Centre Scholars

The ACC&C strives to make a positive contribution to the intellectual life of Australia through a growing band of scholars associated with the Centre.

Professor Robert Banks

Robert Banks is a biblical scholar and practical theologian, as well as mission biographer and church planter. After completing a doctorate on Jesus and the Law at Cambridge University, he was a Research Fellow in the History of Ideas Unit in the ANU. During this time, he helped develop several home-based congregation in the city, and was a theological consultant to Christians in the Public Service. Following this, in the Dept. of History, Philosophy and Politics at at Macquarie University, he taught courses on  both Biblical Studies and Religion and Atheism, and wrote Paul’s Idea of Community, Private Values and Public Policy, and The Tyranny of Time. Subsequently, as Professor in the Ministry of the Laity at Fuller Theological Seminary in LA, he introduced an MA in Christian Leadership and, as Director of the De Pree Leadership Center, worked among business, media and professional people. He also helped found the annual City of the Angels Film Festival, and wrote or edited books on God the Worker, Faith in the Marketplace, and The Complete Book of Everyday Christianity.

Robert returned to Australia to become Director of  the Institute of Christian Studies at Macquarie University, where he produced published Is God a Human Invention?, where heco-authored a textbook for HSC students on religion and film. With his wife Linda, he has created small group resources  on biblical themes and C.S.Lewis Narnia films, and produced four books primarily about the contribution of Australian women missionaries to the emergence of modern China, During visits to that country, he has participated in the Shanghai Academy of Social Science’s annual ‘Bible in China’ Conference. He also served as a regular Visiting Professor at the Biblical Graduate School of Theology in Singapore, and later as Honorary Professor at Alphacrucis College, Sydney. Several of his books have been translated into Korean, Japanese, Spanish, Portuguese, Danish, Persian, German, Chinese, and won Book of the Year awards in Australia, Canada and the United States. His most recent publication is Transforming Daily Work into a Divine Vocation.

Reverend Dr Nikolai David Blaskow

(PhD Philosophy and Religion, Bangor University, UK)

Fr Frank Brennan SJ AO

Jesuit priest Fr Frank Brennan is chief executive officer of Catholic Social Services Australia – the Catholic Church's peak body for social services in Australia.

Fr Frank has been a long-time advocate for human rights and social justice in Australia.

His contact and involvement with people who are poor, vulnerable and disadvantaged began early in his priestly ministry when he worked in the inner Sydney parish of Redfern with priest activist Father Ted Kennedy. In every role he has had since, he has been amplifying the voice of conscience, especially the voice of those who are marginalised.

Frank is an adjunct professor at the Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture. He is also the superior of the Jesuit community at Xavier House in Canberra.

Professor Sathi Clarke

Sathi Clarke is the is the Bishop Sundo Kim Chair in World Christianity, Professor of Theology, Culture and Mission, Wesley Theological Seminary, Washington D.C and a presbyter of the Church of South India. He was formerly a member of faculty at United Theological College, Bangalore, India and a visiting professor at Harvard Divinity School. He has taught and lectured on global Christianity, contextual theology, postcolonial mission, and inter-religious dialogue in India, U.S.A., United Kingdom, Germany, Sri Lanka, Korea, South Africa, and Liberia. Professor Clarke's research interests are in  contextual theology, constructive global theology, and theology of religions, with projects including:

World Christianity: Theological Method and Themes;
Faces of Jesus in World Religions and World Christianity;
Christian Mission in an Interfaith World;
Competing Religious Fundamentalisms.

Rev Canon Professor Scott Cowdell

Scott Cowdell was a parish priest in Brisbane and Canberra, a theological college principal in Adelaide, and has been a full-time theologian and writer in Canberra for the last seventeen years. He is a Research Professor in Theology in the Centre for Religion, Ethics and Society (CRES) at Charles Sturt University and Canon Theologian of the Canberra-Goulburn Anglican diocese. His theological work at CSU has centred on dialogue with the Mimetic Theory of René Girard, arguably the premier theorist of culture, religion and violence. He is a prominent member of the international Colloquium on Violence and Religion and founding President of the Australian Girard Seminar, also lead editor of the “Violence, Desire and the Sacred” series with Bloomsbury Academic. Fr Cowdell’s ten published books include René Girard and the Nonviolent God (University of Notre Dame Press, 2018) and Mimetic Theory and its Shadow: Girard, Milbank, and Ontological Violence (Michigan State University Press, 2023).

