I'm getting the hang of this blog business. When it's the weekend and you want a rest, apparently what you do is drag out some ancient or obscure quote, and let that suffice for a post. The Pyromaniacs do this with Spurgeon, and it works a treat.

However, given how fast the world is moving, and how short our attention spans are, I don't think it's necessary to go nearly so far back for our classic quotes. The late 1980s or early 90s should do. And anyone can quote Spurgeon or Ryle or Luther, but who out there in blog-land (I ask you) is quoting classic snippets from those early edgy editions of The Briefing?

Well, as of now, we are. Here's Phillip Jensen, from Briefing #39, December 1989:

In my job I keep meeting people who suffer from psychosomatic wellness. Or perhaps, to be more accurate, psychosomatic goodness.

I understand that some doctors spend a lot of their time telling their patients that they are not sick at all; it is all in their minds.

I have the opposite problem. People keep coming to me telling me that they are spiritually well, that they are good people. Since I know there are no good people, I instantly realize that they are suffering from psychosomatic virtue.

The dream dies hard. The evidence mounts on all sides, but people continue to believe. They are seemingly reasonable, rational people. One event after another belies their blind faith, but they stick to it.

The whole purpose of faith is to trust what's trustworthy—not what is unreliable. How many times does your hypothesis of life have to be shown to be wrong before you discard it?

Western liberalism has a blind faith in the good and perfect nature of man. It is an unreasoned faith. It relies on vague desires for personal freedom. It exists against all the evidence of this century and others: against the evidence of two world wars, of the Holocaust, of Vietnam, Afghanistan, Korea, Chile, South Africa, racism, sexism, and so on, and so on.

We know we cannot trust the words of anybody. Our locks, our legal safeguards, our property insurance, our weaponry, our police, all testify to our working faith in human immorality. That humans are basically immoral is demonstrated daily in the media, in society and in our own actions.

How can we worship a (human) being who is so seriously flawed? We must pretend. It is better, in our minds, to worship the lie than the truth.

(From ‘Bad Dreams in Good Faith’, Briefing #39, December, 1989, pp. 4-5.)

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Gav's post on the “danger of living the gospel without speaking the gospel” has sparked off one of those debates that we evangelicals sometimes have—you know those ones which seem to become more hairsplitting and hard to follow the longer they go on. In this case, it's the old question of ‘whose job is it to evangelize?’.

Towards the end of the conversation Mikey Lynch makes this interesting point:

… the tone and the teaching of Promoting the Gospel may remove the “should” from this equation, but it doesn't remove the “would”. Over and again John [Dickson] shows and tells us how all Christians will be inspired to speak about their faith, even if they don't have to.

Mikey (and John, I think) are searching for an idea that is different from ‘should’—which doesn't carry the sense of ‘ought’ and obligation—but which nevertheless affirms that it still is great when this thing happens (that is, ordinary Christians sharing the gospel). It's desirable, it's good, it's to be celebrated, but it's not a duty or a responsibility.

I have to say that this is the aspect of this particular argument (which has been pottering along for years in our circles) that I continue to find curious and dissatisfying. Is living the Christian life to be divided up into things I really have to do (because the Big Guy says so), and things which would be good to do but are optional?

Or to put the question in its purest form: What is the relationship between what is ‘right’ and what is ‘good’—between what we are commanded to do, and what we aspire to do because it is excellent and worthwhile? (For the ethicists amongst us, we are talking about the difference between deontic and teleological ethics.)

The answer to this crucial question will depend on whether you think God's command is imposed arbitrarily on the world, or whether it conforms to the way God made the world to be. In other words, did God flip a coin to see whether stealing would be prohibited or not, or is there something about God and the world he has made, and the people who inhabit it, and his purposes for all of us, that makes stealing counter-productive, destructive and just plain ‘bad’?

If we say the latter (as I think we must), then we must also say that to do what is right is good, and to do what is good is right. ‘Ought’ and ‘good’ are, in the end, two different forms of moral language that are unified in directing us to live full, free, God-glorifying lives in God's world (as we await his new world). These two ways of speaking are not exactly the same, and they are often addressed to different circumstances and contexts. But the common instinct to give a higher place to the ‘ought’ over the ‘good’ is more Pharisaic than Christian.

