160+ Australian and New Zealander Women in Theology You Should Know About

by | Dec 15, 2023 | Mission Studies & Intercultural Theology, Women in Ministry, World Christianity | 0 comments

160+ Australian and New Zealander Women in Theology You Should Know About

Dec 15, 2023Mission Studies & Intercultural Theology, Women in Ministry, World Christianity0 comments

160+ Australian and New Zealander Women in Theology You Should Know About

By Graham Joseph Hill and Jen Barker

Series Editor: Graham Joseph Hill

Women have played significant roles in ministry and leadership throughout the history of the church and the pages of the Bible. Today, women make up more than half the church, and do much of the mission, ministry, and discipleship in the life of the church. But women have often been held back from ministry roles. This includes theological education and leadership of theological institutions.

We need a biblical vision for women in ministry, leadership, and theology. The church must release women to teach, to lead, to write, to preach, to serve, to pastor, to minister, and to theologise in every area of the church. The Bible paints a radical vision of women, empowered and emboldened for full ministry participation in Christ’s church. The biblical vision for women and for their role as teachers, witnesses, disciplers, leaders, and theologians transforms not only personal lives, but also the church and the world.

The authors of this post (Graham and Jen) have long held these convictions. In my (Graham’s) forthcoming book Holding Up Half the Sky: A Biblical Case for Women Leading and Teaching in the Church (Cascade, 2020), I offer a biblical case for women teaching and leading in the church. I then explore practical ways that we can empower and release more female leaders and theologians in the church, and ways that we can amplify the voices and honor the gifts of women in the way Jesus intended. On the website I (Jen) founded, FixingHerEyes.org, I offer a space where women can gather and encourage one another to fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.

When we look at the women in the Bible, in church history, and in positions of theological education and leadership in the current church, we can draw inspiration and lessons from their lives. We recognise women who were leaders, preachers, theologians, evangelists, and servants; women who are loving, faithful, subversive, prophetic, apostolic, and brave. When we look at the way Jesus treated women, we realise how counter cultural that was, and we feel our call to also be counter cultural. Together, women and men can revitalize the church and renew the world.

This post “160+ Australian and New Zealander Women in Theology You Should Know About” is a work-in-progress. We will continually update it, so if you think you should be on this list, or you know someone else who should, please email me (Graham) at ghill@stirling.edu.au and I’ll update the post.

These 160+ women come from almost every theological tradition: Pentecostal, Catholic, Orthodox, Mainline Protestant, Evangelical, Free Church, Charismatic, Reformed, and more. And they do a wide range of types of theological work: public theology, church history, ethics, feminist and postcolonial theologies, Indigenous peoples studies and theologies, race and intersectionality, philosophy, religious and interfaith studies, systematic theology, biblical studies, hermeneutics, New Testament, Old Testament, education, homiletics, liturgy, mystical theology, ministry studies, missiology, mission, pastoral theology, spirituality, and more.

We have grouped the women in five categories, after consulting them (and listed the theologians alphabetically in each of these five categories):

1. Applied Theology includes Education, Homiletics, Liturgy, Ministry, Missiology, Mission, Pastoral Theology, Spirituality, and more.

2. Biblical Studies include Hermeneutics, New Testament, Old Testament, and other areas of Biblical Studies.

3. Christian Thought includes Church History, Ethics, Feminist and Postcolonial Theologies, Indigenous Peoples Studies and Theologies, Race and Intersectionality, Philosophy, Religious and Interfaith Studies, Systematic Theology, and more.

4. Indigenous Theology includes theology done by Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander, and Māori theologians.

5. Public Theology includes issues and themes at the intersection between the society, the church, and the academy (theology that focuses on issues of public concern).

We’ve put a master list of names at the end of the post, to make it easier for people to quickly see which female theologians are currently on this list.

In this post we focus on Australian and New Zealander women, but by mid 2020 we will release another post on the “200+ Oceanian Women in Theology You Should Know About”, featuring women from right across Oceania. Oceania is the geographic region covering Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia (the islands in the southeast of the Asia-Pacific region). It includes Australia, the Cook Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Nauru, New Zealand, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, the Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, and more.

This post is part of a series we are running profiling female theologians from all over the globe — see our other articles in this series:

Graham Joseph Hill and Jen Barker, “20 Australian and New Zealander Female Theologians You Should Get to Know in 2020”

Graham Joseph Hill and Jen Barker, “160+ Australian and New Zealander Women in Theology You Should Know About”

Juliany González Nieves, “23 Latin American Women and USA Latinas in Theology and Religion You Should Know About”

Grace Al-Zoughbi Arteen and Graham Joseph Hill, “18 Arab Female Theologians and Christian Leaders You Should Know About”

Jessie Giyou Kim and Graham Joseph Hill, “18 Asian Female Theologians You Should Know About (Plus Others For You To Explore)”

Graham Joseph Hill and Jessie Giyou Kim, “12 Women on Changing the World: A 12-Session Film Series on Transforming Society and Neighborhoods”

Juliany González Nieves, “Caribbean Christian Theology: A Bibliography”

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160+ Australian and New Zealander Women in Theology You Should Know About

Here are the 160+ Australian and New Zealander women in theology you should know about and read. See the master list of names at the end of this blog post, if you want to know who we’ve included.

Applied Theology

Applied Theology includes Education, Homiletics, Liturgy, Ministry, Missiology, Mission, Pastoral Theology, Spirituality, and more.

Amelia Koh-Butler

Amelia Koh-Butler is a Chinese-Scottish-Aussie, adopted by the Adnyamathanha of the Ikara-Flinders. She is a missional integrator of worship, service, education, storying, and hospitality. She is the World Methodist Council’s Global Worship and Liturgy Convenor, teaching in North and Central America, Italy, France, Spain, Korea, Thailand, and Singapore. Previous graduate studies in music, creative arts, theology, and education, led her to complete intercultural doctoral research through Fuller (Pasadena) in integrated Missiology, Ethnomusicology, and Fresh Expressions of Church.

Amelia was the Director of Uniting Church’s The Elm Centre (education for life and ministry) and was part of teams introducing ministry innovations to Australia: the Walk to Emmaus Movement, Godly Play, and Mission-shaped Ministry (Fresh Expressions). She served as Executive Director of UC Mission Resourcing in South Australia, and is the Multifaith Chaplain at Western Sydney University (Parramatta and Westmead).

Publications include: Must Have Experience (with Ross Neville, 2004), Peacemaking and Discipleship – Studies (with Chris Walker, MediaCom), Wide and Deep – Liturgical Resources (Mediacom, 2016), and Sisters in Scripture – Biblical Reflections (MediaCom, 2017). She has a chapter about to be released in a new collection from Stephen Burns in 2020. Amelia also coauthored (with Rev Dr Tony Floyd) the Space for Grace process (2011–2019) for intercultural theological discernment, used by the Uniting Church and being explored by members of the World Methodist Church and World Council of Churches. Her Doctor of Intercultural Studies thesis (2015, Fuller Theological Seminary) is titled: The Formation of a Missional Cross-cultural Urban Community: Communal Singing Off the Menu — A “Meal to Music” Approach.

Amelia maintains teaching and supervision connections with Sydney University (Conservatorium), Charles Sturt, Flinders, Wesley institute (now Excelsior), Hillsong College, and Tabor College. She is a foundation member of Scriptural Reasoning (Muslim-Christian scholars in Interfaith dialogue about sacred texts) and the Uniting Church National Advocate for Ecumenical and Interfaith relations.

Anne Klose

Anne Klose began her working life as a counselling psychologist (BA Hons Psych, University of Queensland) and, from this background, became a Formation Director with students preparing for ministry. This inspired her to undertake her own studies, including a MTh (Trinity Theological College, Brisbane) and a PhD in Practical Theology (University of Queensland) for which she received the Lattke Petersson Award. Anne serves on the Board of Queensland Baptists, mentors women in Christian leadership, and teaches at Malyon (Baptist) Theological College in the areas of Spiritual Formation and Baptist Studies.

Anne Klose’s publications include “The Lord’s Supper as Meaning-Full Sacrament” in Cultural Diversity, Worship, and Australian Baptist Church Life (2016), and Covenantal Priesthood: A Narrative of Community for Baptist Churches (2018).

