Can you keep a secret?

I have three secrets which I am about to systematically divulge online.

1. Where am I going to church this year?
This is a bit of an open secret – most of you know I’ve been negotiating with Merrylands East Presbyterian Church. I’m still haven’t been formally appointed – Committee of Management still need to authorise my salary (!!!) – but I think I’m in. I’ve been introduced to the English-speaking youth congregation - they'll be my major ministry - and I’m doing one talk at their church camp next weekend. Details will follow in future posts.

2. Where am I living this year?
I told you: Edinburgh! You know – the one in North Parramatta.
I’m living in a unit block in North Parramatta, named Edinburgh. Appropriate for a Presbyterian, especially a Subcontinental one (*huh...???*). It's a little two-bedroom unit - real bachelor pad - which I've got all to myself. I've turned the main bedroom into the LIBRARY!!! (*Yahoo!*) Pics in future posts. And I'll have a housewarming once I get the rest of my furniture & set the place up (yes, I did the most important room first: the library.

Anyone surprised?).

3. What have I been up to in the last couple of weeks?
Ah yes, this is the best secret of all. Let’s just say I’ve been working on a major publication project. I expect it’ll take at least another six months to finalise – by which time my co-author and I will have been working on it, on & off, for a whole year. What is it about? You'll have to wait & see (*heh, heh, heh...*).

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A better understanding of nonbelief

The Nones Project is an ongoing study into the belief systems of people who call themselves non-religious. A few weeks ago one of the project leaders, Ryan Burge of Washington University, posted some really interesting preliminary results on his Substack. 1. We've probably heard of people who are spiritual but not religious (SBNRs). SBNRs were "the largest group of nones" in the sample. They believe in the supernatural realm but not necessarily in "a God." They are "deeply skeptical of religion but highly interested in spirituality," therefore individualistic and anti-institutional. 2. But this study differentiated SBNRs from people they called Nones In Name Only, NiNos. They different to SBNRs by being religious about their spiritual. They believe not just in the supernatural but in "God." And they tend to engage in traditional communal religious practices while SBNRs practice individualised eclectic bespoke spiritual practices. The s...

The different distractions of secularity and spirituality

There has been a lot of discussion about the recent 'vibe shift' away from radical atheism back towards an openness to the supernatural. I don't think this new spirituality is necessarily an openness to the unique claims of Christ. It will more probably replace one set of commonly-accepted misunderstandings about Jesus with another. Under radical atheism, people dismissed the Biblical claims about Jesus' resurrection because they 'knew' that it was impossible. Jesus hadn't really died. He just passed out (after being beaten and whipped and crucified) and then woke up in the tomb (and rolled away the stone himself and overcame several guards). Or the disciples hallucinated that they saw him (even though Jewish beliefs of the time didn't expect one person to rise possessing eternal life himself; they expected a general resurrection at the end of time - see John 11:24 ). Or something else. The so-called 'explanations' of Jesus' non-resurrectio...

TGC Australia recently published an analysis by Dr Sarah Quicke of whether we are experiencing a 'quiet revival' of interest in and/or conversion to Christianity here in Australia. It does it a good job of describing the difficulties involved in both gathering and interpreting data about religious beliefs and behaviours, e.g. the difference between the 44% who (still) call themselves Christian and the 8% of people aged 18-35 who actually "believed and lived out the gospel." Quicke refers to the very insightful McCrindle report An Undercurrent Of Faith , released in March 2025, which uses an analytical method called cohort analysis to try and work out how a particular group of people tend to behave over time. The purpose of this post is to draw attention to one element of that report which agrees with Quicke's analysis but also adds some detail to it. Here is what the cohort analysis showed about different age groups' identification with Christianity: As y...

Multicultural Ministry Matters

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