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. We are creating a 'think tank' of public intellectuals to encourage the Churches' engagement with the public issues of the day.

Dr A.W. (Bill) Anscombe

B. Soc Stud (Sydney University); ThA (ACT); Th.Dip (ACT); Grad Dip. Man (CIAE) ; M. Soc Wel & Soc Plan. (CSU); PhD (CSU).

Dr Bill Anscombe is an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Institute of Land Water and Society (ILWS) and the Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture at Charles Sturt University (CSU). Bill has twenty years’ experience in community and institutional corrections at both field and senior levels within the NSW Department of Corrective Services. He joined Charles Sturt University as a Lecturer in Social Work in 1993 and retired in 2014 after 4 years as the Course Director for Social Work and Human Service programs. He has also served (on leave without pay from the University) as Director of Child and Family Services for Western NSW and was in a joint appointment for 5 years between CSU and the (then) NSW Department of Community Services.

Bill is a Director of Anglicare NSW South, NSW West and ACT, Chair and President of St Martin’s College at Wagga Wagga, serves as a Director of two Wagga Wagga charitable organisations and is a member of the National Executive of the Bush Church Aid Society of Australia. He serves as a member of the National Accreditation Panel of the Australian Association of Social Workers. He worships and takes services at South Wagga Wagga Anglican Church.

His PhD studies were in Consilience in Social Work: Reflections on Thinking, Doing and Being and he has co-authored two recent books Empowering Social Workers (Springer 2017) and Reflective Social Work Practice (Cambridge 2015) and a forthcoming book on Virtuous Practice in Social Work arising out of an Australian Research Council Grant on Virtuous Practitioners: Empowering Social Workers.

His research and publications and reports are at the applied end of the research spectrum and he seeks outcomes that make a practical difference for people. With a wide range of research interests and research projects including Indigenous Australians, rural programme evaluation, Housing, Multicultural issues of rural Australia, rural social policy, Early Childhood projects,the most recent co-publication has been in the British Journal of Social Work Searching for Value Ethics: a survey of Social Work Ethics Curriculum and Educators (September 2019).

Professor Robert Banks

BA, Arts Law, Sydney University 1958. ThL, Australian College of Theology, 1961. BD, University of London, 1962. MTh, University of London, 1965. PhD Clare's College Cambridge, 1969.

Professor Robert Banks is a biblical scholar, practical theologian, social critic, educator and church planter. In addition to a distinguished academic and lay church career in Australia, he has been a Visiting Professor in theological institutions in Korea, Canada, Russia and Switzerland, he networked with house church planters in several overseas countries.

He was ordained and served at Holy Trinity Anglican Church in Adelaide before going to the UK to complete his postgraduate studies. On returning to Australia, he was appointed as a Research Fellow in the History of Ideas Unit at the Australian National University. During this time, he a began a theological program for lay people, helped develop several house churches in the Canberra and acted as a theological consultant to the Public Service. In 1974, he became Senior Lecturer in Ancient History at Macquarie University, Sydney.

In 1989, he was invited to become Foundation Professor in The Ministry of the Laity at Fuller Theological Seminary, Los Angeles, where he introduced a Master of Arts in Christian Leadership for lay people and a Doctorate in Practical Theology. Three highlights of this period were helping to found a national Coalition for Ministry in Daily Life, serve on the Board of InterVarsity Fellowship's Marketplace Ministries and nurturing independent and denominational home churches in Los Angeles and other parts of North America. In the mid-90's, he became the first Executive Director of the De Pree Leadership Center at Fuller Seminary, working among business, media and professional people as well as with church, para-church and missionary leaders.

As an avid film enthusiast, he became the first Director of an annual City of the Angels Film Festival, which focussed on films containing spiritual and moral themes, held annually at the Director's Guild in Los Angeles.

From 1999 to 2004, he was the Director and Dean of the Christian Studies Institute at Macquarie University, Sydney, where he continues to hold an adjunct position. Other honorary positions include: Adjunct Professor at Fuller Theological Seminary, Biblical Graduate School of Theology in Singapore, Honorary Professor at Alphacrucis College, Sydney. He joined the adjunct scholars at the ACC&C in 2021, having previously been an adjunct scholar at the theology department of CSU.