In fact, when we think about the different ways that the Bible drives our moral action (or ‘good works’), there are not only two kinds of language; there are many. In the word of God there are stories and examples that carry a moral lesson and power; there are urgings, pleadings, encouragements and exhortations; there are passive commands (“be filled with the Spirit”); there are the wise observations of Proverbs; there are positive, attractive descriptions of good people and actions; and most strikingly there is Paul's characteristic indicative-creates-imperative move: since you are now this, live like that (Colossians 3:1-17 being a marvellous example).

God uses all of these kinds of language to call forth our action. Under the power of these words, we regard many different things as good, right, and worth encouraging each other to do, even though they are not so much as mentioned in the Bible. So here's a list, off the top of my head, of things that the New Testament neither directly commands us to do, nor even gives any clear positive example of someone doing:

• supporting international relief agencies
• everyday Christians reading the Bible personally and regularly
• speaking or writing publicly from a Christian viewpoint about the political, cultural or social issues of the day
• studying the Bible in small groups
• going to church every Sunday
• baptizing people in church
• having special evangelistic church services or meetings
• inviting non-Christian friends to such meetings
• writing or reading Christian books
• having family devotions
• providing meals for sick congregation members
• setting up organizations or societies to promote the Christian cause
• caring for or stewarding God's creation

Using different kinds of moral language, we urge, encourage, rebuke, stimulate, spur, exhort, push, persuade and generally egg one another on to get involved in these various good, right, useful and excellent things. The lack of deontic biblical language (‘must’, ‘ought’) would not hold us back from doing these things ourselves, nor from urging others to do them as well.

So why do we tie ourselves in knots trying to discover whether ‘all Christians are obliged to evangelize’ or whether there is a command for all Christians to evangelize? It's an ethically confused question that leads not only to more confusion, but to less Christians evangelizing. Could we perhaps agree to move on to a different question? Such as: How could we encourage, inspire and equip more Christians to talk about Jesus with their friends?

Then again, if all this is too hard or unconvincing, and you really just want a biblical command, try this: “As for you, brothers, do not grow weary in doing good” (2 Thess 3:13).

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Here's Acts 11:19-21:

Now those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, speaking the word to no one except Jews. But there were some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who on coming to Antioch spoke to the Hellenists also, preaching the Lord Jesus. And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number who believed turned to the Lord.

“The persecution that arose over Stephen” refers back three chapters to Acts 8:1 which says “And there arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles”. That little phrase, “except the apostles”, is particularly pointed, for whatever reasons lay behind the apostolic inertia in this verse, it means that any specific evangelistic effort to non-Jews had started well before the apostles got their acts (sorry) together. They were still doing their apostolic thing as only they knew how in Jerusalem, even they knew full well what Jesus had said to them way back in Acts 1:8:

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.

Perhaps the apostles were waiting for a written invitation, since Jesus' words in Acts 1 were a starter's gun for world evangelization if ever there was one. But the very first people to hear the call and break out from evangelizing purely Jewish audiences were not apostles, but anonymous believers from Cyprus and Cyrene.

Indeed, it takes a full two chapters before the Apostle Peter, in Acts 10, finally gets around to evangelizing non-Jews. Even then, it's only because he receives an angelic vision, the celestial equivalent of a boot up the backside, that confirms that this might be the right thing to do. Even then, he is immediately hauled up before the other Jerusalem apostles who demand that Peter explain his actions.

Meanwhile, God had already been well and truly blessing the spread of the gospel among the non-Jews without the slightest hint that his Holy Spirit was acting with approval from the institutional church.

One of the messages of this bit of Acts has to be that if you feel the need to tell someone that Jesus is Lord, you don't need to wait for the church's blessing before you say something. Even apostles can be slow off the mark in doing what they ought to do, which means that you can show them the way. Just keep a low profile about it, or you may discover that you have to explain your evangelistic enthusiasm to the church leadership!

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Recently I enjoyed preaching on Romans 16. Perhaps surprisingly, there was a lot to learn from the long list of names. One obvious feature was the many women mentioned.

