“The vital breath of the church”: Prayer, personalism and spiritual power in the thought of G. H. Morling

Prayer, worship and intimacy with God feature strongly in George Henry Morling’s evangelical approach to spirituality. In a diary entry dated 19 August 1928, Morling famously states, “There must be a very strong stand taken for doctrinal-experimental truth.”[1] His commitment to this principle prompted him to seek a balance between what he viewed as rival extremes …

Joy Connor on Baptist social issues

This is an edited extract from an email from Joy Connor to Rod Benson received on 1 November 2010, responding to an invitation to make observations about the Social Issues Committee of the Baptist Union of New South Wales, its work, and the challenges it faced during her time as a committee member (1983-2000).   …

What would George do? (Part 5)

G. H. Morling on further purposes of suffering   Not all suffering in our world can be assigned a purpose; nor, arguably, should it be. One problem in searching for purposive explanations of suffering, in contrast to causative purposes, is that so much is left to the imagination. For example, we may identify clear evidence-based …

Jesus or the Bible

Several years ago, around the time when he was President of the Baptist Union of Australia, I recall the Revd Tim Costello writing an opinion piece in response to an article by one of the leading Sydney Anglican heavyweights published in The Sydney Morning Herald.  I can’t recall the issue on which they disagreed, but …