christian mind
With the focus of my work remaining overseas, I have needed to find ways to re-engage with life here in New Zealand. Thirty years ago, I developed a course at Laidlaw College, The Gospel in a Post-Christian Society—and so, when Greg Liston asked me to assist with a new course at Laidlaw covering similar terrain (Ngākau…
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There can be no doubt about what is on Vince Bantu’s mind with his book, A Multitude of All Peoples. It is sitting there, blunt and bald, in the opening two sentences of his Introduction: “Christianity is and always has been a global religion. For this reason, it is important never to think of…
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Over the years I have enjoyed taking two pilgrimages. One is to Rangihoua Bay, about 200km north of Auckland — and Marsden Cross, the site of the first preaching of the gospel here in Aotearoa New Zealand, in 1814. On one occasion, as a way to celebrate my 50th birthday, 30 friends joined me in…
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They don’t make them like they used to do. It is not just that gravel and mud have given way to rubber and chips. Nor is it just that Occupational Safety & Health seems intent on ridding the world of every hint of dangerous play. What catches my eye are these playground monstrosities. They…
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Last Monday was World Mother-Language Day. Al Jazeera celebrated the day on their Interactives page by collecting 25 proverbs from 25 different languages, recited by speakers of that language. If you scroll down this page, you’ll discover it. It is very cool. This comes a couple of days after I came across Hinemoa Elder’s AROHA:…
READ MOREThe early mornings between Christmas and New Year were spent absorbed in a book: Jehu Hanciles’ Migration and the Making of Global Christianity (Eerdmans, 2021). With a Foreward written by Philip Jenkins and an opening quotation from Lamin Sanneh, Hanciles had me wandering among my pantheon before he himself had written a word — and now he…
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Last week I sat in a cathedral thinking about mission… It was Holy Trinity Cathedral, in Auckland. We were there for the ordination into the priesthood of a close friend. It is a newer building, but still a cavernous space, providing a place where people gather. Down the sides are all these glass doors, enabling…
READ MOREIf you are attentive to the news, there is a lot of pain to feel in the world today. Income Gaps. Loneliness. Housing Affordability. Health Care Availability. Unemployment. Child Poverty. Gross Domestic Product. Tax Rates. Youth Suicide. Refugees. Homelessness. Fossil Fuels. Vaccination Rates. Broadband Speed. Mathematics Literacy. It goes on and on. The data is…
READ MOREI hear the word often enough, but I haven’t known what it means. To this uncertainty is added confusion because the only time I’ve used the word in the past, it is has been as a theological description — rather than a cultural one. So when Rodney Clapp’s Naming Neoliberalism: Exposing the Spirit of the…
READ MOREOne of the gracious privileges of my life was to be able to head off, as a 21 year old, to Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (TEDS, near Chicago) to complete an MDiv degree. It shaped me, sandwiched as it was between the other profound ‘shapers’ — growing up in a culture-not-my-own (in India) and pastoring…
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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.