He also writes about ecclesiology, with Church Matters: Essays and Addresses on Ecclesial Belonging (Coventry Press, Melbourne, 2022) showcasing his contributions over 25 years. A book of his sermons, Rejoice and Be Glad: Gospel Preaching for Christian Festivals, will appear with Canterbury Press in Melbourne after Easter 2024. Professor Cowdell’s latest book, Why Church? On Christianity as it Was Meant to Be—completed in 2023 while he was Dean’s Scholar at the Virginia Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church—is coming out with Church Publishing, New York, in September 2024.

The Rev'd Professor Brian Douglas

Brian Douglas is an Anglican priest, Adjunct Research Professor at the Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture and Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for Public and Contextual Theology at Charles Sturt University, Canberra, Australia.  Brian also teaches Sacramental Theology, Anglican Foundations, The Diaconate and Interfaith Dialogue in the School of Theology at Charles Sturt University (St Mark’s National Theological Centre, Canberra, Australia).

Brian is the Editor of The Journal of Anglican Studies (a Cambridge University Press journal).

Brian’s PhD from the University of Newcastle, Australia, in 2006 was entitled Ways of Knowing in the Anglican Eucharistic Tradition: Ramifications for Theological Education and was examined by international and national examiners and awarded without correction.

In recent years he has published several books and numerous peer-reviewed articles in national and international journals, as well as attending and presenting at international conferences (most recently in 2017 at Leuven in Belgium and in 2019 at the University of Durham in the United Kingdom).

Recently Brian has published a book entitled a book entitled The Abundance of God: Sacramental Poetics in the Anglican Tradition (Lexington/Fortress, 2022), exploring the work of Richard Hooker and George Herbert as well as examining the wider issues of sacramental poetics.  Brian has also published The History, Theology and Liturgy of the Eucharist in the Anglican Church of Australia (Brill, 2022). Previous books published include: The Eucharistic Theology of Edward Bouverie Pusey: Sources, Context and Doctrine within the Oxford Movement and Beyond (Brill, 2015) and the two volume work A Companion to Anglican Eucharistic Theology (Brill, 2012).  Brian next book to be published shortly is called Herbert Thorndike and the Seventeenth-Century Destruction and Restoration of Anglicanism.  At present Brian is working on a book called The Identity of Christ: Truth in Incarnation and Eucharistic Repetition.

The Rev'd Dr Peter C Grundy

Peter Grundy is an Anglican priest.  He is also a philosopher in the Anglo-American analytic tradition.

His research centres on non-cognitivist readings of the Christian religion by both philosophers and theologians, but especially those influenced by the eminent Cambridge philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein.  He is also concentrating on aspects of the formal (logical and theistic) problem of evil. And he is interested in systematic theological grounds (including extra-scriptural grounds) supporting seminal Christian doctrines such as atonement.  While not a biblical theologian, Peter takes notice of problems addressed by textual criticism, particularly of the Gospels.

Peter’s background in philosophy includes teaching at Macquarie University and the Australian National University (ANU), which awarded his doctorate.  He also argues his convictions before academic conference audiences, at seminars and in public debates.  He taught theology at Charles Sturt University over a period of seven years. And he comes from the philosophy program at ANU, having been, most recently, a Visiting Fellow there.  At ACC&C, he is an Adjunct Senior Research Fellow.

Toni Hassan

Toni Hassan is an Adjunct Research Fellow of the Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture. She is an artist who explores social justice and intersections between the sacred and the secular. Toni is a Walkley Award-winning writer and journalist who has appeared on the ABC, and published in Eremos, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Saturday Paper.

She has been an adviser in federal politics and with the ACT Human Rights Commission in the area of children and young people's safety and citizenship. She is the author of Families in the Digital Age (published by Hybrid) with a keen interest in digital addiction and how to balance the benefits of screens with good mental health. She also brings to her role at the ACC&C extensive media and policy experience in the not-for-profit sector, most recently across public health, women's economic security and modern slavery with Be Slavery Free.

Toni is a facilitator with the Canberra Conversation Lecture series run by Canberra University and the Institute for Governance and Policy Analysis and a founding member of the national Women's Climate Congress. Toni recently completed Honours in Visual Arts at the Australian National University exploring lamentation, producing multimedia responses to Black Summer.