His research output can easily be described as prodigious. Out of a list too great to present in full, a selection of major works includes:

Jesus and the Law in the Synoptic Tradition, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1975

Paul's Idea of Community: The Early House Churches in Their Historical Setting, Anzea, Sydney; Paternoster, Exeter and Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 1980.

God The Worker: Journeys Into The Imagination, Mind And Heart Of God,  Sydney, Albatross and Tring, Lynx, 1992.

(Co-Author, with Mike Frost), Lessons From Reel Life: Movies, Meaning and Myth-Making, Adelaide: Open Book, 2001.

Ed. (with Paul Stevens), Thoughtful Parenting: A Manual of Wisdom for Marriage and Family, Downer's Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2001.

And Man Created God: Is God a Human Invention?, London: LionHudson, 2011.

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 is Adjunct Research Professor in Theology with the Centre for Religion, Ethics and Society (CRES) at Charles Sturt University. His PhD is from the University of Queensland. He is the author of twelve books, most recently 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). These further develop his internationally recognized theological engagement with the mimetic theory of religion, culture and violence developed by the French American theorist René Girard (1923-2015). With Joel Hodge (Australian Catholic University) and Chris Fleming (Western Sydney University) he founded the Australian Girard Seminar in 2011, serving as its President and co-editing its ‘Violence, Desire, and the Sacred’ series with Bloomsbury Academic, which currently stands at twelve volumes, along with its projected new Bloomsbury Handbook of Mimetic Theory.

He also writes about ecclesiology, with Church Matters: Essays and Addresses on Ecclesial Belonging published in 2022 with Coventry Press, Melbourne, showcasing his contributions over 25 years. Two completed books appearing in 2024 are Rejoice and Be Glad: Gospel Preaching for Christian Festivals—a volume of sermons due by midyear, also with Coventry Press—and Why Church? Christianity As It Was Meant to Be, coming out with Church Publishing, New York, in September. After 35 years as an Anglican priest, Scott Cowdell’s reception (with his wife, Lisa) into the Roman Catholic Church in the 2024 Easter season initiates a formal process of discernment with a view to his ordination as a Catholic priest, sponsored by the Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn.

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 fulfils an academic teaching role, in the School of Theology at Charles Sturt University (St Mark’s National Theological Centre, Canberra, Australia) where he teaches Sacramental Theology, Anglican Foundations, The Triune God and Interfaith Dialogue.  Brian supervises higher degree candidates in a couple of Australian universities.

Brian is the Editor of The Journal of Anglican Studies (a Cambridge University Press journal) having served for several years as the Book Review Editor.

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

Brian’s area of research and teaching ranges across systematic theology (specialising in sacramental theology), Anglican Studies and Interfaith Dialogue.  In recent years he has published several books and numerous peer-reviewed articles in 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 completed a book entitled The History, Theology and Liturgy of the Eucharist in the Anglican Church of Australia which is being published by Brill in The Netherlands in the series Anglican/Episcopal Theology and History edited by Professor Paul Avis.  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).  Present research involves the writing of a book entitled The Abundance of God: Sacramental Poetics in the Anglican Tradition, exploring the work of Richard Hooker and George Herbert as well as examining the wider issues of sacramental poetics.  Numerous peer-reviewed articles are published in national and international journals.

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 ACCC, 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.

Dr Peter Hooton

Adjunct Research Fellow in Public Theology

Peter is a former diplomat whose postings have included appointments as High Commissioner to Samoa (2001–03 ) and Solomon Islands (2007–09). Prior to leaving the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade at the beginning of 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 has published several articles on Dietrich Bonhoeffer and on Christian ethics in the International Journal of Public Theology, The Bonhoeffer Legacy, and St Mark’s Review.

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.

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 has been actively involved in refugee issues through Canberra Refugee Support and Love Makes a Way.

Dr Bill Leadbetter

Bill Leadbetter is a historian, teacher, writer, commentator and sometime politician. Currently a Cathedral Scholar of St George’s Cathedral and Adjunct Associate Professor in History at Notre Dame, he has been a teacher for over thirty years. For seventeen years Professor Leadbetter was a teacher of History at both Secondary and Tertiary levels, and then for a decade, a Lecturer, then Senior Lecturer, in the School of Education at Edith Cowan University.