Anne Mallaby

Anne Mallaby has been in church based ministry for over thirty years, working in Western Australia, Papua (Indonesia), and Victoria. Working closely with her husband, Richard, they have sought to creatively respond to the various ministry contexts, developing local ministries that included an art gallery. She is passionate about the intersection between the arts and theology, and the ways in which we respond to the world meaningfully through the arts. This has led to the intentional inclusion of the arts as a key partner in theological education. She has worked in theological education for many years, particularly involved in the formational processes for ministers and church leaders. This has recently continued abroad, as they returned to Papua to offer encouragement and input in the growth and development of the next generation of leaders there.

Anne Mallaby’s publications include: “Art as Theological Conversation” in Cameron, H, Hunter, C, Kelly, M & Prior, R. Together in Ministry: Essays to Honour John Paver (UAC, 2009); An Ordinary Gift: The Work of Art as Theological Conversation in Pacifica. Australasian Theological Studies, Vol 30, Issue 2, 2017 (with Libby Byrne); Supervised Theological Field Education (STFE) as Inter-cultural Conversation: Learning from Peer Reflection in Melbourne. Australia In Practical Theology (online Jan 2018, paper later 2018, with June Tan).

Carol M. Tasker

Carol M. Tasker began her educational career as a tutor in Education at Avondale in 1976. She has taught High School in New Zealand, Western Samoa, and the Solomon Islands. Her tertiary teaching included 10 years at Pacific Adventist University (Papua New Guinea), where she was Dean of the School of Education for six years. From 2008–2010 she and her husband lectured at the GC graduate school AIIAS located in the Philippines. As well as teaching Masters’ and Doctoral students in both the School of Education and the Theological Seminary, she supervised a number of theses and dissertations. Off-campus lecturing assignments for AIIAS included classes in Taiwan, China, Korea, Burma, and Chile. Carol sees herself as a life-long learner, and believes that the character of the teacher has an inestimable effect on students. Her master’s degree in Family Life Education and her doctorate in Religious Education reflects her passion for healthy relationships with others and with God in all areas of life. Carol Tasker’s PhD was awarded by Andrew’s University in 2001, on The Impact of Intentional Learning Experiences for Personal Spiritual Formation on Seminary Students.

Cathy Hine

Cathy Hine has lived and worked cross-culturally for thirty-five years, working in education, development, relief, discipleship, and mentoring. She was part of the International Leadership Team of Interserve for nine years, firstly as Regional Director for the Arab World and Africa, and then as Director of Ministries. Cathy has a degree in Arabic and Islamic Studies, from Exeter University in England, and a PhD from the School of International and Political Strategic Studies at the Australian National University. Her research interests include women and change in Muslim contexts, women and mission, and women and Islam in contemporary society. Cathy was part of the launch of the When Women Speak … network in September 2015, committed to creating a space for women academics and practitioners to collaborate in research, share learning, publish their work for mutual growth and learning, share resources, training and mentoring. The When Women Speak … network enables women working at the intersection of mission, women and Islam to envision the future of interactions between Christianity and Islam from a women’s perspective, and includes Muslim women in the exploration of faith. Cathy is committed to innovative and creative engagement between the academic and practice of women in mission with those living under Islam.

Cathy Hine’s publications include: When Women Speak … (co-editor, Regnum, 2018); “Veiled: Muslim Women in Modern Mission Strategies” in When Women Speak … (Regnum, 2018); “Patronage and Reciprocity: Leveraging aspects of shame and honour in discipling women followers of Jesus from a Muslim Background” in When Women Speak … (Regnum, 2018); “Negotiating from the Margins: Women’s Voices (re)Imagining Islam in Dynamics of Contemporary Muslim Societies: Christian, Theological and Missiological Implications” (2017).

Cathy Ross

Canon Dr Cathy Ross is from Aotearoa/New Zealand and is originally a French and German teacher. She has lived in Oxford for 14 years. She is Head of Pioneer Mission Leadership Training for the Church Mission Society (CMS) in Oxford, Associate Tutor at Ripon College, Cuddesdon and at Regent’s Park College at the University of Oxford. She is also Canon Theologian for Leicester Cathedral. She has previously lived and worked in Rwanda, Congo and Uganda with NZCMS. From 2008–2016 she was General Secretary for the International Association for Mission Studies.

Cathy Ross publishes in the area of mission and enjoys publishing collaboratively. Her books include Women with a Mission, Rediscovering Missionary Wives in Early New Zealand, (Penguin, 2006), Mission in the 21st Century, Exploring the Five Marks of Global Mission (with Andrew Walls, DLT, 2008), Life-Widening Mission: Global Anglican Perspectives (Regnum, 2012), The Pioneer Gift (with Jonny Baker, SCM, 2014), Mission on the Road to Emmaus, (with Steve Bevans, SCM, 2015), Pioneering Spirituality (with Jonny Baker, 2015), Missional Conversations: A Dialogue between Theory and Praxis in World Mission (with Colin Smith, SCM, 2018). She writes in the areas of hospitality, feminist theologies, World Christianity, and mission.

Cheryl McCallum

Cheryl McCallum joined the ministry team of One Community Church in 2018 and is Interim Senior Minister. A former Principal of Eastern College Australia, Rev. Dr. Cheryl McCallum is an ordained Churches of Christ minister. She worked at Eastern (formerly Tabor Victoria) for over 20 years in various capacities including lecturer, Head of School, and Principal. She has attended One Community Church in Blackburn for 11 years serving as an Elder and Chair of the Council of Elders. Cheryl McCallum has also worked for TEAR Australia, Urban Neighbours of Hope, and as the National Director for the Australian Evangelical Alliance. She has served on a number of Boards and Reference groups including TEAR Australia National Board, Australian Evangelical Alliance National Board, The Bible Society in Australia (Victoria) Board, Christian Woman Magazine Reference Board, Micah Challenge Reference Group, and the Sophia Think-tank. Cheryl McCallum’s passions include bible engagement, biblical equality, and women in ministry.

Cheryl McCallum’s 2007 Deakin University PhD thesis was titled Explaining the Recent Increase in Numbers of CRC Women Pastors. This thesis concluded the increase in the number of women pastors in the Christian Revival Crusades, from six in 1990 to sixty eight in 2005, is best attributed to the recognition of the role of the pastor’s wife, the external and internal pressures upon the denomination, and the influence of second-wave feminism.

Christine Aroney-Sine

Christine Aroney-Sine describes herself as a contemplative activist, passionate gardener, author, and liturgist. She is the founder and facilitator for the popular contemplative blog Godspace, inspiring followers of Jesus to develop creative approaches to spirituality that intertwine the sacred through all of life.  Christine is inspired by Celtic Christian spirituality, which has opened her eyes to the God who is present in every moment, every experience and every place.

Christine trained as a physician at Sydney University practiced in Christchurch New Zealand, then developed and directed the healthcare ministry for Mercy Ships for 12 years. She has worked extensively in Africa, Asia, Caribbean Islands, Central America and South Pacific. She no longer practices medicine but delights in guiding people towards the health and wholeness of God’s new world.

Together with her husband, Tom Sine, Christine also co-founded Mustard Seed Associates  a small organization that encourages followers of Jesus to think about how the world is changing and how we need to change to be more effective in the future. Tom and Christine live in a small intentional community in Seattle, Washington with their golden retriever Goldie.

Her latest book is The Gift of Wonder: Creative Practices For Delighting in God (IVPress, 2019). Other books include Rest in the Moment: Reflections for Godly Pauses (MSA, 2016), Return to Our Senses: Reimagining How We Pray (MSA, 2012), To Garden with God (MSA, 2010), Light for the Journey (MSA, 2010), GodSpace: Time for Peace in the Rhythms of Life (Barclay, 2006), and Tales of a Seasick Doctor (Zondervan, 1996). Christine and Tom Sine also co-authored Living on Purpose: Finding God’s Best for Your Life (Baker, 2002).

Christine Redwood

Christine Redwood is the Lead Pastor at Seaforth Baptist Church. She was ordained in 2012 and previously worked as an associate pastor at Hornsby Baptist Church. Her degrees include BComm (Canberra), and an MDiv and MATheol (Australian College of Theology). She is completing her PhD which explores the relationship between feminist hermeneutics, the book of Judges, and evangelical preaching. In 2011 she was preaching intern for Morling College and now works as an adjunct lecturer in the area of homiletics. She has contributed a chapter on “Old Testament Narrative Preaching” in the upcoming book Preaching with an Accent : Biblical Genres for Australian Congregations (Morling, 2019).