Professor Wayne Hudson

Wayne Hudson hold the position of Research Professor at the Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture in Canberra. He is an intellectual historian and a social philosopher who works across the areas of philosophy, history, politics and religion. His research covers religious thought, utopianism and social reform, the Enlightenment and the postsecular. He is recognised as the English language expert on the Jewish German Philosopher Ernst Bloch and is also a leading historian of English deism. He wrote his D. Phil. at Oxford, under the supervision of the Polish philosopher Leszek Kołakowski and the American intellectual historian Martin Jay. Subsequently, he was elected a Junior Research Fellow in Philosophy and delivered the first lectures on postmodernism at Oxford. He also taught philosophical anthropology for seven years at the University of Utrecht.

Wayne's first monograph The Marxist Philosophy of Ernst Bloch (1982), still the definitive work in English, showed that Bloch was a process philosopher like Bergson and Whitehead. Building on his work on Bloch, he then engaged with central problems in religious and social thought, especially the relationship between secularity and Enlightenment in some twenty books and more than eighty articles and book chapters. He has taken a special interest in questions about civil society, republicanism and citizenship.

Three recent books, The English Deists: Studies in Early Enlightenment (2009), Enlightenment and Modernity: The English Deists and Reform (2009) and an edited collection, Atheism and Deism Revalued (2014), throw new light on the emergence of deism and atheism. A further monograph, Australian Religious Thought, to be published by Monash Publishing in 2016, shows that religious thought in Australia has been much more significant than historians have recognised, and that religiously inflected Enlightenment has played a significant part in Australian history. He is currently writing a monograph on postsecular Enlightenment.

Trained initially in law, Professor Hudson is interested in questions about civil society, republicanism and citizenship. He has also worked on multi-faith dialogue. Among his many edited books are Islam Beyond Conflict with Azyumardi Azra, Civil Society in Asia with David Schak, Rethinking Australian Citizenship with John Kane, Australian Republicanism with Mark McKenna, and Creating Australia with Geoffrey Bolton.

Visit Wayne's website for more information.

Read an interview with Wayne in Engage 12

Dr Douglas Hynd

Douglas Hynd is Adjunct Research Fellow of the Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture. He has recently completed a PhD at the Australian Catholic University on the impact on church-related welfare agencies of contracting with government.

He has worked in the Australian Public Service on social policy, community programs and indigenous affairs, and has taught as a sessional lecturer at St Mark's National Theological Centre in Christian Ethics, and Australian Church and Society. He has research interests in the role of Christian churches and their agencies in social policy, the engagement of theology with politics, political theory and anthropology and the significance of Anabaptism and the peace witness for Christian presence and engagement in a post-secular society.

He is actively engaged in refugee issues as President of Canberra Refugee Support". He also serves on the management committee of the Community Centre at Canberra Baptist Church.

Dr Brendan Long

Brendan Long is a Senior Research Fellow at the Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture. He is an economist with over two decades of experience in key government agencies (Treasury, Productivity Commission, the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, and the Office of National Assessments) and has held leadership policy roles in national peak organisations in the private and not-for-profit sectors (including Catholic Social Services Australia and National Disability Services).

He has also been a senior political adviser for six years to Federal politicians including Simon Crean, Joel Fitzgibbon, Joseph Ludwig and Stephen Conroy.

He holds a BEc from the ANU, a M.Litt from the ANU and a PhD from the University of Cambridge and has published work on the religious aspects of Adam Smith's thought in leading international journals. He is a member of the Australian Catholic Theological Association.

Dr Long is working for the Centre on public theology and social policy applying Christian theology to social and economic policy issues as part of the Civil Society research program of the Centre. His latest project is a report on Welfare Reform for people disability and he is writing a piece for the St Mark's review on the social and ethical implications of the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

Dr Peter Hooton

Peter is a former diplomat whose postings included appointments as High Commissioner to Samoa (2001–03 ) and Solomon Islands (2007–09). Prior to leaving the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in 2012, he was Assistant Secretary for Arms Control and Counter-Proliferation. He subsequently helped write the first edition of a report (Nuclear Weapons: The State of Play) published the following year by the Australian National University’s Centre for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament.