He then embarked on a brief political career, during which he was, for a very short time, a member of the Western Australian Legislative Council. He currently works in Government as a speechwriter and senior policy adviser.

He holds an Honours degree and a Doctorate in Ancient History from Macquarie University, and has published a number of books, both in his own name and in partnership with others. He is a past member of the History Council of WA, the Course Advisory Committee for the WA Curriculum Council for Ancient History (which he also chaired for four years), and the examining panel for School Ancient History. He is a graduate of the Australian Institute for Company Directors, and a member of the Australian College of Educators. He holds both a Vice-Chancellor’s Award for teaching, and a national award for teaching for his work in developing effective strategies in Middle Years education.

In addition to his academic work, he is an active participant in public life, having given over fifty public lectures, contributed to the print media and was a regular commentator on social issues on the ABC Sunday Nights with John Cleary program.

Bill remains deeply interested in the intersection between faith and public life, and in the insights that a study of the history of the Church can afford.

Bill is Lay Canon and Treasurer of St George’s Anglican Cathedral in Perth, a member of the Council of the Diocese of Perth and a Trustee of the Perth Diocese.

Dr Christine Ledger

Dr Christine Ledger studied science at the Australian National University in Canberra and her postgraduate studies branched into the field of science, technology and society studies at Murdoch University (BSc (Hons)), and the University of New South Wales (Master of Science and Society). In 2004 she was awarded a PhD from Charles Sturt University, studying at St Mark's Theological Centre in Canberra. Her thesis discussed themes of technological culture, human creativity and community.

Much of Christine's working life has been with ecumenical organisations, including the Australian Council of Churches, the Commission for Christian World Service and the Christian Conference of Asia, based in Hong Kong. As an academic associate, she has taught courses related to science and religion, ecotheology and God and creation. Christine is currently writing about the life of Vernon Cornish who died young when he was Anglican Bishop-elect of Tasmania.

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 Keith Mascord

Keith Mascord is currently employed as Chaplaincy Coordinator with Corrective Services, NSW. He oversees the State’s multi-faith prison chaplaincy service. In his spare time, he works to promote the cause of Equal Voices, a cross-denominational movement of LGBTIQA+ Christians and their allies. As its co-founder, he is passionate to see Australian churches respecting, utilising and celebrating the gifts of all people, regardless of sexuality, gender identity or intersex status.

Keith is Canadian born, but has lived in Australia for most of his life. He began his professional life as a high school teacher, then trained at Moore Theological College to become an Anglican priest, ministering initially in Tamworth and Wee Waa before returning to Moore College, joining the faculty and majoring in the teaching philosophy and pastoral theology, becoming head of the ministry department before returning to pastoral ministry in the Parish of South Sydney. He next became National Chaplain of Mission Australia, after which he became a parole officer before taking up his current role.

Keith is the author of three books, the first a publication of his Doctoral thesis, Alvin Plantinga and Christian Apologetics, Paternoster, 2006. His second, A Restless Faith: leaving fundamentalism in a quest for God, Xlibris, 2012, is autobiographical, telling the story of his growing disenchantment with fundamentalist and reactionary forms of the faith. His most recent book, Faith without Fear: risky choices facing contemporary Christians, Morning Star, 2016, develops themes only touched upon in his earlier book. Keith comments that it was because of this book that his authority to officiate in Anglican Diocese of Sydney was not renewed. Nevertheless, he said he remains optimistic that Australia’s churches will, in time, fully face up to the damage some of their views continue to cause, that something of the evolution within his own faith will occur throughout the church, reforming and revitalising its life and mission.

Dr Graeme McLean

Graeme McLean is a Senior Lecturer and the Philosophy Co-ordinator in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga. Originally from Melbourne, he studied at Monash (BA (Hons) and MA) and Oxford (BPhil and DPhil). He has had short teaching stints at Monash and Melbourne universities and at Regent College, Vancouver. From 1990 to 2004 he was a member of the Philosophy Department of the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. He joined CSU in 2005. His main philosophical interests are in the theory of knowledge, applied ethics, and philosophy of religion. He is especially interested in how philosophy can assist Christian apologetics and ethics.

