevant to their time but inconsequential for us in our post modern world! Although their thoughts can be interesting, is it really important? Is it worth the ordinary person/Christian putting in the time and energy required to do/read philosophy?
Ignoring the irony that you use a philosophical idea to argue that philosophy is not relevant, I disagree! It is certainly important. Like I said, philosophy is an activity, and this activity does not necessarily involve reading millions of books. In universities, this is the shape it takes, but a philosopher can just be someone who wonders, and who has a certain set of questions about themselves and the world which they are convinced are important, and through dialogue with others moves forward to answering these for themselves. So, no it is not crucial to read books by dead people (men and women, by the way, though mostly men unfortunatley) to be a philosopher.
Having said that – it is important that someone is reading these books! Philosophy in Australia today has a tendency to alienate itself from the philosophical tradition, and to undervalue what the tradition could contribute to our present concerns and problems. This is precisely because of the reason you mentioned – you can’t escape your context, and philosophers will always be bound by their historical contingencies. But good philosophers have a way of being prophetic – like Nietzsche or de Tocqueville. They anticipate the way culture is going. Also, the giants of philosophy will just always be important I suspect: Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Kant, Hegel etc. These guys wrote the questions, and we are still speaking their language, so it is important for some people to be familiar with them and be able to import their lessons into todays conversation and culture. But this is not for everyone.
4) If the answer is ‘yes’ that reading/doing philosophy is important, than as a 20-30ish Christian, who/what should I be reading (in philosophy) that would be both accessible and helpful to me in my daily life?
I do think thinking Christians should have a go at reading some philosophy, thought it is not for everyone, and need not be construed of as a mark of spiritual maturity. It will help you in your ability to think abstractlly which then helps with theology, it will help you be more culturally conversant, it may give you greater confidence and ability in articulating the Good News of the Gospel, and may (I say, may) even enrich your faith as you learn more about God’s world and the condition of humanity.
I also just think it is a rewarding and beneifical human activity – just like taking an interest in politics, art, sport, literature, food, world cultures, craft etc helps you express your humanity in different ways, reading philosophy can be another rewarding activity in itself. I think, if you have the time and ability, you should have a go at reading Plato’s Republic. It deals with the biggest questions of philosophy – ethics, politics, truth, metaphysics, art, religion, mind and knowledge; it is written in a dialogue format which makes it a bit easier to read then a tract/book/essay; it is funny (once you get the hang of it); it is one of the classics of philosophy; and it is not too long. If you read it, you will have an understanding of ‘Platonism’ which never-ever goes away in philosophy, and will have been promted by one of the greatest minds to think about all these interesting philosophical concepts. It also contains the allegory of the cave which, despite the cliche’s, is pretty amazing, and the original magical invisible ring that Tolkein appropriated!
If you want a more overview type book, I wholeheartedly recommned Think by Simon Blackburn, and What Does it All Mean? By Thomas Nagel – two of the best living philosophers. Think really got me excited about philosophy as few years ago.
5) A boy is about to go on his first date, and is nervous about what to talk about. He asks his father for advice. The father replies: “My son, there are three subjects that always work. These are food, family, and philosophy.”
The boy picks up his date and they go to a soda fountain. Ice cream sodas in front of them, they stare at each other for a long time, as the boy’s nervousness builds. He remembers his father’s advice, and chooses the first topic. He asks the girl: “Do you like potato pancakes?” She says “No,” and the silence returns.
After a few more uncomfortable minutes, the boy thinks of his father’s suggestion and turns to the second item on the list. He asks, “Do you have a brother?” Again, the girl says “No” and there is silence once again.
The boy then plays his last card. He thinks of his father’s advice and asks the girl the following question: “If you had a brother, would he like potato pancakes?”
As a philosopher, please comment.
Ha! Good joke 
As a philosopher I say, ‘How did you get a girl to go out with you? Cudos!’
Last Friday was John Calvin’s 500th birthday! We celebrated it here by posting some of his most memorable quotes, however my family – a group of hard core Presbyterians (and my brothers in law) threw a big birthday bash for J C’s big 500. There were balloons, tulips, posters that were stuck up around the house, my dad broke out into spontaneous Calvin themed quizzes and of course a cake (but we couldn’t find 500 candles… and candles are a bit too Romish anyway)
It was such a fun party that I made sure to take some photos to show you that Presbyterians really know how to have fun!
- What would a party be without balloons? Although they may be a bit too ‘colourful’ for Calvin’s liking!
The Rev. Dr. Ian Smith with Tulips and a copy of the Institutes... he is in his happy place right now
Point beards are so hot right now! That is so true!
Ryan giving his best Calvin impersonation while hugging a copy of the institutes. Ryan, grow a beard!
Calvin is the Funk. Nothing new here
My brother in law Dave foolishly stated: "John Calvin, is he that anglican guy?" needless to say he lost major points with the father in law as you can see... and yes this is a posed photo!
We played Trivial Pursuit, boys vs girls and the boys won - We also had calvin playing in our team... caus he is a boy.
500 and still looking good - Calvin is my homeboy. Interesting fact: George Whitfield had this exact picture and statement printed on his favourite t-shirt!We went pretty hard core with the posters! Totally worth it