Peter has a Master of Theology and a PhD from Charles Sturt University and is currently an Adjunct Research Fellow in Public Theology at the Centre. He is the author of Bonhoeffer’s Religionless Christianity in Its Christological Context (Lexington Books/Fortress Academic, 2020) and A Theology of Divine Vulnerability: The Silence that Gives Light (Lexington Books, 2024). He has published articles on Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Christian ethics, and nuclear disarmament in the International Journal of Public Theology, The Bonhoeffer Legacy, and St Mark’s Review.

Professor John Painter

John Painter was educated in NSW country where tennis, cricket and athletics became the most important school activities and remained formative life influences, along with the love of mountains and sea, boats, canoes and kayaks. He studied theology in Sydney, London and Durham (UK). A lover of music from Monteverdi to Philip Glass, Peter Sculthorpe and Ross Edwards, John tries to live, breathe, and work in the context of music.

Prof. Painter's teaching and research interests are Early Christianity and Early Judaism; God-talk in the Early Church; Hermeneutics and contextual theology; and, the New Testament and contextual theology. His current research is focused in three projects: The role of a biblical creation theology in the face of the threat posed by the human destruction of the natural world and the accelerating rate of the extinction of species; The promise and problematic nature of the Gospel of John for a constructive Christian Theology in the Twenty First Century; and, The role of James the brother of Jesus in the Earliest Church as a model of Christian leadership.

Publications include 17 books and editions, 72 book chapters, and 50 articles in International and National Journals, including John: Witness and Theologian SPCK: London 1975 and two later editions; Theology as Hermeneutics: Rudolf Bultman’s Interpretation of the History of Jesus, Sheffield Academic Press & Bloomsbury Academic Collections: London & New York, 1975, 2015; The Quest for the Messiah: the History, Literature and Theology of the Johannine Literature, T&T Clark: Edinburg & Abingdon: Nashville, 1991 & 1993; 1, 2, and 3 John, Sacra Pagina Vol. 18 Liturgical Press Collegeville Minnesota 2002 & 2008; Just James: The Brother of Jesus in History and Tradition, University of South Carolina Press, 1997; T & T Clark: Edinburgh 1999; Second edition Revised and Expanded 2004;  Mark’s Gospel: Worlds in Conflict, Routledge: London 2004. James in James and Jude, Bakker Books: Michigan, 2012.

John has published 72 book chapters in edited volumes, including: “That you may know that you have eternal life (1 Jn 5:13): Healing and Assurance through Believing and Loving,” in The Bible Today (Sept/Oct 2018); “The pace of the Johannine Canon within the NT Canon,” in The Usefulness of Scripture eds Costello, Koenig and Nienhuis (Eisenbrauns: University Park, Pennsylvania, 2018); "The Fourth Gospel, a ’Spiritual Gospel’ or ’Theological’ Gospel,”  in Anatomies of the Gospels and Early Christianity, eds Parsons et al. (Leiden: Brill 2018). “James 'the Brother of the Lord’ and the Epistle of James,” in Reading the Epistle of James: A Resource for Students,eds Mason et al. (SBL Press: Atlanta  2019); “James of Jerusalem,” in The T & T Clark Encyclopaedia of Second Temple Judaism Volume 2, eds Gurtner et al. (London: T&T Clark, 2020). “The Source of Irony in the Fourth Gospel,” Irony in the Bible. (Leiden: Brill 2023).

Dr Carlos A Raimundo

Carlos, raised in Argentina within a Reformed Christian family, pursued education in the 1980s under Dr. Francis A. Schaeffer in L’abri, Switzerland, and at Christ For the Nations in Dallas. His curiosity in spirituality and personal growth led him to delve into the Torah, Jewish traditions (especially Hasidism), Ignatian Spirituality, and Buddhist practices, all of which he incorporated into both his life and professional practice.

After earning his medical degree and surgeon qualification in Argentina (1975), Carlos specialised in psychiatry, philosophy, and theology. He became a Trainer Educator and Practitioner in Psychodrama, studying at the Argentinean School, Beacon, Moreno’s training centre, and the Australian and New Zealand Psychodrama Association. Establishing his psychotherapy practice in Buenos Aires in 1980, Carlos later founded the Interpersonal Relationship Institute, collaborating with various missionary societies and directed the Ministry to the Ministers program. During Argentina's military dictatorship, he actively participated in the Latin American Fraternity of Theology and was engaged in Liberation Theology. In 1982, he joined an anti-Malvinas (Falklands) war group.

