About Rod Benson

I’m an ordained Baptist minister working at Moore College (the Anglican theological college in Sydney, Australia) as Research Support Officer. I’m married to Emma Goodsir, who’s best known for her classic Christian song medley and her role as a panelist on the ABC’s Think Tank, and I have three sons and a step-son.

I like to spend quality leisure time reading fiction, cooking for friends, writing without deadlines, and discovering new restaurants. If I’m not out in my kayak on a beautiful Sydney waterway, or tending the veggie patch with a garden fork, you might find me with a whisky in one hand, and a bowl of salted cashews at arm’s length, reading Iris Murdoch, Somerset Maugham, T. C. Boyle, or Richard Russo. I’m also writing a PhD thesis on the theology and spirituality of George Henry Morling.

This website has six main areas:

• Food – A place to share my favourite recipes, ideas, and experiences in the kitchen. I’ve posted thousands of food photos over on Instagram; this is where I talk about the food I make (including some original recipes), and why I love to cook.

• Faith – Where my sermons go to die. As a lay preacher since 1986, and an ordained minister since 1999, I’ve notched up over 800 sermons. Some should never have been born, others have had their day. These are what I regard as among my best.

• Fogou – What’s a fogou, I hear you ask. It’s an ancient Cornish subterranean dry-stone structure of unknown purpose. The purpose of this fogou, however, is to serve as a repository for fascinating, heart-warming, surprising, illuminating, or cringe-worthy stories I stumble upon during forays in the land of the internet.

• Essays – Almost every day I have ideas for wonderful personal essays I’ll write, if only I had the time to put fingers to keys. I have no doubt the personal essay form was invented with me in mind, and, if I ever write one, this is where I’ll put it.

• Opinion – There was a time when I was professionally known as “Lightning Rod” because of the polarising nature of my work as an ethicist and the unrestrained enthusiasm of certain people (mostly Baptists) who appeared to be well endowed with the gift of exhortation and were not afraid to use it. Those days are gone, but I still entertain opinions and occasionally unleash them on my unsuspecting public. You have been warned.

• Academic – Here, falling as it were off the end of the table laden with much more interesting fare, are 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.

So there you have it. Words, words and more words. I hope you find something to enjoy, annoy, or at least distract you from whatever it was you were doing before you started reading this. I also write short stories and poetry, but you won’t find those here.

You can connect with me here, and on social media at Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

For a list of my published articles and conference papers, click here.