Some recent relevant research includes 'Critical Review Article: Ethics and AIDS in Africa: The Challenge to Our Thinking', Developing World Bioethics, Vol. 7, No. 3, Dec. 2007; 'Theology and Philosophy: Friends or Foes in the University?', St Mark's Review, No. 210, Dec. 2009; 'The Imagination of Our Hearts', St Mark's Review, No. 221, Sept. 2012; 'The Futility of Our Minds', St Mark's Review, No. 227, Feb. 2014; and, 'Antipathy to God', Sophia, Vol. 54, No. 1, April 2015.

Dr David Millikian

David has been making films for thirty years. His first role in TV was as presenter of the highly successful ABC series, The Sunburnt Soul. He was Head of Religious Broadcasting at the ABC for seven years and has presented, and produced, programs for Four Corners, Sixty Minutes and more recently for Sunday Night on Channel 7.

David is a Uniting Church minister, author of several books and many articles dealing with religion and New Religious Movements and Cults. At the moment he is working on an adaptation of Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment set in Newtown, Sydney.

David was the Founding Director of the Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture, which is sponsoring the Religious Short Film Prize.

Photo: Dean Sewell/Fairfax Syndication

Dr Natalie Mobini

Dr Natalie Mobini is an Adjunct Research Fellow at the Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture.

Dr Mobini has been an active contributor to inter-faith dialogue at the national level in Australia for almost 20 years. She represents the Australian Bahá'í Community on the Australian Partnership of Religious Organisations (APRO), and she convenes the Canberra chapter of the Women’s Interfaith Network (WIN). She was a member of the Australian delegation to the Interfaith and Intercultural Dialogue held in Yogyakarta in October 2016 under the auspices of MIKTA. Dr Mobini has written and spoken on the need to broaden and deepen dialogue at a wide range of conferences and other events. Her paper “Encountering the Other “Other”: A Bahá’í Perspective” appears in the publication Interfaith Dialogue: Global Perspectives (Palgrave, 2016).
Dr Mobini is the Director of the Office of External Affairs for the Australian Bahá’í Community. In this capacity she represents the Bahá’í community in its dealings with the Australian government, and in its work with other community organisations to promote peace, human rights, the equality of women and men, and inter-religious understanding. She holds a doctorate in Indonesian history and is the author of several published papers and a monograph in this field.

Professor Satendra Nandan

Satendra Nandan is an Adjunct Research Professor at the Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture.

Born in Fiji, Satendra Nandan studied  in India, England and Australia. He joined the University of the South Pacific in 1969.He completed his PhD in English at the Australian National University.

He was elected to Fiji Parliament in 1982 and again in 1987 when he became a minister in the  Dr Bavadra's cabinet until  the first Fijian coup  on 14 May 1987.

In December 1987, he came to the Humanities Research Centre, ANU, as a Visiting Fellow and subsequently joined the University of Canberra. In 2005 he resigned from the University of Canberra and returned to Fiji with his wife Dr Jyoti Nandan (ANU) to help establish the University of Fiji for the poor.

The University of Canberra  made him an Emeritus Professor for his distinguished service as a professor, creative writer and  the elected international Chair of the Association of Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies (ACLALS) among other multicultural contributions to the wider community.

An award-winning writer, Satendra has authored and edited 20 books on Culture and Literature .

In 2013 Satendra helped draft Fiji's new democratic constitution for democratic elections. Canberra is now Satendra and Jyoti's home with their three children and four grandchildren.

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.

Rev Dr Rod Pattenden

Rev Dr Rod Pattenden, has worked extensively in the interface between spirituality, theology and the creative arts in Australia. He has worked as an artist, curator, writer and lecturer, exploring religious and spiritual themes in Australian art and culture. For many years he was Chair of the Blake Prize for Religious Art. He has curated a number of innovative exhibitions and installation projects, and was founding Director of InterPlay Australia, linking performance skills and embodied spiritual expression. He is currently minister of Adamstown Uniting Church in Newcastle where he has developed the Adamstown Arts visual and performing arts program.

Dr Carlos A Raimundo

Carlos grew up in Argentina in a Reformed Christian family, studied in the eighties with Dr Francis A. Schaeffer in L’abri, Switzerland, and at Christ For the Nations, Dallas. Carlos’ interest in spirituality and personal growth moved him to study the Torah at a Reformed Synagogue and from Orthodox Judaism, and Ignatian Spirituality, traditions he has incorporated into his life and professional practice.