Coralie Bridle

Coralie Bridle is a disciple of Jesus Christ, a lifelong Salvationist, and attends the Auckland City Corps of The Salvation Army. Oncology nursing and palliative care formed the backbone of her early career years. Her husband, Kevin, three adult children and two grandsons, keep her grounded amidst the complexities of modern life. Coralie serves on the International Theological Council of The Salvation Army, whose focus is faithful international custodianship of the Army’s doctrinal positions. In New Zealand, she serves on the Moral and Social Issues Council, an advisory group to the Territorial Commander, and subsequently all Salvationists, on matters of moral and social significance. Coralie holds a master’s degree in Theology, from Laidlaw College. With an interest in the field of Disability Studies, her thesis focused on cognitive impairment, conversion and citizenship within The Salvation Army (“What Must I Think to be Saved? A Study of Cognitive Impairment, Conversion, and Citizenship in The Salvation Army,” 2016). She is currently working on her PhD through AUT and Laidlaw College. Her qualitative research project examines the assumptions and practices of Salvation Army congregations, in New Zealand, towards people living with complex disabilities.

Coralie Bridle’s publications include: “Christ, Ecclesia and Canon.” Conference Title: Soul Salvation, Whole Salvation: Towards a Theology of Social Justice. Thought Matters 1 (2011), 27–31; “A View from the Pew.” Conference Title: Perfect Love, Imperfect People: Holiness in Leadership and the Church. Thought Matters 3 (2013), 27–34; “Is Dementia the Ultimate Dark Night of the Soul?” Conference Title: Living as People of Hope in a Time of Despair: A Christian Response to Evil and Suffering. Thought Matters 5 (2015), 65–73.

Danijela Schubert

Danijela Schubert originally from Croatia (former Yugoslavia) studied and worked in France, the Philippines, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea and Australia. After completing diplomas in preschool education and Bible teaching in Croatia, she continued her education at AIIAS in the Philippines (Master of Arts in Health Ministry) in 1989. Second Master of Arts in Theology (Old Testament) she completed at Pacific Adventist University (PAU) in 2006. She earned her Doctor of Ministry degree from Fuller Theological Seminary in the area of youth, family and culture in 2012 under Dr Chap Clark. In 2018 she completed Graduate Diploma of Arts through ACOM at the Sydney School of Divinity.

Danijela Schubert’s publishing includes: “Essential Vocabulary for Theology Students” (Pacific Adventist University, 2005 & 2009) co-authored with her husband Branimir Schubert; “Meaning of Judgment in the Pentateuch: A Word Study” (Lambert Academic Publishing, 2012); “Youth Ministry in Papua New Guinea: Challenge, Theology, Curriculum” (Wipf & Stock, 2013);   “Stewardship Thread through the Bible” Tithe & Offerings Readings, Stewardship Ministries Department, General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, 2016, available online: https://stewardship.adventist.org/2016-stewardship-thread.pdf

Schubert contributed on variety of subjects such as: “Before they Call” in Nathan Brown, ed. Ordinary People, Faithful God (Signs Publishing, 2010):37, 38.  She published articles such as “The Roundabout Road to Leadership” Adventist Record 123:2 (2018):16-17; “Why the SPD is Committed to Support Women in Ministry” with Steve Currow in Adventist Record 123:25 (2018):10-11; “On Pornography” Adventist Record 142:2 (2019): 14-15; “The Shoelace Story” The Journal, A Resource for Ministry Spouses 36:2 (2019):16. She also publishes a monthly newsletter Going Placeshttp://women.adventistchurch.com/newsletter/.

Danijela Schubert was head of Religion Department in Pakistan Adventist Seminary and College in Pakistan (1998-2001) as well as a senior lecturer in the School of Theology at Pacific Adventist University in Papua New Guinea (2002-2010) educating pastors for ministry.  Since 2011 Schubert has been working in the administration of the South Pacific Division of the Seventh-day Adventists, the headquarters of the Church in the South Pacific territory in senior administrative roles. Currently she is a member of the discipleship ministries team contributing to discipleship movement building as well as leading the women’s ministry and advocating for more women in leadership, church employment and pastoral ministry.

Debra Hirsch

Debra Hirsch is an Australian who has lived in the United States for the last twelve years. She is a pastor, missional thinker, speaker, and award winning author. She has led churches in both Melbourne, Australia and Los Angeles. She co-founded Forge Mission training Network (with Alan Hirsch and Michael Frost), and continues to be involved with Forge Internationally. She is a founding Board member of Missio Alliance, was part of the Leadership team of Communitas International, and is also a trained counsellor. She studied theology at Bible College of Victoria (now Melbourne School of Theology) and postgraduate studies at Kingsley College (a Wesleyan Methodist School of Theology).

Debra Hirsch has written a number of articles, and co-authored a book on Missional Discipleship with her husband, called Untamed: Reactivating a Missional Form of Discipleship (Baker, 2010). Her latest book, Redeeming Sex: Naked Conversations About Sexuality and Spirituality (IVP, 2015), won the InterVarsity Press People’s Choice Award. She is currently working on another book and is based with her husband in New York City.

Drene Somasundram

Drene Somasundram has been in church based ministry for over thirty years. She was born in England, and became the first female to work as a pastor in her organisation for over 15 years. Drene was invited to work in Australia teaching in the school of theology sharing her experiences, teaching from a feminist perspective, and specifically mentoring female students at Avondale University College. Drene completed her Doctorate at Middlesex University, England, in 2007. She was awarded the ‘Ken Goulding’ academic prize for excellence of thesis where she developed a gender inclusive model in theological education. Currently Drene continues to work at Avondale as Chaplain and Lecturer in the interdisciplinary faculty of Arts, Nursing and Theology. Drene has a wealth of ministry expertise and is passionate as a tertiary educator where she teaches both under graduate and post graduate students.

Drene Somasundram’ s publications include: Somasundram, D. & Monroe, A. (2012). “Thirdspace Engenders Theological Education.” International Journal of Religion and Spirituality in Society, 2 (3), 55–68; Somasundram. D & Cooper, K. (2013). “Spirituality.” In E. Chang & Johnson. A. (Eds.). Living with Dementia: A Practical Guide for Families and Personal Caring (pp. 124–31). Sydney: Australian Council Education Research; “Honouring Inclusive Community through the ‘TRI-Space Model in Theological Education’.”The International Journal of Humanities Education, 13(3), 2015, 17–30; “‘Lifeworlds’ of Seventh-day Adventist Female Pastors.” In G. J. Humble & R. K. McIver (Eds.). South Pacific Perspectives on Ordination: Biblical, Theological and Historical Studies in an Adventist Context (pp. 221–47). Cooranbong: Avondale Academic Press, 2015.

Elizabeth (Libby) Byrne

Libby Byrne works as an artist, art therapist, theologian, writer, and researcher exploring new ways of being with art and people in liminal spaces. Within her studio practice Libby works with ideas, images, and experiences to extend the way we think, perceive, and respond to questions of meaning and existence. Having worked as an Art Therapist in palliative care and trauma recovery her current research addresses the nature and significance of art, both made and received, in the process of healing that is required for human beings to flourish and live well with illness and in health.

Libby Byrne has worked as a practicing and exhibiting artist for the past 20 years and continues to develop and extend her engagement with art as Practice-led Theological Inquiry. Libby’s PhD study with the University of Divinity was a Studio Based Theological Inquiry into “Healing Art and the Art of Healing.” Her work dissolves the boundaries between Systematic and Applied Theology, with a focus on her experience of living with multiple sclerosis (MS). Libby Byrne teaches in the Master of Art Therapy Program at La Trobe University whilst developing a growing body of research in the emerging field of Practice-led Theological Inquiry. She works as an Adjunct Lecturer and Honorary Research Associate with the University of Divinity. You can see her work at: www.libbybyrne.com.au. Her book chapters include “Art Therapy and Spirituality”, in Carey, L. and Mathieson, B. (Ed). Spiritual Care and Allied Health Practice (JKP, 2018), and “Living Close to the Wound”, in Goroncy, J (Ed). Tikkun Olam, To Mend the World (Pickwick, 2013).

Evelyn Hibbert

Australian missiologist and adult educator Evelyn Hibbert has learnt through reflecting on her own experience of working and learning together with people from minority groups in Europe and Australia, as well as by interacting with cross-cultural missionaries working across the world. Like many Australian women missionary scholars, she obtained her doctorate from a secular university (University of New England) while continuing in ministry. She is a founding member of the Angelina Noble Centre which focuses on mentoring women cross-cultural missions researchers. She has a wide range of interests related to the multiple issues that arise when people from different cultural backgrounds engage with each other in ministry and education.

