The Boroughs of Sydney...

Every great city has its own divisions. Take New York with its five boroughs. They each have their own flavour and together make the city what it is. But what about Sydney? If you were to divide Sydney up into smaller segments how would you do it?

Here is my attempt, you might need to click on it and zoom in to make out the detail...sorry. Special apologies to Berowra people, I meant to include you in the Northern Suburbs bit.

Its an interesting exercise, and while attempting it I made the following observations:

1. Which criteria do you use? Economic? physical? or just "the vibe"? I kinda went for the third, which in reality is a mix of lots of other factors. But some areas do carry a widely recognised identity, eg "the Shire" and "the Upper North Shore". What makes for such identities?

2. Following on I noticed that other areas really didn't lend themselves to a more obvious label. What about that bit just south of the CBD which isn't really Inner West but isn't quite St George either? Inner South?

3. What about those bits which seems to get lots of negative press? The strip of land stretching between Bankstown and Auburn for example. This is often labeled as Muslim territory, but are Muslims really the dominant group? The vast multiculturalism of this area is perhaps the biggest identifying factor.

4. Notice how the more west you get the bigger the boroughs? This could be for a number of reasons: People in the more established areas are more concerned to identify themselves more narrowly therefore they have established their identity accordingly; The newer areas are yet to develop identities that have Sydney-wide currency; My scheme reveals my own ignorance and biases.

5. I wonder whether you could draw up a typical character profile of people living in these areas. As one (female) friend said, "You can tell a woman from XXX because of the massive amounts of gold jewelry and the massive massive hair."

6. It would be interesting to compare the comparable regions. Eg, Upper North Shore vs Hills. Both are affluent, but is it a different kind of affluence? Old Money vs New Money? What about Lower North Shore and the Eastern Suburbs?

What do people think? Is my attempt on the money?

A good book to read...

Real Sex is book which came highly recommended to our class last year by Andrew Cameron, ethics lecturer here at MTC. Lauren F. Winner was a non-pious Jew who converted to Christianity in her 20s and had to learn the art of chastity as an adult. Not that you can expect any devious detail about her pre-conversion life (nor that you would want to), but you can read an honest account of someone who has lived on both sides of the conservative line which we evangelicals draw in the sexual ethics sand. While not a lot of time is spent in Scripture, her Biblical work is solid with a mature Biblical Theology (not that she would label her use of the Bible as such), and her thoughts are well grounded in a useful Christian anthropology and is not short on advice which is both sensible and workable. Winner also offers some stinging critiques of how conservative pastors tend to speak and think about this issue. Grown up without being patronising, savvy without being flippant, this is a really useful and enjoyable book.

Postcards from Karl #5

Often we focus on what our salvation means for us. But what does it mean for God?

What is quite certain is that for God it means severe self-commitment. God does not merely give Himself up to the risk and menace, but He exposes Himself to the actual onslaught and grasp of evil. For if God Himself became man, this man, what else can this mean but:

That He declared Himself guilty of the contradiction against Himself in which man was involved;

That He submitted Himself to the law of creation by which such a contradiction could be accompanied only by loss and destruction;

That He made Himself the object of the wrath and judgment to which man had brought himself;

That He took upon himself the rejection which man had deserved;

That He tasted Himself the damnation, death and hell which ought to have been the portion of fallen man?

...

If we would know what it was that God elected for Himself when He elected fellowship with man, then we can answer only that He elected our rejection.

He made it His own.

He bore it and suffered it with all its most bitter consequences.

For the sake of this choice and for the sake of man He hazarded Himself wholly and utterly.

He elected our suffering (what we as sinners must suffer towards Him and before Him and from Him).

He elected it as His own suffering.

This is the extent to which His election is

an election of grace,

an election of love,

an election to give Himself,

an election to empty and abase Himself for the sake of the elect.

Church Dogmatics II/2, 164

That's a lot of love, and it's a lot of suffering by God on our behalf. Note also Barth's unflinching acceptance of penal substitutionary atonement and his wonderfully poetic way of describing its beauty. I read recently some opinions that PSA is perhaps the dumbest theological invention of the Christian Church.

Not so from Barth's point of view.

10 points for the location and official name of the above monument (hint: it's not in Athens). Another 10 points for its nickname.

Pannenberg on the ascension

Why is it important to affirm that Jesus "ascended into heaven" and that "he is seated at the right hand of the Father"? Pannenberg gives us an important implication of the ascension:

A Gentile mission seems to have arisen for the first time as a result of the conviction that the resurrected Jesus has now already been exalted to Lordship in heaven and consequently the news of his Lordship is to be carried to all nations.

Jesus - God and Man (London: SCM, 1968), 71.

That Jesus has been raised and is now the ascended, ruling Lord over all means that he is not only the God of Jewish expectation but also the God of the whole world. It's the ascension (among other things) which drives the gospel to all nations.

Nice one Wolfhart!

Postcards from Karl #4

Which comes first: Grace or Sin?

That man is against God is important and must be taken seriously. But what is far more important and must be taken more seriously is that in Jesus Christ God is for man. And it is only in the light of the second fact that the importance and seriousness of the first can be seen.

Church Dogmatics II/2, 154.

Often we evangelicals are quick to say that you cannot understand the light of grace unless you first understand the darkness of sin, and often we also catch ourselves describing grace primarily as the solution to sin; grace is a reaction from God to our selfish ambition. But here Karl reverses this order. Sin is not understood unless grace is first grasped. If there is a priority within the economy of salvation then it falls on God's graciousness.

The importance of this was drilled home to me recently on college mission. When door-knocking in outer suburban Sydney I met one woman who wanted nothing to do with the church. Why? "All I was told as a youngster was how much of a sinner I was. I want nothing to do with the church now." Hmmmm ... while we do want to affirm human sinfulness, we must affirm it in a way which acknowledges the priority of grace. Grace has come first, and so that is the first part of our message. This is what Calvin meant when he described 'evangelical repentance'; we repent not in order to recieve God's grace, but in order to respond to it. God makes the first move, and it's a move of grace. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Rom 5.8).

10 points for the location of this statue

Life in a Northern Town

Rhyl (on the northern Welsh coast), January 2007

Moore Mission Madness - Sunday #2

Ummmm ... so the posting once a day thing didn't really work. There are a number of factors to blame for this: I ran out of camera batteries; I forgot my camera on a number of occasions; when doing scripture work in schools no cameras are allowed because of all the weirdos who want to take photos of little kids; mission was generally so busy that "capturing the moment" didn't always figure as a priority. But, it was a good time away, and lots of people were saved, YES!!!

I would post some general photos taken over the course of the week, but somehow they all disappeared from my memory card. That wouldn't have happened in the old 35mm days...