Carlos graduated as a medical doctor and surgeon in Argentina (1975), after which he specialised in psychiatry, philosophy, theology and Psychodrama. Carlos opened his own practice as a psychotherapist and trainer in Buenos Aires in 1980, and later founded the Interpersonal Relationship Institute, working with various missionary societies. Carlos was an active member of the Latin American Fraternity of Theology and involved in Liberation Theology during the military dictatorship in Argentina.

Carlos moved to Australia in 1986 to work as a Baptist Pastor within the Spanish Community in Western Sydney, concurrently working as a Consultant Psychotherapist and Supervisor for the Anglican Counselling Centre in Sydney. In 1990, Carlos created the School of Contemporary Psychodrama. It was during this period that Carlos developed a 3D simulation method to enhance insight and behavioural modification called the Play of Life ® for which he received the American Association of Psychodrama and Group Psychotherapy’s Innovator’s Award in New York 2000. In 2002 Carlos completed a Master’s in management at Macquarie University and authored a book called Relationship Capital (Prentice Hall). Carlos later conducted further research at Macquarie University on the Neuroscience of Emotional and Social Intelligence.

Carlos continues to practice as a Therapist, Coach and Trainer on leadership, culture and personal growth for the corporate sector and for religious orders, nationally and internationally. Carlos’ current research is in neuroscience related to emotions, behavioural modification and relationships (the in-between people) and the effect of using his 3D Visualisation and Simulation Model, Play of Life®. He lives on the NSW Central Coast with his wife Rosemary.

Dr Monica Short

Dr Monica Short is a social work lecturer and social science researcher at Charles Sturt University and is an Adjunct Research Fellow at the ACC&C. Monica has developed an integrated lens model of inquiry incorporating social work, sociology and theology. This points to the importance of her preferred research methodologies: co-operative inquiry, ethnography, literature review, and case studies. People's narratives are key. This includes being warmly connected with God and their neighbours, and belonging and flourishing in their communities.

Her recently awarded doctoral thesis is titled, 'The Australian Anglican Church engaging with people living with disabilities and from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds in rural, regional and remote communities'. She has worked for over 30 years in large organisations, including professional, academic, project management, and senior managerial roles. Monica coordinates the International Network of Co-operative Inquirers and jointly coordinates social work and humanities teaching and learning during and post-COVID-19 think tank. Monica is a member of several professional and research groups, including the Anglican Church of Australia Mission and Ministry Commission. In 2020, Monica received The Australia and New Zealand Social Work and Welfare Education and Research Field-University Collaboration Award; and she was one of a group of recipients who received a CSU Excellence Award.

Professor Bruce A. Stevens

Professor Bruce A. Stevens held the Wicking Chair of Ageing and Practical Theology at Charles Sturt University (2015-2019a0. He is now an adjunct professor and continues his interest in early spiritual development (seewww.earlyspirituality.com) He was previously Associate Professor in clinical psychology at the University of Canberra where he convened the program with more than 60 graduate students from 2009-2014. He is an endorsed Clinical and Forensic Psychologist with a part-time private practice at Canberra Clinical and Forensic Psychology, a practice he founded in the early 1990s. He has been chair of the Canberra section of the Clinical College of the Australian Psychological Society. He gives many professional workshops on couple therapy throughout Australia. He has is a trainer in Schema Therapy with both individual and couple accreditation with the ISST. He has written ten books with the most recent The Storied Self (2019, Fortress Academic). This won an award by the Australian Association of Gerontology. His Before Belief (Lexington, 2020) is soon to be published.

Professor David Tacey

David Tacey is Emeritus Professor of Humanities at La Trobe University, Melbourne, and Research Professor at the Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture, Canberra. He is an interdisciplinary scholar and public intellectual who has written extensively on spirituality, religion, youth experience and mental health. He is the author of two hundred articles and chapters, and fourteen books, including Edge of the Sacred; Re-Enchantment: The New Australian Spirituality; and The Spirituality Revolution. His most recent book is Beyond Literal Belief: Religion as Metaphor.