Evelyn Hibbert is the lead author of several books co-authored with her husband: Leading Multicultural Teams (2014), Training Missionaries (2016), and Walking Together on the Jesus Road: Intercultural Discipling (2018).

Grace Lung

Grace Lung is a Research Fellow with the Brisbane School of Theology’s Centre for Asian Christianity. Her passion and interest is contextualizing the gospel to Asian Australians and developing Asian churches in Australia. Grace is a graduate of Sydney Missionary and Bible College and Fuller Theological Seminary. Her study focuses on Asian Australian identity and ministry. In her current roles, she serves as the Director for Asian Contextual Engagement for the RICE Movement, is a Team Member for Interserve Culture Connect and serves on OMF QLD’s State Council. She was an Anglican Deaconess Ministries Summer Fellow in 2019.

Grace grew up in Sydney in a large Chinese church. Since then she has served at various Chinese churches over the years in youth, students, young workers and women. She worked in IT for several years before studying at SMBC and completed her master’s project on Chinese Australian identity and ministry. She spent two years as a Pastoral Worker before giving birth to a daughter. Grace is married to Chris who is the English Pastor at Brisbane Chinese Alliance Church. She leads the missions team and teaches youth. When she has some free time, she enjoys catching up on Asian pop culture and finding great Asian food spots around Brisbane to share with others.

Grace Lung’s publications include: “Not My Tradition: Lunar New Year and Gospel Traditions”, TGC AU, 04/02/2019; “The Crazy Appeal of a Foreign Story”, TGC AU, 03/09/2018; “Internalised Racism”, Ethos, 29/03/2019; “Helping Women Lament in the Church”, SOLA Network, 18/09/2019; and “Have a Merry McChristmas”, Centred, 3/12/2018.

Jennifer Turner

Jennifer Turner originally a town planner, trained in midlife as a pastor and has ministered in Baptist and Churches of Christ in Perth for more than 20 years, being ordained by Churches of Christ in 1999. Concurrently she has lectured at several theological colleges, including her alma mater, Vose Seminary. She has also written curriculum for the Australian College of Ministries and the Asian Graduate School of Theology in pastoral care (the focus of her doctoral work through Fuller Seminary) and spiritual formation. While Senior Pastor of Dianella Church, she with others established the Dayspring Centre for Christian Christianity. Since her retirement, she has continued to engage in training and mentoring pastors in Australia, Asia and Africa. Jennifer received an OAM in the 2020 Australia Day honours “for services to the Baptist Church and Churches of Christ”.

With the Zadok Centre for Christianity and Society from its beginnings in Canberra, Jennifer explored the theology of everyday life through her Zadok Perspectives quarterly column for 15 years and in 2003 was recognised by Zadok’s Annual prize “awarded to an Australian who has given outstanding service in bringing together theology and everyday life”. Preaching Scripture to contemporary hearers (she has written Scripture Union Bible reading guides for more than 25 years) is another passion.

Jennifer Turner’s other publications include editing Small Groups that Catch the Wind (2000) and Life in the Spirit: The Writings of E.G. Gibson (2009), chapters in Vose Seminary at Fifty (2013) and contributions to a number of Australian journals and magazines.

Kara Martin

Kara Martin is an Australian practical theologian focused on rediscovering our integral expression of faith at work (paid or unpaid). She holds a Master of Arts in Christian Studies and a Master of Commerce, equally valuable for her formation and expression. Kara is an adjunct lecturer at Alphacrucis College, and Mary Andrew College in Sydney, Australia.

Kara Martin’s publications include Workship: How to Use your Work to Worship God (Graceworks, 2017), Workship 2: How to Flourish at Work (Graceworks, 2018), and she is currently researching for a PhD by publication leading to Workship 3: How to Shape Christians for the Workplace. She has also written book chapters on “Grounded in Work as Christians”, “Christian Identity and Work”, “Women in Theological Education”, and “Theology for the iGeneration.”

Karen Kemp

Karen Kemp grew up in Chile and Australia. Her experience includes nursing, community development, ministry, university chaplaincy, missions, consulting in conflict transformation, and theological education variously in Australia, NZ, Chile, Mongolia and the UK. She has taught at Laidlaw College (NZ); at the West of England Ministry Training Course, and in the Member Care and Justice in Missions Masters programs of Redcliffe College (UK), and led retreats in the UK and NZ. An Anglican priest, Karen has been Dean-Tikanga Pakeha at St John’s Theological College, Auckland since 2014. She designed and oversees the leadership formation programme, teaches ethics, conflict transformation, New Testament, leadership and spiritual formation, and is on the Senior Leadership Team of the College. She is on the Tikanga Pakeha Ministry Council, the NZ Committee for ANZAFTE, and the Carey Baptist College Academic Advisory Board.

Karen holds a research MA from Victoria University, Wellington (2010. Transforming Congregational Conflict: An integrated framework for understanding and addressing conflict in Christian faith communities), with further training at the Centre for Justice and Peacebuilding at Eastern Mennonite University in Virginia, USA. She completed a DMin in Leadership and Spiritual Formation from George Fox University, USA in 2019 (Forming Anglican Wayfinders in Aotearoa: A contextual approach to ministerial preparation). Research interests include practices that support healing of the wounds of history, assessing formation in emerging leaders, and the role of “third culture” people in the Three Tikanga Church.

Karen has an eclectic publishing record which includes co-editing an English-Mongolian Dictionary ((Ulaanbaatar: State Cartography Publishers, 1993). Most recently, Kemp, Karen. “The Treaty, the Church, and the Reconciliation of Christ.” InPursuing Peace in Godzone: Christianity and the Peace Tradition in New Zealand, edited by Geoffrey Troughton and Philip Fountain, 86-99. Wellington, NZ: Victoria University Press, 2018.

Karen shares life with her husband, missiologist Dr Hugh Kemp, and their three daughters, and can be found walking the family Labrador on a remote Kaipara Harbour beach in her spare time.

Karen Pack

Karen Pack is a historian and lecturer in Chaplaincy and Spiritual Care at Morling College in Sydney. She is a doctoral candidate researching the lives of unmarried Australian Christian women engaged in social activism outside the church in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Previously she was a pastor in the western suburbs of Sydney, having been ordained with Australian Christian Churches in 2009. She is an experienced educator and communicator, who has ministered in Australia and internationally for over twenty years, including training pastors, teachers and lay leaders throughout Africa, Asia and the Middle East with World Outreach International and New Hope International. When working in the majority world, Karen’s passion is training local, indigenous leaders, who have previously been unable to access training due to poverty, geographic isolation, or both, and equipping them to teach and train others so that her own work in those nations becomes redundant.

Karen specialises in the intersection of singleness and sexuality for unmarried Christians but has also written numerous articles on pastoral ethics and cross-cultural missions. She has authored a chapter called “The Single Strife: Nurturing wholeness in the lives of single Christians” in the upcoming Wipf and Stock volume, Justice, Mercy and Wellbeing: Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Previous papers include “The Single Saviour: How the singleness of Jesus of Nazareth might impact contemporary discipleship of single Christians” (CIS/SCD, 2017); “Mateship – a Holy Alliance: Rediscovering covenant friendship in the contemporary Australian church” (Zadok, 2016); and “Single and Sexual: The challenge of holiness for unmarried Christians” (Crux, 2010), as well as numerous articles for the missions magazine, Nations.

Karen Walker

Karen Walker has a lengthy career in the education sector as a researcher and academic. Working for 6 years in the Cambodian higher education sector as a Christian cross-cultural worker provided her with unrivaled opportunities to explore contextualized Christian faith. It also provided her with innumerable opportunities to probe and investigate with Cambodian academics and intellectuals the types of fit/misfit between the western shaped educational theories of learning and teaching being imported into a collectivist Buddhist-Hindu worldview shaped culture.

As an academic and cross cultural worker, Karen Walker has intentionally worked to ensure her influence was strategic in shaping the hearts and minds of emerging leaders within education and the wider civil society, especially women. Karen is currently serving as the Chair of the Baptist Churches of South Australia (BCSA) and President of BCSA. She intentionally seeks to encourage emerging female leaders inside the Baptist movement and the wider Christian community. In her role on the Board she works to maintain awareness among the members of the under-representation of women and minority groups within ministry leadership roles as well at the higher-level decision making bodies within individual churches and state-level organizations. Karen Walker’s publications are in the areas of career development, social role normalization, and cross cultural experiences of Cambodian post graduates.