In recent years, it's been popular to say that the church has oppressed women, that it has little place for them, and even that the Apostle Paul was a woman-hater. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Paul identifies 28 people he wants to greet in Rome. Ten of them are women. Even that statistic is impressive in a fairly male-dominated society. Paul was certainly not ignoring women.

Several women mentioned were obviously important in Christian circles. For example, there is Priscilla in verse 5, mentioned, unusually, before her husband. Obviously she was a capable woman, whom Paul greatly admired. He says she and her husband risked their lives for him. And many were very grateful to her and Aquila.

Then in verse 6 there is Mary, and in verse 12, Tryphena, Tryphosa and Persis—all women who are said to work hard in the Lord.

And we shouldn't forget Phoebe, mentioned in verses 1-2. She's not in Rome, but is travelling there on some matter. She is identified as a ‘servant’, which can also be translated as ‘deacon’. This word was sometimes used for a recognized church office. And so it's quite likely she had a recognized ministry role in the church at Cenchrea. She is also a great help or ‘patron’—probably providing financial or social backing to the Christians. In fact, Phoebe was possibly the one whom Paul trusted to take his letter to the Christians in Rome.

Paul obviously had a lot of time for women like these.

So what conclusions can we draw about the place of women in ministry? Paul's letter says we can be certain there is an honoured place for women in ministry. They were servants of the church, they were Paul's fellow workers and they were hard workers in the Lord. And we should encourage women today to get involved and to work hard in serving the Lord.

But if there's a danger of glossing over the fine ministry done by women, there is an opposite danger of reading too much into the brief references in places like Romans 16. This is exactly what is done by many proponents of an egalitarian approach to ministry.

There's a problem when feminists claim this passage proves women served as public Bible teachers and church leaders. The reality is that the references don't give enough information to define the precise nature of their ministries.

For example, the fact that someone is called of a ‘fellow worker’ with Paul does not prove she was a preacher or a church leader. I consider our office administrator my co-worker. But she does not lead or preach in church. Likewise, my wife is my fellow worker. She administers the music ministry. She teaches children at Kids' Church and in school Scripture, and teaches the women in her Bible study group. But she does not lead or preach in church. So the use of the term ‘fellow worker’ does not prove women may be church leaders.

The same applies to calling Phoebe a deacon. As a patron, Phoebe's ministry may have majored on hospitality or financial support. In Acts 6, those who served as deacons were to help with feeding the poor widows in the Jerusalem church. And in 1 Timothy 3, unlike the church elders, deacons are not required to possess the quality of “being able to teach”. In fact, in 1 Timothy 2:11-15, 3:1-7 (cf. v. 8ff) and 5:17-18, it is the male elders, not the deacons, who oversee or direct the affairs of the church—some of them by preaching and teaching. So this reference to Phoebe as a deacon does not prove she was a church leader or teacher.

Lastly, there is the example of Junia in Romans 16:7:

Greet Andronicus and Junia, my fellow countrymen and fellow prisoners. They are outstanding among the apostles, and they were also in Christ before me. (HSCB)

I've heard this verse used to say women were foundational authoritative apostles. But there are three uncertainties here:

1. The name is grammatically ambiguous: it could be male (Junias) or female (Junia)—although it's most likely female, since almost all the references in other literature from the time suggest Junia was a common female name, but Junias appears virtually unknown.

2. The phrase “outstanding [or ‘prominent’] among the apostles” is also ambiguous. Imagine someone says to you, “Sandy is prominent among the bishops” (unlikely I know!) Does this mean Sandy is a prominent example of a bishop? Or does it mean that Sandy is prominent (as a person or as a minister) in the estimation of the bishops? Grammatically it could be either, although once again, it is arguably more likely an inclusive reference.

3. The third uncertainty is what the word ‘apostle’ means here. It has the basic sense of ‘delegate’ or ‘envoy’ or ‘messenger’ or what we might call a ‘missionary’ (one sent on a mission).

   Often it is used of envoys with special God-given status—especially of the original twelve apostles of Jesus. Paul applies ‘apostle’ to a wider group of eyewitnesses to the resurrection, including himself in 1 Corinthians 15, and to himself in most of the opening greetings of his letters, as one appointed directly by God as his special envoy.

