Thoughts on faith, culture, and public life.
Rev Dr Ross Clifford AM, long-serving Principal of Morling College, who led the conservative push against marriage equality among NSW Baptists. By Rod Benson Baptists cherish freedom, but no Baptist community can survive without boundaries. Churches confess beliefs, establish expectations of membership, recognise ministers and determine the purposes for which they will cooperate with other …
Continue reading "When Baptist convictions become hard boundary markers"
Southern Baptist minister and educator Edgar Young Mullins. By Rod Benson Historically, Baptists have often been described as a radical and dissenting people. Not primarily conservative or fundamentalist, but radical and dissenting. That is the historic Baptist DNA. The earliest Baptists emerged from the contested religious world of post-Reformation Europe, questioning inherited ecclesiastical arrangements, rejecting …
Soundings No. 1 – 21 Sep 2005 We learned yesterday that a new judge was on their way to the High Court. Federal Attorney-General Philip Ruddock announced the appointment of Victorian judge Justice Susan Maree Crennan to replace retiring judge Michael McHugh in November.This is the fifth Howard government appointment to the Court’s seven-member bench, and …
Continue reading "Girl-time at the High Court, but not in the church"
When I moved from Queensland to New South Wales in 1998, it took some time for the NSW Baptists to credential me. In Queensland, where I had been engaged in church planting, the denomination moved quickly to accredit me as a minister of religion so that I could be licensed as a marriage celebrant. It was …
Continue reading "A statement of beliefs commonly held by Baptists"
An address to the Baptist Historical Society of NSW by Rev. Rod Benson, 4 November 2010. Part of the large crowd gathered to listen to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's historic apology speech to members of the Stolen Generations in Canberra, 14 February 2008. Introduction The year is 1968, the year of my birth. There are …
Continue reading "A short history of the NSW Baptist Social Issues Committee"
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