The Rev Dr Rod Benson serves as General Secretary of the New South Wales Ecumenical Council, based in Sydney, and at North Rocks Community Church (a congregation of the Uniting Church in Australia).
Rod was born in Wollongong, NSW, and lived for six years as a child in Lae, Papua New Guinea, before returning to Australia to complete his education. As an adult, he has travelled widely, visiting six continents, and in his wilder moments hopes one day to set foot in Antarctica.
As an ordained Baptist minister, Rod served as minister of churches at Flinders View (Queensland), Blakehurst (Sydney), and Lithgow (Country NSW), and engaged in interim ministry at several other churches. From 2002 to 2004, he was Baptist Chaplain to Macquarie University. From 2004 to 2014, he was employed as an ethicist and public theologian at Morling College, Sydney. From 2017 to January 2025, he served as Research Support Officer at Moore Theological College, Sydney. Since February 2025, he has served the NSW Ecumenical Council.
Rod is married to Emma Goodsir, who is known for her classic Christian song medley and her role as a panelist on the ABC’s Think Tank. He has three sons (Michael, Samuel and Zachary), a step-son (Zachariah), and one granddaughter (Evelyn).
Rod likes to spend quality leisure time reading fiction, cooking for friends, writing without deadlines, walking along a beach, or discovering new restaurants. He enjoys all cuisines but his favourite recipes are regional French/German, Swedish, and Norwegian.
If he’s not out in a kayak on a beautiful Sydney waterway, or tending his herbs and vegetables, you might find him with a single malt reading novels or short stories. He is a member of two book clubs and his go-to novelists are Iris Murdoch, Sebastian Faulks, T. C. Boyle, and Richard Russo. He reads a wide variety of short stories, from Paul Bowles to Somerset Maugham, Mavis Gallant, Alice Munro, and many others.
Rod also writes short stories, poetry, and personal essays, some of which are available online.
In 2023, Rod was awarded a PhD degree from the University of Divinity (Melbourne) for his thesis on the theology and spirituality of George Henry Morling (read it free here). Among other voluntary activities he is joint editor of the second edition of The Australian Dictionary of Evangelical Biography (online).
This website has seven menus, some with a large amount of content:
Food – A place to share my favourite recipes, ideas, and experiences in the kitchen. Includes some original recipes!
Faith – As a lay preacher since 1986, and an ordained minister since 1999, I’ve notched up over 800 sermons. These are what I regard as among my best.
Prayers – A collection of prayers and worship liturgies drawn from various sources.
Reviews – A selection of reviews of books I have read.
Essays – I often have ideas for wonderful personal essays I’ll write, if only I had the time to put fingers to keys. These are the ones that made it into print.
Opinion – There was a time when I was professionally known as “Lightning Rod” because of the polarising nature of my work as an ethicist. Those days are gone, but I still entertain opinions and occasionally unleash them.
Academic – My thoughts on all things academic. Small thoughts, most of them, about how to put words together in such an order as to appear cogent, coherent, compelling and correct.
You can connect with Rod here, on Facebook, and on BlueSky (@ethicl.bsky.social).
For a list of Rod’s publications, conference papers and other talks, click here. For his sermon and devotional transcripts, click here.
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