   But elsewhere, he uses the word simply to refer to messengers without any special God-appointed status. For example, in 2 Corinthians 8:23, the term ‘apostles’ is translated as “representatives” in the NIV and as “messengers” (i.e. of local churches) in the ESV. Likewise in Philippians 2:25, Epaphroditus is an ‘apostle’, which simply means Paul's messenger. (This is also the case in John 13:16.)

In other words, even if (as is grammatically possible) Junia is called an ‘apostle’ in this verse, it does not prove she was a church leader and teacher. She may simply have been a Christian messenger or missionary with a range of possible duties, alongside Andronicus, who is most likely her husband.

The word itself does not prove what her role is. And it is dangerous to suggest that this part of the New Testament must contradict the other parts of the New Testament that put certain clear restrictions on women with regards to not teaching or leading a mixed congregation.

Another more subtle problem with this approach is that it suggests that such ministry is the only pinnacle available to a woman. But don't forget how positive Paul is in verse 16 about the mother of Rufus who had also been like a mother to Paul. Her ministry of mothering—of raising children and practising hospitality for a visitor like Paul—is equally commendable to that of Phoebe as a deacon or the outstanding Andronicus and Junia and Priscilla and Aquila.

So today, just like Paul in Romans 16, we need to value and encourage women in the full variety of those ministries legitimately available to them.

Reference: Andreas J Köstenberger, ‘Women in the Pauline Mission’ in The Gospel to the Nations: Perspectives on Paul's Mission, Apollos, 2000, pp. 221-247.

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A most excellent statement from a seemingly unlikely person, heard this morning. The speaker was a tall, retired man in a suit, addressing a younger bearded man who may or may not have had some religious interest, but who had a great deal to say about the Pope, the Roman Catholic church, and the recent Roman Catholic World Youth Day (WYD). They were talking about the re-enactment of the route to Jesus' crucifixion that happened as part of the WYD celebrations. The older man, who spoke broken English with a heavy Armenian accent, had this to say about the re-enactment:

Jesus say after he die, three days later he wake up. I say “Why you no show the wake-up?”

There are so many good things about this comment, it's hard to know where to start. Putting aside the question of whether or not re-enacting the crucifixion is a good idea (especially when embellished with non-biblical mythology, such as Jesus meeting his mother and a woman named Veronica as he went on his way), the old man's question was more than reasonable. It's not only the cross but the resurrection of Jesus which lies at the very heart of what we believe as Christians. Because Jesus rose again, he is revealed as Lord and Judge. Why have a religion which focusses, in its art and drama, on Jesus as a baby, on Mary his mother, and on Jesus nailed to a wooden cross, but which, at the same time, fails to portray his victory over sin and death in the resurrection? For he was “raised for our justification” because if he wasn't, “we are still in our sins”.

As the old man demanded, “Why you no show the wake-up?”

That question was encouraging enough. But, in addition, the old man did not allow himself to be sidetracked by the younger man's rant about the Pope and various pilgrims; instead, he had zeroed in on the heart of the Christian faith, and had proclaimed it in a voice loud enough for all the waiting passengers to hear ... well, it just made my day.

When I see him next (the old man, not the younger man), I am going to go and thank him. For the moment, I'm just saying a word or two to the risen Lord Jesus—that he might make the words of that gospel presentation effective in bringing new life.

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This morning, just for something different, and not at all because some of the Sola Panellists have gone quiet and there's nothing in the cupboard (guys!), let me suggest that you spend your time doing some listening instead: check out this month's Briefing Lounge podcast, ‘Shifting to the personal’.

One thing nearly all the Sola Panellists have in common is that, at one stage or other in our ministry lives, we've been profoundly influenced and trained by Col Marshall. When people think of the ‘St Matthias Movement’ of the 80s and 90s, the planting of 17 churches, the massive growth in people going into Moore College, the large and paradigm-shifting campus work at UNSW, the change in ministry culture that was influential in so many places, and all the rest, they tend to think ‘Phillip Jensen’, and understandably so. And they tend to think that the whole movement was built around Phillip's singular preaching gifts and personality and energy.

But those of us closer to the action know that none of it would have happened, humanly speaking, without Col Marshall. Col was the ‘ministry brains’ of the operation (if I can put it like that). His relentless focus on people, and his equally relentless determination to keep going back to the Bible and rethinking what we were doing in ministry, shaped everything that happened in those extraordinary years.