Karina Kreminski

Karina Kreminski is co-director of Neighbourhood Matters. She lectures at Morling College in the area of missional studies. She was ordained in 2002 and was senior pastor of a church in Sydney for over eight years. She has a doctorate in missional formation. Karina Kreminski’s has published a book called Urban Spirituality: Embodying God’s Mission in the Neighbourhood (Urban Loft, 2018).

Kerry Jones

Kerrie Jones began her working life as an apprentice in the printing industry and later trained as a state enrolled nurse and worked in aged care.  This nurtured a love for the care of the person.

Later as a mature-age student, she graduated with a Bachelor of Social Welfare (Monash) and Master of Divinity (MCD), specializing in pastoral care. For the last 6 1/2 years, she has been the women’s follow-up worker/pastoral assistant at Glen Waverley Anglican Church.  For many years she has led a women’s life group, as well as supports and encourages immersing leaders. Prayer is an essential part of this ministry. 

Kerrie was born with moderate hearing loss and was four years old when hearing aids were fitted.  At times the disability has been a challenge to integrate into the hearing world.  However, she strongly believes inclusion is the way forward.  

Her interests include family gatherings with her husband and 2 daughters, indigenous issues, travel, knitting, the arts, concerts/theatre, conferences, socializing with friends over coffee, ongoing learning, and walking the dog.  Has a passion for people to know about Jesus.  

Lynne M. Taylor

Lynne Taylor is a practical theologian from Aotearoa New Zealand. Since 2018, she has served as the Jack Somerville Lecturer in Pastoral Theology at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand. She holds a PhD in Theology from Flinders University of South Australia, and undergraduate degrees from the University of Canterbury, NZ. Prior to, and in conjunction with her academic role, Lynne has worked and volunteered in pastoral ministry, and engaged in congregational and denominational research, including (for over 25 years) supplying and interpreting government Census data to local churches seeking to better understand their local contexts.

Lynne Taylor’s PhD used an innovative research design to discover why previously unchurched Australians are becoming Christians today, and revealed several key implications for mission and ministry, as well as for missiological research. It was awarded the Flinders University Vice-Chancellor’s Prize for Doctoral Excellence.

Lynne Taylor’s research interests include contemporary conversion and faith formation; spirituality and wellbeing; congregational studies; and research methodologies in practical theology and missiology. Recent publications include “Our doing becomes us: performativity, spiritual practices and becoming Christian” in Practical Theology (Volume 12, 2019 – Issue 3, 332–42); “Making room for the missio Dei in missiological research” in Mission Studies (forthcoming); and Learning from Innovation (https://unitingnext.com). She is a member of the editorial board for Ecclesial Futures. Lynne teaches in the areas of chaplaincy studies, pastoral care and contemporary Christian witness.

Mandy Smith

Originally from Brisbane, Mandy Smith is lead pastor of University Christian Church, a campus and neighborhood congregation with its own fair-trade café in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. She is a regular contributor to Christianity Today and Missio Alliance and the author of The Vulnerable Pastor: How Human Limitations Empower Our Ministry (IVP, 2015). The Vulnerable Pastor has won various recognitions: Missio Alliance Essential Reading List of 2015; Hearts Minds Bookstore’s Best Books of 2015, For Church Leaders; ProdigalThought.net’s Top Reads of 2015; Englewood Review of Books Best Books of 2015, Praxis; Leadership Journal’s Best Ministry Books of the Year. For two years, Mandy Smith was the director of Missio Alliance’s SheLeads summit and her previous book was Making a Mess and Meeting God: Unruly Ideas and Everyday Experiments for Worship (Standard, 2010). Mandy and her husband Jamie, a New Testament professor, live with their family in a little house where the teapot is always warm. See Mandy’s publication at Missio Alliance (http://www.missioalliance.org/author/mandysmith/) and Christianity Today (https://www.christianitytoday.com/pastors/contributors/mandy-smith.html).

Moyra Dale

Moyra Dale spent two years working with Bible translators on an indigenous community in Western Australia. This was followed by three years at Bible College, then twenty-two years in the Middle East. Much of that time was in Egypt, with some years also in Jordan and Syria. She has worked extensively in Adult Literacy (Ngaanyatjarra and then Arabic), teaching and teacher-training. She has also worked in TESL, teaching, and teacher-training from kindergarten to university levels.

As an ethnographer, her research has included exploring adult literacy in Egypt and the women’s mosque movement in Syria through women’s accounts and understanding of their own lives and realities. Affiliated with CMS, she has also worked with UAM, MECO, and OM. For the past decade she has taught at St Andrew’s Hall in Melbourne, and in Bible Colleges in Australia and overseas, focusing on Islam and Cultural Anthropology. With Cathy Hine, she is co-founder of When Women Speak – a network equipping those working among Muslim women around the world through training, research, and writing. Moyra has a PhD in Education (La Trobe University) and DTh (Melbourne School of Theology).

Moyra Dale’s publications include: Shifting Allegiances: Networks of Kinship and of Faith: The Women’s Program in a Syrian Mosque, (Australian College of Theology Monograph, 2016); “Dismantling Socio-Sacred Hierarchy: Gender and Gentiles in Luke-Acts”, Priscilla Papers, 31:2, Spring 2017; “Women in Theological Education in the ACT in Twenty-First Century Australia” (with Martin, Du Toit, and Firth) in Theological Education: Foundations, Practices, and Future Directions (Ed. Bain and Hussey, Wipf and Stock, 2018).

Patricia Harrison

Patricia Harrison is an Australian with a deep interest in intercultural studies and missiology and has worked with Australian Aboriginal churches as well as with Latin American and African American congregations. She completed several master’s degrees at Fuller Theological Seminary in California, a Master’s in Political Ethics at Oxford, and an MEd in TESOL with the University of South Australia. he also holds several qualifications in Modern Languages and Education from the University of New England in NSW. Her PhD, from the University of Queensland, was undertaken in two Departments – Education and Studies in Religion – reflecting her specialization in Cross-Cultural Theological Education.

Patricia Harrison has taught at the University of New England and at several theological colleges related to Sydney College of Divinity and the Australian College of Theology. She has also taught on several occasions at the Christian Leaders’ Training College in Papua New Guinea, St Gregory’s Lutheran College in Saldus, Latvia, and at Fuller Theological Seminary. For a number of years Patricia was a member of the World Evangelical Alliance Theological Commission, serving as an international consultant in theological education. This ministry took her to many countries on all continents. With a strong commitment to holistic ministry, she also served for 8 years on the National Board of TEAR Australia. Now semi-retired, Patricia teaches mainly online, and supervises master’s and Doctoral dissertations for London School of Theology/Middlesex University, Asia Graduate School of Theology Alliance, and other institutions. She still undertakes international consulting work by invitation.

Patricia Harrison’s publications include: “Bridging Theory and Practice” in Cook, Matthew et al. Local Theology for the Global Church (William Carey Library, 2010); “Forty Years On: The Evolution of Theological Education by Extension” in Evangelical Review of Theology, 315–28, Vol.8, No.4, 2004; Multiple chapters and some editorial work in Kinsler, R and Emery, J. (eds). Opting for Change: A Handbook on Evaluation and Planning for Theological Education by Extension (World Council of Churches Program on Theological Education, William Carey Library, 1991); “New England TEE: A Rural Australian Experiment in Training Church Leaders” in Kinsler, R (ed.) Ministry by the People. (World Council of Churches, Program on Theological Education, 1981).

Penelope L. Martin

Australian theologian Penelope L. Martin is a life-long learner and practitioner with a special interest in practical theology and Christian leadership. Serving currently as the Dean of Leadership Formation for Stirling Theological College (University of Divinity) she holds an MTS from the University of Divinity and a DMin from Fuller Theological Seminary. Penelope has served in various roles in ministry and leadership within Churches of Christ in Victoria, Australia and is particularly interested in the value of theological reflection and formation with emerging leaders and their engagement with contemporary culture.

Penelope L. Martin has contributed to multiple denominational publications and most recently completed her doctoral dissertation, Young Adult Christian Leadership Formation for a Post-Christian Australian Context (Fuller Seminary, 2019), which she hopes to publish as a book in the near future.

Robyn Reynolds

Robyn Reynolds OLSH spent many years working and living with indigenous Australians in remote communities of the Northern Territory. Robyn Reynolds came to Yarra Theological Union (University of Divinity) after ten years as lecturer and Dean of Catholic students at Darwin’s Nungalinya College. Her doctoral thesis was entitled Catholic Sacrament Engaging with Wadeye Ritual. During more recent years Robyn has spent time in South Africa , the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, and Fiji, conducting workshops in Inter-Cultural Studies, Contextual Theology, and Spirituality. At Yarra Theological Union, Robyn teaches units in Missiology and Christian Spirituality, and she also teaches at the Heart of Life Spirituality Centre in Melbourne.

