book review
‘Don’t focus on digging the garden of scripture for them. Give them the tools that can keep them digging the garden for themselves for the rest of their lives.’ This would be one of the first pieces of advice I’d give to theological educators today. Partly because it is what I appreciated so much in…
READ MOREIt seems to be the season for a binge on NZ history, particularly Maori history. After the exhilaration of Fairness & Freedom and then Keith Newman’s eye-opening Bible & Treaty – I thought I’d read Newman’s earlier book, Ratana: the prophet. This is the story of a Maori leader who experienced an extraordinary encounter with God which led, initially,…
READ MOREI have been buzzing all summer over the discovery that the man (Sir James Stephen) who shaped the policy for New Zealand leading into the Treaty of Waitangi – on this very day, 173 years ago – was Wilberforce’s (step) nephew and was himself a child of the Clapham Sect. Then I discover (Keith Newman,…
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New Zealand and the USA both have their cultural oddities. With organised sport for school children in NZ there is anaward each weekend that is called the ‘player of the day’. Seldom is it the best performance of the day which determines the recipient of the award; rather it is more about whose turn it…
READ MOREOver Christmas I spent time getting to know Aung San Suu Kyi. I started with Justin Wintle’s book, Perfect Hostage, picked up at the bookshop in the departure area of Phnom Penh airport. Given the recent developments in the story, it is a bit dated (2007). However I found it valuable to begin my pilgrimage with…
READ MOREIt is not every day that the eye falls upon a book on leadership where the case studies, so charming in their sycophancy, include the likes of Mao Tse-Tung, Tito, Ceausescu, Chou En-Lai, Hodja (Albania), and Khrushchev. But such was the case when I wandered through one of my favourite bookshops – in the departure…
READ MOREIt has been a long time coming. The final frontier. Through these 29 years in New Zealand, it is the only part of the country in which we have never holidayed. The East Cape. Not any more. Barby and I – together with our daughter Bethany – have just returned from a week travelling around the…
READ MORE“Welcome, Dr Thomas Oden. I have just elected you to a select band of scholars who have transformed my way of looking at the world. The company you keep is an esteemed one, led by the triumvirate of Phillip Jenkins, Lamin Sanneh, and Rodney Stark. [And here I had thought you were just a pastoral theologian…
READ MOREI return to a favourite theme. Has there been a better season for (evangelical) theological education in New Zealand than this current one? I don’t think so (NB: I’ve touched on this topic here and here and here). For example, Carey Baptist College is in full bloom, while Laidlaw College has a compelling vision driving it forward. The two colleges complement…
READ MOREAbout Me
the art of unpacking
After a childhood in India, a theological training in the USA and a pastoral ministry in Southland (New Zealand), I spent twenty years in theological education in New Zealand — first at Laidlaw College and then at Carey Baptist College, where I served as principal. In 2009 I began working with Langham Partnership and since 2013 I have been the Programme Director (Langham Preaching). Through it all I've cherished the experience of the 'gracious hand of God upon me' and I've relished the opportunity to 'unpack', or exegete, all that I encounter in my walk through life with Jesus.