Col is probably best known for his leadership of MTS (the Ministry Training Strategy), but in ‘Shifting to the personal’, he talks about how institutionalization affects all of us (including MTS), and how we are drawn almost magnetically to structures and programmes rather than people. What would Christian life and ministry and church be like if our priority was to build and work with people as individuals, and to disciple and train them as followers of Christ, rather than to keep the wheel turning on all the programmes and events and structures that seem to take on a life of their own? And what if our home groups really functioned as small ‘c’ churches, and took responsibility for their members, with thoroughly trained leaders who taught and pastored them? And what if the fad for ministry ‘training’ didn't just equip people with skills, but shaped their whole life, character and discipleship?

All this and more, as they say, in this month's Briefing Lounge (the best yet, I think). Have a listen, and pop your comments and questions back here.

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In the comments from one of my GAFCON posts, Sam asks this interesting question:

While reading the material on the GAFCON website during the conference I couldn't help notice the charismatic flavour of many of the comments, particularly those of the African Bishops. Do you have any thoughts on how you see this impacting the wider Anglican community in the future?

I'm not sure exactly which comments Sam means, but in the conference generally there was certainly a bit of mild charismaticism here and there. It was more a matter of flavour than real substance—a few arms in the air, the way the singing was done, some ‘praise the Lord’-style language, but not much more than that. It seems to be part of the unique recipe that is African Anglicanism: a splash of high church colour and movement, a few dollops of charismatic vibrancy, and several cups of good old-fashioned evangelicalism. Charismatic theology or practice wasn't prominent, nor particularly significant in its influence as far as I could see. And whether it will have a wider impact via the growing influence of African Anglicanism, I'm not entirely sure. I suspect not, but I don't feel particularly qualified to make a prophecy.

However, what I would like to do (and hence to the point of this post) is to share a personal observation and a wild hunch, and see if anyone else is as crazy as I am.

I have always thought that something about the charismatic vibe grates with Australian culture. When I was involved in the charismatic movement (nearly 30 years ago), I remember standing there, hands raised, eyes closed in ecstasy, body swaying to the music, calling out “Thank you, Jesus”, or stringing syllables together tongues-style, and feeling ... well, like a bit of goose. A sincere goose, and glad to be a fool for Jesus of course, but a goose all the same.

Now I'm not commenting at all on the genuineness of my devotion at that time, or of those around me, nor on the theology that lay behind it (let's leave that for another time). Nor am I talking about the offence of the gospel, or the way in which living for Jesus means being different from those around us. I'm talking about the style, the little rituals, the patterns of language, the way we arranged our gatherings, how we expressed and enacted our deepest feelings and thoughts—the ‘culture’, in other words. And I never shook the feeling that culturally, Pentecostalism was an odd fit. It felt weird and imposed, like a big Aussie boofhead wearing a grass skirt.

And what has all this to do with GAFCON? Well, as I stood (and sang) shoulder to shoulder with charismatically inclined Anglicans from many different parts of the world, I couldn't help noticing how naturally the African bishop next to me wore the ‘charismatic vibe’. He swayed and waved and sang with a huge smile on his face, and it seemed like the most natural thing in the world. Then there was the white charismatic guy in the row in front of me. He still looked like a goose.

The obvious but somewhat politically incorrect thought struck me: is it possible that classic ‘charismatic’ culture really is African culture? That the late 19th-century black holiness churches which gave birth to pentecostalism passed on to the 20th-century charismatic movement some of its cultural flavour? And that one of the reasons it all feels so strange to Aussies, and maybe less so to Americans, and probably even more so to Brits, is that it is just not us? We have our own ways of rejoicing and celebrating and expressing sincere gratitude. They are no less real or heartfelt or sincere. But they don't usually involve repetitive singing, swaying, dancing and waving.

Maybe this is what we should learn from our joyous, uninhibited African brothers. Maybe we should feel free to be ourselves. And love it.

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There is an insidious and dangerous teaching that I've noticed creeping in to my church, threatening my Christian hope, and stifling my evangelistic effectiveness. Up to this point, it hasn't had a catchy title.¹ But I want to correct that. I'm going to call this teaching ‘nowism’, from the English word ‘now’, meaning the present age.