Robyn Reynolds publications include: “Missionary Turned Around: Bound to be Free” (Charles Strong Trust Lecture, Australian Association for the Study of Religion Conference. Adelaide, 2nd October 2013); “Global Mission: Consequences for the Marginalized” in A World United or a World Exploited? Edited by Peter Price, 117–29 (ATF, 2013); “Review of Dreaming a New Earth: Raimon Pannikar and Indigenous Spiritualities.” Edited by Gerald Hall and Joan Hendriks, 234–35 (Mosaic, 2012); “Bound to be free! Vowed Religious Life.” Furrow – a Journal for the Contemporary Church 68, no 5 (May 2017): 279–86; “From Marginalization to Leadership: Re-shaping a Theology and Praxis of Mission.” Colloquium 49, no 2 (November 2017): 24–35.

Robyn Wrigley-Carr

Robyn Wrigley-Carr is an Australian theologian and lecturer in spirituality. She holds a PhD from the University of St Andrews, Scotland, an MCS from Regent College, Vancouver, an MA from the University of London, a B.Ed. (Hons) from the University of Sydney, and a Grad Dip in spiritual direction from the University of Divinity, Melbourne. She has lectured in theology and spirituality at Alphacrucis College, Sydney since 2014 and previously lectured at the Australian College of Ministries, Sydney.

Robyn Wrigley-Carr’s areas of research interest include spiritual formation, soul care, personhood, and spirituality and dementia. As well as being awarded two research grants from the Australian Research Theology Foundation, she has received two research fellowships from Anglican Deaconess Ministries. Robyn is on the Editorial board for the Journal for the Study of Spirituality and on the executive for the British Association for the Study of Spirituality. Her book publications include The Spiritual Formation of Evelyn Underhill (SPCK, 2020) and Evelyn Underhill’s Prayer Book (ed; APCK, 2018).

Rosalind M. Gooden

Rosalind M Gooden is a former Australian Baptist Missionary Society missionary in Pakistan and Bangladesh, and former Director of Personnel and Training at Moore Potter House. In 2017 she was presented with The Emeritus Mead Award. The award recognizes the significant contribution of Dr. Rosalind Gooden to both the Baptist Churches in South Australia and the wider Australian Baptist church movement. In her nineteen years with Global Interaction, serving in East Pakistan/Bangladesh, Rosalind taught church leaders and was involved in establishing the Bible Students’ Fellowship of Bangladesh. With a vision for theological training of pastors and leaders in Bangladesh, Rosalind was central in the development of the College of Christian Theology Bangladesh (CCTB), and in establishing a language school focused on equipping expatriates to speak Bengali. Rosalind has also served faithfully on the Global Interaction Board and as the Director of Training and Personnel Development, where she developed curriculum and mentored individuals preparing for overseas mission. Rosalind has also been actively involved in a variety of leadership roles at Flinders Street Baptist Church. Rosalind’s passion in Baptist history led to the successful completion of her PhD and she continues to speak at both national and international conferences, write papers for numerous journals and publications and is an active member of the SA Baptist History group. The Baptist Assembly Board recognised Rosalind for her long term and significant contribution to the growth and development of leaders within both the SA Baptist Movement and the wider Australian and international Baptist communities.

Rosalind M. Gooden’s PhD was through Tabor College of Higher Education in 2016, and was on ‘Mothers in the Lord’: Australasian Baptist women missionaries at the intersection of cultural contexts 1882–1931. Her publications cover such topics as Australian Baptist missions, Australian Baptist women in overseas mission, and women in Christian ministry and mission.

Rosemary Dewerse

Rosemary Dewerse grew up the daughter of Presbyterian ministry parents serving in Mangakino, north Christchurch and Waikaka Valley, Southland. She married Roelant in her university home church, St Pauls Trinity Pacific, Christchurch, then was part of Fairfield Presbyterian, Hamilton. She began teaching secondary Music and English before studying theology. Since then she has worked in the design and delivery of programs for leaders across the church in England, Central Asia (in a Korean-founded seminary), Australia (for the SA Uniting Church), and Aotearoa New Zealand, including for Te Whare Wananga o Te Pihopatanga o Aotearoa. Rosemary is interested in and supervises doctoral students in missional church, contextual theologies and indigenous hermeneutics, intercultural engagement, and spirituality. She chairs the Council of Interserve(NZ).

Rosemary Dewerse has published Breaking Calabashes: Becoming an Intercultural Community (Garratt, 2013); Nga Kai-rui i Te Rongopai: Seven Early Maori Christians (Te Hui Amorangi Ki Te Manawa o Te Wheke, 2013); edited We are Pilgrims: Mission From, In and With the Margins of our Diverse World (UNOH, 2015); edited Moving Together: Missional Songs for God’s People (General Synod office of the Anglican Church of Aotearoa New Zealand, 2017); and was privileged to ghost-write Yarta Wandatha by Aboriginal woman Aunty Rev Denise Champion (Champion, 2014).

Tamie Davis

Tamie Davis is an intercultural practitioner. Living in Dar Es Salaam, she is a partner with the Church Missionary Society of Australia and an Associate of Tanzania Fellowship of Evangelical Students (TAFES). She has degrees in Arts, Education, and Theology and is undertaking a PhD through the Angelina Noble Centre exploring the theology of a group of Tanzanian women. She has lectured in cultural anthropology, gender in Tanzania, and cross-cultural communication, and has research interests in grassroots theology and prosperity teaching. Her publications include “The Condemnation Of Jephthah” in Tyndale Bulletin, and “Why Equality Is Not Enough When You’ve Been Abused: Pursuing The Flourishing of Women Through Imago Dei” in Lausanne Global Analysis. She posts at meetjesusatuni.com, is a contributor to Fixing Her Eyes, and has also written for Crucible, Common Grace, Ethos, A Life Overseas, and Eternity News.

Thalia Kehoe Rowden

Thalia Kehoe Rowden is a former Baptist pastor. She is currently the founding editor of Sacraparental, a website focusing on spirituality and social justice for parents and kids; co-editor of The Sapling, New Zealand’s main home for conversations on children’s literature; and Communications Lead for the Human Rights Measurement Initiative. Thalia has also worked for Partners Relief & Development in Thailand, and written plain language legal information for the New Zealand Community Law Manual.

Thalia has several sermons published in Kiwimade Narrative Preaching (Myk Habets, ed), and her essays and articles have been published in many other websites, books, and magazines. Thalia’s first picture book was published by Scholastic in 2019, and she tweets regularly as @sacraparental.

Vivian Soesilo

Vivian Soesilo has spent more than forty years working in a Christian context whether it be in church-related ministries, teaching in theological colleges, and contributing to Christian books and Bible translation. She gained her theological qualifications from Asbury Theological Seminary and Union Theological Seminary in USA. Since 2010 she has taught at Brisbane School of Theology, teaching pastoral care and counselling classes in the Chinese program. She is married to Daud and they have two adult children. Alongside her role as pastor at the Indonesian and Multi-Cultural Church, and co-pastor of a church in Indonesia, Vivian is also a part-time lecturer at Southeast Asia Bible Seminary in Indonesia. She is also involved in children, individual, and marriage counselling.

 

Biblical Studies

Biblical Studies include Hermeneutics, New Testament, Old Testament, and other areas of Biblical Studies.

Angela Sawyer

Angela Sawyer is Lecturer in Old Testament and Dean of Students at Stirling Theological College, Melbourne, Australia. Angela grew up in outback Western and South Australia, commencing university studies in Darwin, before pursuing teaching and theological studies in Melbourne. She completed an Arts degree in Social Sciences (La Trobe University), Graduate Diploma in Education (Monash University), and Master of Divinity (Bible College of Victoria). She holds a PhD in Hebrew Bible from the University of Divinity, Melbourne.

Angela Sawyer’s teaching and research interests include: Isaiah; other Hebrew Bible Prophets; Daughter Zion; Trauma studies; exile; feminist criticism; metaphor studies; and Contextual Bible Study. She has been actively involved in community-based Bible engagement projects with a focus on justice. Having previously worked in pastoral ministry, Angela has an ongoing research interest in the growing dynamic of people leaving church in Australia as demonstrated in the publication “Ex-Churched in Secular Exile.” Zadok Papers 216/217, (Summer 2016): 8-12. With a long background in education, Angela continues to advocate for equitable access to theological education and challenging systemic hurdles that prevent people from engaging in study. Angela has previously taught at Tabor Victoria, Whitley College, ACU, and Trinity Theological College in Melbourne.