Relocating to Australia in 1986, Carlos worked as a Baptist Pastor in Western Sydney, focusing on the Spanish community. He later served as a Consultant Psychotherapist and Supervisor for the Anglican Counselling Centre in Sydney. In 1990, Carlos founded the School of Contemporary Psychodrama, during which he developed the Play of Life®, a 3D simulation method for insight and behavioural modification. This innovation earned him the ASGPP, American Association of Psychodrama and Group Psychotherapy’s Innovator’s Award in New York in 2000.

In 2002, Carlos completed a Master’s in management at Macquarie University and authored "Relationship Capital" (Prentice Hall). He conducted further research on the Neuroscience of Emotional and Social Intelligence at Macquarie University. In 2024, he received the ASGPP David Keeper award for writing and research. Currently retired, Carlos remains active as a therapist, coach, and trainer, focusing on leadership, culture, and personal growth for both the corporate sector and religious orders globally. Carlos is a formal lecturer on Relationship Psychodynamics and Supervision at JCS, Jesuit College of Spirituality. His ongoing research explores neuroscience related to insights, emotions, behavioural modification, and relationships, particularly the impact of his 3D Visualisation and Simulation Model, Play of Life®. Carlos serves on the boards of ASGPP (USA) and IAGP (Switzerland) and chairs the IAGP Family Therapy Section while contributing to international research and educational committees.

Dr Monica Short

Dr Monica Short is a senior social work lecturer and social science researcher at Charles Sturt University and is an Adjunct Research Fellow at the ACC&C. Monica has developed and applies an integrated lens model of inquiry incorporating social work, sociology and theology. Co-operative inquiry, ethnography, literature review, and case studies are her preferred research methodologies. Monica's research focuses on social change leading to love, hope and faith (1 Corinthians 13:13); this includes people being warmly connected with God through Jesus, engaging with neighbours, and promoting belonging and flourishing in local communities.

Dr Monica Short has worked for over 30 years in large organisations, including professional, academic, project management, and senior managerial roles. Collaboration and co-design are fundamental to her research, supervision and teaching. Monica coordinates the International Network of Co-operative Inquirers and is a member of several professional and research groups, such as the Anglican Church of Australia Mission and Ministry Commission. Monica has over 30 publications, three international research awards, two awards from CSU for teaching, and has received the St Mark's National Theological Centre Greg Eather Memorial Prize for her PhD.  Monica supervises people studying for a PhD - specialising in PhD by publications with a focus on social change and social justice. Monica is on Ngunnawal and Ngambri lands and is based in Canberra.

Dr Felicity McCallum, PhD

Dr Felicity McCallum is an Awabakaleen (female of Awaba) residing on Wanungine-Wallambine (Awabakal) country.

Felicity facilitates national and local civic initiatives for Indigenous / non-Indigenous peace based on just engagement. She consults to national boards and co-leads international research projects aimed at the application of findings on justice, wisdom and unity across the globe.

Two years ago, Felicity started a project with Taize brothers in France to usher forward a new Taize chant articulated using Awabakal language & the ‘Taize method’. This will result in the most thoroughly recorded Indigenous language & ancient philosophy of Australia underpinning a new song to instate Reconciliation within Australia.

Felicity co-led national research into early childhood education outcomes for the strengthening of  Indigenous children, (3-5 year olds) in remote, rural and urban regions with the Brotherhood of St Lawrence, Melbourne. She is a teacher, lecturer & tutor (Australian Catholic University, ACU).

Felicity's thesis on Indigenous-British Engagement and Reconciliation in Australia: A Girardian Analysis with Special Reference to the Awabakal People of the Newcastle Region, 1788-1842 can be  found at:
https://researchoutput.csu.edu.au/en/publications/indigenous-british-engagement-and-reconciliation-in-australia-a-g

Dr Rebecca Hilton

Rebecca Hilton is an Adjunct Research Fellow of the Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture. She is undertaking research on the history of the roles and contributions of Australian Evangelical women. She has a Ph.D and Master of Theology from Charles Sturt University, Canberra, Australia, and both focused on Australian Baptist women’s history, particularly in the area of foreign mission.

Rebecca has an interest in social justice and equity issues and worked in the Australian Public Service in areas of employment for disadvantaged Australians and remote housing.