Are you a nowist? How do you recognize nowistic tendencies? It's not so much seen by what you profess but by how you live. The fundamental feature of nowism is the tendency to live for this world and to forget about the glorious new heavens and new earth that God will bring about when Jesus Christ returns.

It's not a particularly new teaching; there were nowistic teachers in the Apostle Paul's day. In 2 Timothy 2:16-18, we read about Hymanaeus and Philetus who taught that the resurrection had already happened. Presumably, they were teaching that all of God's promises (particularly his great promise to restore the dead to life and to bring a final judgement and restoration of this fallen world) have actually been fulfilled in this present age. Paul saw their nowistic doctrine as destructive and gangrenous, bringing hopelessness, death and destruction, eating away at the body of Christ, poisoning and killing—because it robbed people of their true and glorious eternal hope in Jesus, and stopped them from trusting in him and being prepared to suffer while they longed for his return.

But nowism is alive and well today too. There are nowistic books, spreading like gangrene through Christian bookstores, and therefore Christian homes. You could take the title of Joel Osteen's book Your Best Life Now as a classic expression of pure nowism. But you also see it in that plethora of books that seem to assume that God's plan for your life is primarily directed towards helping you with your weight loss, your business sense, your church attendance numbers, your marriage and family life, your kids' education or your coffee making skills—as if the resurrection has already happened.

It's not surprising that nowism is becoming influential in Christian circles. Bad teaching always ends up conforming to the pattern of the world. In the early 20th century when moralism was the rage, much of the evangelical false teaching involved an unhealthy emphasis on ‘holiness’. But now the mood has shifted. There aren't many holiness teachers around any more. In my part of the world, at least, nowism seems to have taken over. A lot of it has to do with the fact that we live in times of unprecedented economic prosperity. Many of us have careers; all of us have peace and social security. Nobody need starve in our country. If we want heaven, we can get it now; it comes on a stick in the ice cream section of the local supermarket! In fact, most of us have quite a lot to lose when Jesus returns, and we don't have much reason to be very keen to see him come back and spoil it while we're all enjoying ourselves so much. At least he could wait until the kitchen extension is finished and we get back from the overseas trip!

Ironically, there's also a kind of prosperity paradox going on. We have this ‘great life’, but we also have less time to live it. To maintain the lifestyle, to maintain the big houses, to keep the backyards, to further our careers and to fulfil our dreams, we're working longer hours and feeling more exhausted. We're so busy because everybody else is competing with us for this good life too. There's that relentless competition which drives rises in property prices and soaring rents—which drives the need to work harder and longer just to keep up with the Joneses. And that combination of a great life and an exhausting schedule to maintain it means that we have no time for the future—at least not for the future that matters.

So we've become consumed with questions of now (or, at most, the next few decades): what job should I get? How can I make sure my kids are happy and fulfilled at school and home? What superannuation do I need? What diet will enable me to extend my life? And so, despite our professed orthodoxy, we Christians are becoming (bit by bit through our desire to conform to the world and through our own desires and yearnings) nowists.

In my next post, I'll write a little about how we can counter this insidious false teaching, and what it might mean for our evangelistic efforts.

¹ The theologians have a boring name for it: ‘overrealized eschatology’

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Gordon, how did you come to Christ?

A school friend told me that if I was a Christian and wrong, I would have just wasted a lot of Sundays with nice people. But if I was not a Christian and I was wrong, then I was going to hell! I realize there are logical flaws in that argument now. But it was enough to convince me to keep talking to him. He told me the gospel, and started me off going to church and reading the Bible.

I realized from reading the Bible that Jesus was Lord and God, and I also woke up to the fact that being a Christian wasn't about being good, but about asking Jesus' forgiveness. Luke 15 talks about the angels rejoicing when someone realizes this, which I thought was rather marvellous. So here I am, in God's grace.

How do you occupy your time?

Read. Write. Edit. Sleep. Talk to friends. Enjoy the family. Cook. Eat. Houseclean. Pray. Inhabit dark corners of the internet. Catch buses. Oh, and I am a promiscuous Facebook befriender. Try me! I've only ever dropped three people, but then three people have dropped me, so there's a bit of yin and yang going on there, or something. (DON'T think I haven't noticed, you three!)