Anne E. Gardner

Anne Gardner teaches in the Intertestamental area at Yarra Theological Union. Her specialist research area is the book of Daniel but she has also published on aspects of the Ancient Near East; the early monarchy; Genesis 2–3; Genesis 6:11–13; the Elijah narrative; Joel; Isaiah 65–66; Chronicles; Esther; Judith; 3 and 4 Maccabees; 1 Esdras; the Dead Sea Scrolls; and the New Testament. Some of her papers relate to feminist or ecological issues. Intertextuality though is, in her opinion, key to understanding the thorny issues present in the book of Daniel — a work that has played no small part in politics, history, and religious philosophy/theology throughout the ages. Anne is the Old Testament editor of the Australian Biblical Review and was awarded the Krister Stendahl medal for Biblical Studies in 2012 along with the New Testament Editor of ABR.

Anne Gardner’s publications include: “Holy Ones and (Holy) People in Daniel and 1QM.” In Keter Shem Tov: Collected Essays on the Dead Sea Scrolls in Memory of Alan Crown, edited by Shani Tzoref and Ian Young, 151–83 (Gorgias, 2013); “Modern Ecological Concerns, the Persistence of Apocalyptic and the Signs of the End.” Pacifica 27, no. 1 (2014): 4–27; “Daniel 8, 1–2: Keynote to the Following Vision and Advice to the Righteous to Hold Fast.” Christianesimo Nella Storia 35, no. 2 (2014): 429–50; “The Still Small Voice of Nature.” In The Nature of Things Rediscovering the Spiritual in God’s Creation, edited by G. Buxton and N. Habel, 58–69 (Wipf and Stock, 2016); “Interpreting the Writing on the Wall in Daniel 5.” In Bridging between Sister Religions. Studies of Jewish and Christian Scriptures Offered in Honor of John T. Townsend, edited by Isaac Kalimi, 42–65 (Brill, 2016); “Violence and Destruction in Opposition to Judgement and Righteousness.” In Ecological Aspects of War, edited by A. Elvey and K. Dyer, 116–31 (Bloomsbury, 2017); ‘”Democracy and War’ and ‘Thoughts on Armistice Day’ Illuminated.” In Remembering Pioneer Australian Pacifist Charles Strong, edited by N. Habel, 21–32 (Morning Star, 2018); “Shedding Light on the Introduction to Daniel’s Vision in Chapter 7 (Dan 7:1b-2a).” In title to be announced, edited by D. King. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press (forthcoming); Daniel. Earth Bible Commentary. London: Bloomsbury (forthcoming).

Anne Elvey

Anne Elvey is a poet, editor, and researcher. Her PhD in Women’s Studies from Monash University received in 2000 was published as An Ecological Feminist Reading of the Gospel of Luke: A Gestational Paradigm (Mellen, 2005). Her most recent scholarly books are Ecological Aspects of War: Engagements with Biblical Texts (co-edited with Keith Dyer and Deborah Guess, Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2017); Ecological Aspects of War: Religious and Theological Perspectives from Australia (co-edited with Deborah Guess and Keith Dyer, ATF Press, 2016); Climate Change—Cultural Change: Religious Responses and Responsibilities (coedited with David Gormley O’Brien, Mosaic Press, 2013); Reinterpreting the Eucharist: Explorations in Feminist Theology and Ethics (coedited with Carol Hogan, Kim Power and Claire Renkin, Equinox, 2013); The Matter of the Text: Material Engagements between Luke and the Five Senses (Sheffield Phoenix, 2011). She was editor of Colloquium: The Australian and New Zealand Theological Review from May 2012 to May 2017 and president of the Fellowship for Biblical Studies in 2011. Her most recent poetry collections are On Arrivals of Breath(Poetica Christi 2019) and White on White (Cordite Books 2018). She is managing editor of Plumwood Mountain: An Australian Journal of Ecopoetry and Ecopoetics.

Anne Elvey’s research interests are in ecological poetics; ecological feminist hermeneutics; Gospel of Luke; the new materialism; postcolonial biblical interpretation; and political theology. She is an Adjunct Research Fellow, School of Languages, Literatures, Cultures and Linguistics, Monash University, and an Honorary Research Associate, Trinity College Theological School, University of Divinity, Melbourne. Anne’s current research is on an eco-aesthetic approach to the Magnificat and its cultural reception in Australia. https://anneelvey.wordpress.com/

Barbara Deutschmann

Barbara Deutschmann is a post-doctoral biblical scholar with the University of Divinity, living and working in Melbourne. She is a Lay Reader in the Anglican Church. She has been an Interserve missionary living in India and worked for many years in international development with TEAR Australia. More recently she lived and worked in Central Australia working with TEAR’s First Peoples program.

Her PhD was a study of gender in the garden of Eden narrative including reviewing the reception history of the Eden narrative noting the way conceptions of Eve have influenced thinking about women during the long and chequered history of interpretation of that narrative.

Her current research interests include:

  • The Eden narrative and its reception history;
  • The construction of gender in the Hebrew Bible;
  • The history of constructions of ‘Eve’ in Australian history and culture;
  • The implications of understandings of biblical gender for current church culture and polity.

Her publications include “Partners in Crime? The Partnership of the Woman and Man in the Garden of Eden Narrative.” Pacifica 30, no. 3 (2017): 255–67 and “Abraham, Isaac and the Problem of Water” in Water: A Matter of Life and Death, Norman Habel and Peter Trudinger, eds (Hindmarsh: ATF Australia, 2011) 63–72.

Caroline Batchelder

Caroline Batchelder was born in Scotland, and grew up in Malaysia and Australia, as well as time spent in England and the Philippines. Originally trained as a musician, Caroline commenced theological studies when the youngest of her six children went to preschool. She received a Th.D. from the Australian College of theology in 2016 for a thesis about the figure of the Servant in the poetry of Isaiah. She continues her research in Israel’s Scriptures with interests in theological anthropology, image of God, biblical poetry, and hermeneutics. She teaches Old Testament and Hebrew at Alphacrucis College in Sydney, Australia, and looks after the MTh program there.

Caroline Batchelder thesis, Charged with the Glory of God: Yahweh, the Servant, and the Earth in Isaiah 40 to 55 will be available in 2020 in Lexham’s “Studies in Scripture and Biblical Theology” series.

Carolyn Tan

Carolyn Tan has a Malaysian-Singaporean background. She currently teaches New Testament Greek at Vose Seminary in Perth, Western Australia, and has had at other times lectured units in New Testament and Theology. Carolyn was working as a paediatric surgeon in Singapore when she discerned God’s call to take up theological studies. She joined her family in Perth, and began her studies in 2005 at the Baptist Theological College of Western Australia (renamed Vose Seminary in 2009). Graduating with the Master of Divinity, she was encouraged to investigate her question, “What was the Holy Spirit doing when Jesus was dying on the cross?” For her thesis, she was awarded the Doctor of Theology by the Australian College of Theology (ACT) in 2017.

Carolyn Tan’s doctoral thesis has been published in the ACT Monograph Series in 2019 under the title The Spirit at the Cross: Exploring a Cruciform Pneumatology. Carolyn has always been intrigued by questions. While a paediatric surgeon, she studied biliary atresia, a sad condition affecting the liver and bile duct system in infants. She was awarded the British Association of Paediatric Surgery Research Prize in 1992 for her research into human bile duct development, and in 1999, the Doctor of Medicine from the National University of Singapore.

Cass Kwakye

Cass Kwakye lives in Sydney with her husband Solomon and sons Jedediah and Zion. Having completed her degree in Ancient History at Macquarie University in which her training took her to archeological digs in Israel,  she felt the call to ministry in a remote indigenous community in Darwin in 2001. Having completed her Master of Divinity  and her accreditation at Morling College she has pastored and taught in a number of different churches across the world including India, Africa, Norway and America.  Returning home, Cass continued on at Morling as an adjunct lecturer at Morling to lecture in the areas of New Testament, Church History and Spiritual Formation. Concurrently, Cass also joined the pastoral team at Berowra Baptist Church as an Associate Pastor and Northridge Vineyard Fellowship as Young Adults Pastor. In her spare time she also completed a Masters project on “Jesus invitation to Heavenly Experience in John’s Gospel”.

