'I first encountered Barry Spurr long before I actually met him in the University of Sydney, as is often the way with academics, through an essay on the 1978 An Australian Prayer Book which he contributed to a book entitled No Alternative: The Prayer Book Controversy (1981).1 It was written at a time of immense liturgical revisionary activity of which I was profoundly aware myself, partly because I had been ordained as a priest in the Church of England in 1977, but more specifically because my father, also an Anglican priest, was a liturgist and the Chairman of the Church of England Liturgical Commission which was responsible for the Alternative Service Book (ASB) published in 1980, the first radically new attempt at the revision of worship in the Church of England for over three hundred years since the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. My father, Ronald Jasper, was thus perceived by many as one of the “well-intentioned wreckers”2 who were robbing the Anglican Church of its liturgical strengths and above all the glories of its language.' (Introduction)

'This essay is based on the scholarly work of many others, but also upon the writer’s practical experience of parish ministry and chaplaincy. It has an equally practical purpose, the encouragement of a regular reading of the “Coverdale Psalms”, singing or saying or pondering them, and providing one fairly original and enlightening means of doing this, at a time when I realise there is often little substantial knowledge of the Bible at all, even among otherwise educated people and even among “evangelical” Christians.' (Introduction)

'Carmel Bird’s (b. 1940) Mandala Trilogy comprises three studies of what the English sociologist Colin Campbell termed the “cultic milieu”.2 For Bird, this is a subculture of alternative (or “deviant”) religiosity, in which the vulnerable are caught up in the snares and delusions of charismatic leaders. The White Garden (1995) introduces the amoral psychiatrist, Dr Ambrose Goddard, who medically and sexually abuses patients at Mandala Psychiatric Clinic, a virtual prison over which he (as his name suggests) is “God”.3 In Red Shoes (1998) Petra Penfold-Knight is the leader of the Hill House Brethren, a “cult” that kidnaps patients from Mandala and steals the babies of unmarried mothers, and in which members are dressed identically and wear red shoes. Cape Grimm (2004) is the tale of Caleb Mean who, raised from infancy to understand himself as the second coming of Christ, incinerates his community of one hundred and forty-seven religious followers (most of whom are his relatives) in remote north-west Tasmania on his thirty-third birthday. The novels tease out connections between psychiatry and what are popularly termed “cults”, and psychiatrists and the charismatic leaders of deviant religious groups. This chapter examines the Mandala Trilogy using social scientific models from the study of new religious movements (NRMs), including American sociologists of religion Rodney Stark and William Simms Bainbridge’s three classic models of “cult formation” (psychopathology, entrepreneurship, and subcultural evolution) to illuminate the portrayal of charismatic leaders, Stanley Cohen’s notion of “moral panic” to interpret Bird’s identification of fringe religion with criminal behaviour, drug-taking, sexual deviance, and irrational beliefs, and Campbell’s “cultic milieu”, mentioned above, to clarify the teachings of the charismatic leaders, and the existence of a group in society that is primed to follow such leaders, and to join such movements.' (Introduction)

'Russell Kirk, the twentieth century’s great man of letters, who had the distinction of being the only American ever awarded the Doctor of Letters degree by St Andrew’s University, wrote a weekly column for the conservative journal National Review called “The Ivory Tower”. The column focused on the affairs of the Academy: outstanding academics, books, and all manner of conflict and scandal that perpetually bedevil universities. Dr Kirk kept the column going for twenty-five years, discontinuing it around the turn of the ‘Eighties, having become known as the foremost commentator on academic affairs from among those who stood by what Barry Spurr called “the Old Idea of a University”. 1 Following Cardinal Newman, Professor Spurr defended the academy as the home of those who “embrace the heterodoxy of human knowledge unhampered by considerations of practical application or societal constraints”. This, too, was where Dr Kirk felt most at home, but undoubtedly any disciple of the Old Idea who paid such careful attention to the state of the academy between 1955 and 1980 would have found it increasingly difficult to write with any optimism about academia’s future. Yet Dr Kirk, an independent scholar throughout his career, was fortunate enough not to depend on the universities for his daily bread. So he withdrew to his home in Mecosta, Michigan, and championed high culture and liberal education from the battlefield of his choosing. The National Review’s founding editor, William F. Buckley, Jr. recalled him resigning his post, saying simply, “I think I’ve done this for long enough”.' (Introduction)

'If fitness for the world is the best practical end of a liberal education, then by far the most profitable time I spent at University came under the supervision of Professor Spurr during my Honours year. Cardinal Newman believed that the training of good members of society was best achieved through something more than mere teaching; it comes through meaningful interaction between students and the faculty. He told students, “you have come, not merely to be taught, but to learn.... You do not come merely to hear a lecture, or to read a book, but you come for that catechetical which consists in a sort of conversation between your lecturer and you”. 2 To adopt Newman’s distinction between been taught and actually learning, I learnt more under Professor Spurr’s supervision than I had in the previous three years of my degree combined. Clearly, that is not to say that I acquired a greater volume of knowledge during this period; it is instead to say that the influence upon my approach to intellectual inquiry during this period did more to fulfil the true ends of a liberal University education than the course of lectures, tutorials and assessments that came before.' (Introduction)

'Some years ago cartoonist Bill Leak created a visual representation of the shift in modern schooling and its teaching practices. Leak’s cartoon depicts a modern Australian living room with a school-aged boy planted in front of the television. Homer Simpson, at work on a hamburger, features on the screen. Standing in the corner, a frustrated father looks over at his son and shouts, “Turn that off and do your homework”. The son, appearing conflicted, replies, “This is my homework”. The cartoon, entitled “Studying Homer”, comments on the raging debate about what our children should be learning in schools.2 After all, Generation Z are the screenagers and they fill our middle school and high school classrooms. Many predict that at least fifty per cent of this iGen will also spill over into higher education. According to McCrindle Research, these dot.com kids are “globalised” and “digitalised”, living their lives through technology and constantly consuming popular culture.3 Moreover, they are identified as “distinctly social” and “uniquely visual” because they connect with others through social media; they tap and swipe and watch screens on their slick mobile devices.4' (Introduction)