General
Editorial - Summer 2019
- Written by: Mark Juers
A New Edition of Leon Morris’ Bush Parson
- Written by: Adrian Lane
As part of its centenary celebrations, Bush Church Aid has republished a new expanded edition of Leon Morris’ Bush Parson.
Bush Parson is Morris’ autobiographical account of his service as the Bush Church Aid-supported minister of the massive and challenging Minnipa parish on South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula during the Second World War.
Leon and his wife Mildred, a nurse, travelled around the parish in a large green van named the St Patrick’s Van by its Irish donors. The van served as ambulance, clinic, bedroom, kitchen and study for Leon and Mildred. Mildred often drove over sandy, dusty and boggy tracks while Leon studied the Scriptures in their original languages!
Leon writes, “This…is my tribute to the big-hearted people I met in the outback. I want to acknowledge my debt to so many battlers in their very difficult situations. And with them I want to link those in our cities who are interested enough in what is done in this vast country to support with their prayers and their gifts those who go out to minister to their outback cousins. I am indebted to them both.”
Royalties from the book’s sales have been donated to Bush Church Aid by the Leon and Mildred Morris Foundation. Its Chair, the Rev Neil Bach, also Leon’s biographer, comments, “Leon wrote over 50 internationally acclaimed theological works, yet only one was autobiographical - the one describing his service with BCA. Who ever thought that this ministry would lay the foundations for Australia’s greatest theological scholar and writer?”
The book was originally published in 1995 by Acorn Press. However, when the BCA Victorian Regional Officer, the Rev Adrian Lane, discovered it was unobtainable, new or used, BCA approached Acorn requesting a new edition. Acorn, now an imprint of the Bible Society, generously agreed to cover all pre-publication costs. The new centenary edition includes rare archival colour photos from glass negatives from the BCA Archives and the Morris Archives, held in the Ridley College Library. A number of appendices from these archives are also included, including Leon’s original Application for Service with BCA. Adrian Lane comments, “The new edition is a significant value-add to the original, with its photos and appendices, all of which will make further study of Leon and Mildred’s ministry and remote area ministry more generally much easier.”
The new edition was launched at the BCA Victoria Centenary Dinner on the 4 May 2019 at Glen Waverley Anglican Church by Dr Kris Argall, Commissioning Editor of Acorn Press, the Revd Neil Bach and the Revd Adrian Lane, who prayed for its fruitfulness.
Adrian Lane is the Victorian Regional Officer of Bush Church Aid.
The book is an interesting, engaging, easy read. Copies are available from from BCA state and National offices, https://www.bushchurchaid.com.au/content/shop/gjjyqg and from other book sellers.
Editorial Spring 2019
- Written by: Gavin Perkins
In this first edition of Essentials for which I have editorial responsibility I am glad for the quality and range of focus on the content that follows. If there is a thread that holds together each element of Essentials Spring 2019 it is the theme of ministry.
Simon Manchester, now approaching the conclusion of thirty years as Senior Minister at St Thomas’ North Sydney, reflects firstly on the importance of a pastoral approach fuelled and characterised by grace rather than frustration. Simon then steers us towards three books that focus on the weighty responsibility and matching joy of gospel ministry.
Adrian Lane reminds us of the wonderful work of BCA in this its centenary year, and in that light also gladly commends to us a new and expanded edition of Leon Morris’ autobiographical account of his time serving as a BCA minister during World War II.
On a sadder, but nonetheless vital, note Christopher Ash considers how we ought to respond in a wise and godly way when a Christian ministry is undermined by revelations of abuse.
In his review of the new book of essays from the Doctrine Commission of General Synod Marriage, Same Sex Marriage and the Anglican Church of Australia, Bishop Rick Lewers helpfully draws out the results of two contrasting approaches to ministry that flow from two contrasting attitudes to the nature and authority of Scripture. In the process we are drawn straight to the heart of this issue.
As I read through these contributions and others in this edition of Essentials I am reminded of the core truth that although ministry is not getting any easier or less complex, the gospel of repentance and faith for the forgiveness of sins is no less powerful or glorious. Even when we fail, or when those around us fail, God is good and Jesus is keeping his promise that “repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations” (Luke 24:47, NIV).
Gavin Perkins -
Gavin Perkins is Rector of St Jude’s Bowral, NSW
Essentials 2020
- Written by: Chris Appleby
To look through the collection, see the article list on the left.
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Is Complementarianism on the way out?
- Written by: Ben Underwood
Is complementarianism on the way out?
he Masculinist thinks so.
In an issue largely themed on the state of the Christian discussion on gender, it might be worth finishing by noticing emerging energy for critiques of complementarianism from quarters which are dissatisfied with the character and direction of the cultural take on gender, and dissatisfied with egalitarianism and complementarianism as faithful and viable roads to walk.
Editorial Winter 2019
- Written by: Ben Underwood
Gender
There has been plenty of attention given to current issues in gender and sexuality in the pages of Essentials in recent years. However, discussion has generally been about developments in the wider culture to which evangelicals have a
more or less united attitude. But in this issue we look at issues involving gender where unanimity does not exist amongst evangelical Anglicans, and so there will surely be things you disagree with in the pages that follow. On the whole, I aim for Essentials to be irenic and to stay close to the things which unite us (not always successfully) but this quarter, I’m relaxing that approach, and I think it is good from time to time to be able to include a set of articles that may not have everyone
nodding in agreement together. Before we get to that, however, Chase Kuhn gives us a lovely and pithy opening piece on the late Donald Robinson’s enduring influence. Once you go on, you will find a fine pair of articles on the evolution of the egalitariancomplementarian debate. First, Tim Foster gives an account of the development of these disagreements from an egalitarian perspective, and then Kara Hartley does the same from a complementarian perspective. Some of the frenzy may have gone out of the discussion, but, as Tim demonstrates, that does not mean new proposals are not being brought forth, tested and adopted or discarded, and, as Kara points out, the social context of the debate colours the issues in new and different ways.