Tell us a bit about your background and interests.

My background is that I am half-Chinese, half-Swedish; I grew up in Sydney, went to an agricultural high school, studied Psychology at the University of New South Wales, got married, studied Theology and ministered in Melbourne for 10 years with the Australian Fellowship of Evangelical Students. Fiona and I have three lovely daughters. I'm also an ordained Anglican minister.

As for interests, I hope I'm capable of being interested in just about anything other people find interesting. But, at the moment, I am playing the piano, singing in a choir, watching the Tour de France, luxuriating in having finished a Masters thesis after 20 years, and trying somewhat sluggishly to run at least an hour every second day (not there yet).

What are five books that really helped you grow as a Christian?

1. Mere Christianity by CS Lewis
2. Fundamentalism and the Word of God by JI Packer
3. The Book of the Judges: An Integrated Reading by Barry Webb
4. Institutes of the Christian Religion by John Calvin
5. The Everlasting God by D Broughton Knox.

What are you reading now?

Just sitting on my desk I have an abridged version of Augustine's Confessions which I am planning to carry around and read when I'm waiting in queues or whatever. Under that is Walking with Gay Friends by Alex Tylee, which is really good but I am worried about the looks I get when I carry it, so I tend not to read that on the bus.

Then there's Engaging with Barth by Gibson and Strange. Barth was a brilliant and compelling theologian, and therefore all the more dangerous to evangelicals; Ovey's chapter on Barth's trinitarian theology made me feel particularly anxious just in the last few days about what looks like Barth's Sabellianism.

Then underneath that are Calvin's Institutes—although, if I am going to be honest, it's really just the stuff on church in Book IV that I've been skimming. With that is Luther's Table Talk, The Deliberate Church by Dever and Alexander, The Reformed Pastor by Richard Baxter and A Lifting up for the Downcast by William Bridge, another Puritan.

I seriously recommend the last one if you are worried about Christians and depression, but even though it is not that long, it is not a skim read.

Buried under all that is an old Atlantic Monthly.

Just lately I've also read Kate Grenville's The Secret River, and some great detective fiction by Peter Temple, whose books you read for the descriptions of Melbourne and the fans of the Fitzroy football club as much as anything else. Language and adult themes warning.

And what books would you recommend as must-reads right now?

I already mentioned Engaging with Barth by Gibson and Strange, but that is more for the theologs out there. Any of Broughton Knox's Selected Works. Let's not get carried away though; you really only need to read the Bible. Start with Romans and memorize that, as Luther recommended; that's what I'm teaching my daughters.

Oh, if you are even a little bit interested in the evangelical heritage of Anglicanism, especially with all this GAFCON bizzo that has been going on lately, then you could do a whole heap worse than read Ashley Null's brilliant Thomas Cranmer's Doctrine of Repentance: Renewing the Power to Love. It will cost you an absolute bomb, but just quietly ...

What would your friends say are your hobbyhorses?

Low-cal milk is the abomination that causes desolation. Pork fat is actually necessary to the taste of pork, bacon, etc., so why breed it out or trim it off. Salt is good. Corduroy was a mistake. Buses are cool. Trams are cooler. Riding bicycles is safe. How come there aren't more orange cars. Robotic implants could work really well for us. Ten hours sleep per night is acceptable. Sydney weather is fantastic. We should name names. Why is everyone so down on smoking? Netball is over-regulated. Clapping between movements is fine, just get over it. Joe Jackson can't sing in tune—really, he can't. Bratz dolls are disgusting. Non-peer-reviewed medical treatments are largely effective because of empathy plus placebo.

I have a few more ideas, but perhaps you can e-mail me.

What's something that makes you angry?

Selling out the terrible glory of the risen Lord Jesus in the interests of marketing the Christian message to modern hearers.

And who is someone who inspires you?

Bruce Hall, the senior minister of our local church.

What is your ideal day off?

Driving to Austinmer with the family.

Give us your top five musicians.

• Bach
• Bartok
• Mozart
• Bob
• Joni Mitchell

Thanks Gordo!

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