David grew up in central Australia alongside Aboriginal cultures, and has a life-long interest in indigenous issues. He has written on Aboriginal spirituality and on the suicide epidemic in Aboriginal cultures in Gods and Diseases. He studied literature, art history and philosophy at Flinders University and completed a PhD in literature and psychoanalysis at the University of Adelaide. He undertook post-doctoral studies in the United States on a Harkness Fellowship. His books have been published internationally, and some have been translated into Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean, Spanish, Portuguese and French.

Rev Dr Tim Watson

Tim Watson is an English Anglican priest who moved to Canberra in 2019 to become Rector of Holy Cross Hackett. He has a DPhil in French Renaissance & Reformation Studies, and was formerly a Lecturer in History at the Universities of Oxford and Newcastle upon Tyne. He then spent ten years in France as a member of the Chemin Neuf Community, a French Roman Catholic ecumenical new religious community, and studied theology at the Université Catholique de Lyon prior to his ordination in 2011. Tim served as a curate at Liverpool Cathedral and a church planter in Brighton, and for five years was a member of the Church of England’s Advisory Council on Relations between Bishops and Religious Communities. He has extensive experience as a musician working across a wide variety of genres. Tim’s interests include ecclesiology (particularly the renewal of religious life), mission-shaped ecumenism, sacred art, and high-quality popular theological education that bridges the gap between the academy and the pew.

Professor Susan West

Adjunct Proffessor Susan West has over forty years’ experience as a performer, educator, composer and arranger. Her work in developing pre-tertiary music programs and post-graduate teacher-training is at the cutting edge of music education with wide-ranging influences from traditional music philosophies, both ancient and modern, to holistic and therapeutic uses of music.

A/Prof West trained in music performance at the Melbourne University Conservatorium of Music and the Victorian College of the Arts and obtained a post-graduate degree in music education from the Kodaly Institute of Hungary. She played Principal Piccolo with the Western Australian Symphony Orchestra in 1980 and then Associate Principal and Principal Flute with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra from 1981-1985. During this time she was also a member of the Australian Wind Virtuosi, touring nationally and internationally.

She was invited to the Canberra School of Music in 1984 to help establish the Music Education Program. Recognising a need for different and more successful forms of music education, she continued her studies, first at Charles Sturt University and later with the Institute for Music and Health, New York. She transformed the Music Education Program into the Music Engagement Program, from which emerged an entirely new philosophy for music making that embeds altruistic sharing at the centre of community and professional music making. Her social-therapeutic approach for which she coined the title ‘The Music Outreach Principle’ has affected the musical lives of tens of thousands of teachers, school children, secondary and tertiary students, musicians, seniors, and community members. She not only works as a music educator and researcher but composes and arranges for children, singing groups, instrumental groups, and for film.

A/Prof West has been recognised through a variety of awards including a National Children’s Week Award, a National Women’s Day Award, a citation for Teaching Excellence from the Carrick Institute, a Community Outreach Award from the Music Council of Australia, an ANU Vice Chancellor’s Award for Community Engagement, and in 2016 was recognised as one of Australia’s 100 Women of Influence by the Australian Financial Review. As well as continuing her practice and research in Canberra, Susan is currently collaborating with researchers and practitioners in New Zealand trialling the application of outreach approaches in the South Island.

Rev Dr Ray Williamson OAM

The Reverend Dr Ray Williamson is an Anglican priest, a graduate of Sydney and Newcastle universities and of St John's Theological College, Morpeth, and ordained in Christ Church Cathedral, Newcastle. He has been a theological teacher throughout his ordained ministry as well as serving in several parishes in Newcastle, Sydney and Canberra. He was the General Secretary of the NSW Ecumenical Council for twenty-one years, during which time he also acted as the secretary to two national ecumenical commissions. His PhD thesis An Introduction to Hegel's Philosophy of Religion was published in 1984; he has edited two volumes of documents from the bilateral dialogues between churches in Australia (Stages on the Way, 1994; and Stages on the Way II, 2007); and his history of councils of churches in Australia, Pilgrims of Hope: An Ecumenical Journey 1980-2010, was published in 2014. He was awarded an Order of Australia Medal in 2008 for his ecumenical work. In 1997, he was the co-founder of the Centre for Ecumenical Studies, and within the ACC&C he continues to serve as the Director of that Centre. He is married to the Reverend Dr Erica Mathieson, and has two daughters and two grandsons.