Today, Cass is enjoying her role as mum to two young adventurous boys, and writing her doctorate that focuses on the intersection of Atonement theology, Trinitarian theology and John’s gospel. Her doctorate seeks to speak into current versions of Penal Substitution Theory through the lens of the perichoretic relationship of the Father and Son, as presented in John’s gospel. Her hope is that this study would offer a more nuanced portrait of the Father in the atonement- one that sees the Father not through the eyes of abandonment and absence but as one that is very visible, present, active and benevolent during his Son’s crucifixion. Today, she also continues her role as co-director of Plunge, a 1 year diploma discipleship course at Morling College. This allows her to see young people transformed by the power of God’s word and building communities of faith. Leading this program she sees faith put into action, to see theology integrated in practice and kingdom values reflected in the context of a living community of young people.

Catherine Playoust

Catherine Playoust is an Australian biblical scholar and a Catholic laywoman. She comes from Sydney and her degrees include an S.T.L. from Weston Jesuit School of Theology and a Th.D. in New Testament and Christian Origins from Harvard Divinity School. She is currently Deputy Master of Catholic Theological College (Melbourne), one of the colleges of the University of Divinity, and she previously taught at Jesuit Theological College (Melbourne). She is a past President of the Fellowship for Biblical Studies (Australia). Dr Playoust studies early Christian apocalypticism and the transformation of Jewish and Christian traditions in early Christian literature.

Among her publications are chapters in Imagining the Foetus: The Unborn in Myth, Religion, and Culture (ed. Sasson and Law), The Levant: Crossroads of Late Antiquity: History, Religion and Archaeology (ed. Aitken and Fossey), and Bridging the Divide Between Faith, Theology and Life: The Church in Oceania (ed. Maher).

Claire Smith

Claire Smith is an independent scholar who holds a BTh and MA(Theol) from the Australian College of Theology undertaken at Moore Theological College, and a PhD (2010) supervised by Dr Peter Bolt (Moore Theological College) and awarded by the University of Western Sydney (in conjunction with Moore Theological College). She is a current member of the General Synod Doctrine Commission of the Anglican Church of Australia.

Claire Smith’s published doctoral thesis is Pauline Communities as ‘Scholastic Communities’: A Study of the Vocabulary of ‘Teaching’ in 1 Corinthians, 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus, WUNT 2/335 (Mohr Siebeck, 2012). Other publications include “Family Ties: Marriage, Sex, and Belonging in the New Testament” and “For Better or For Worse: The Changing Shape of Marriage in Christian History?” in Marriage, Same-Sex Marriage and the Anglican Church of Australia: Essays from the Doctrine Commission, (Broughton, 2019) (peer reviewed); “Paul’s Parakaleô Appeals” in God’s Exemplary Graduates, ed. Peter. G. Bolt (Sydney College of Divinity, forthcoming); “Ethics of Teaching and Learning in Christianity Today: Insights from the Book of Titus”, forthcoming in Ethics in the Book of Titus, Context and Norms of New Testament Ethics series, ed. Ruben Zimmerman (WUNT, Mohr Siebeck); “Preaching: Seeking Lexical Clarity for Better Practice”, forthcoming in Doctrine for Declaration, conference proceedings volume, Moore Theological College School of Theology 2019, eds. Chase Kuhn and Paul Grimmond (Lexham).

Csilla Saysell

Csilla Saysell was for seven years, lecturer in Old Testament at Carey Baptist College in Auckland New Zealand, the country she has made her home. Prior to that, she taught Old Testament and Hebrew at St John’s College, Nottingham (UK) and, as guest lecturer, at Cranmer Hall, Durham. She completed her PhD in Old Testament at Durham University (UK). Her publications include “The Blood Manipulation of the Sin Offering and the Logic of Defilement.” Pacific Journal of Theological Research 13.2 (2018): 61–70; “The Unforgivable Sin in the OT?” In The Art of Forgiveness. Eds. Philip Halstead and Myk Habets. Lanham, MD: Lexington; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2018. 3–-53; “Deuteronomy in the Intermarriage Crises in Ezra-Nehemiah.” In Interpreting Deuteronomy: Issues and Approaches. Eds. David G. Firth and Philip S. Johnston. Nottingham: Apollos, 2012. 197–208; “According to the Law…”: Reading Ezra 9-10 as Christian Scripture. JTI Sup. 4. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2012.

At the end of 2019, Csilla Saysell went freelance and now writes Bible-reading notes on her blog (labradotiremoments.com), preaches and teaches in church-contexts when the opportunities arise, and continues to write for Scripture Union’s Bible reading notes (Encounter with God series) as she has done since 2015.

Debra A. Snoddy

Debra Snoddy is currently employed as lecturer in Biblical Studies at Catholic Institute of Sydney in Strathfield, NSW, Australia teaching both Old and New Testament subjects to seminarians and lay students. Immediately prior this posting she was employed as lecturer in Theology and Biblical Studies at Carlow College, Carlow, Ireland. Previously she had worked as full-time lecturer in Biblical Studies at All Hallows College, Dublin, Ireland from September 2007 to October 2014. At All Hallows she was responsible for developing and delivering courses on the bible especially on the Gospel of John. During her tenure at All Hallows, Debra was also head of the life-long learning programs which formed part of the School of Adult and Community Learning. In her role as Chair she was responsible for the development of programs and courses for adult learners returning to education for personal and/ or professional development.

For the four years prior to her career in All Hallows, Debra has worked for the Archdiocese of Armagh as Coordinator for the Office of Pastoral Renewal and Family Ministry (OPRFM). Much of her focus there was concentrated in creating and implementing a programme for the development of Parish Pastoral Councils, as well as organizing, and providing facilitation for, various diocesan events, having successfully completed training as a professional facilitator in 2006 with the Belgian Institute of Cultural Affairs outreach programme in All Hallows College, Dublin, Ireland. She was awarded the St Patrick’s Medal for services to the Archdiocese of Armagh in 2007.

Upon completion of an Honours Baccalaureate in Arts and Theology at the Pontifical University, St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth, Debra continued post-graduate studies in Theology and Biblical Studies at the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium (KULeuven) and was awarded a master’s degree in Theology and an STL in Sacred Scripture in 1999. In 2000, she successfully completed a master’s degree in Family and Sexuality Studies in the Faculty of Medicine of KULeuven, Belgium. More recently (2014), Debra has been awarded a PhD and STD from KULeuven, Belgium for her work on the Gospel of John.

Debra A. Snoddy is a member of the Research Group for the Study of the Johannine and Pauline Literature at the Faculty of Theology of KULeuven, Belgium as well as the European Biblical Association and the Australian Catholic Biblical Association. Publications include the co-authoring of Parish Pastoral Councils: A Formation Manual (Veritas, 2010) as well as articles and book chapters for national and international publications.

Denise Powell

Denise Powell is an Australian biblical scholar who is particularly fascinated by the Gospels. She holds a BTh (Hons) from the Australian College of Theology and recently received her doctorate through the University of Queensland; her thesis title was “The Narrative Function of the Righteous in the Gospel of Luke.”

Denise Powell lectures in New Testament at Malyon Theological College and also leads short facilitations in Biblical Studies and Hermeneutics for students at the Australian College of Ministries. Before her foray into the academic world, Denise spent many years as a stay-at-home mum and as a pastor in a Churches of Christ congregation. These life experiences fostered an enthusiasm for making biblical scholarship accessible to congregations, so Denise enjoys speaking at Churches and conferences. She has contributed to curriculum used by high school chaplains and The Big Bible Challenge E100 series. Her publication Elizabeth’s Seclusion: A Veiled Reference to her Bold Belief is forthcoming.

Dorothy A. Lee

Dorothy A. Lee is a Scottish born Australian theologian living and working in Melbourne. She is the Stewart Research Professor of New Testament at Trinity College, University of Divinity. She is an Anglican priest and Canon of St Paul’s Cathedral, Melbourne, as well as a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. Her interests include New Testament symbolism and theology, particularly in the Gospels, as well as feminist theology, spirituality, and creation.

Dorothy A. Lee has published widely, contributing articles and essays in New Testament studies. Her books include Flesh and Glory: Symbol, Gender and Theology in the Gospel of John (New York: Crossroad, 2002) and The Gospels Speak: Addressing Life’s Questions (New York/Mahwah: Paulist Press, 2017) Her current project is a monograph on women’s ministry and the New Testament with Baker Academic Press.

Elizabeth (Liz) Boase

Liz Boase is an Australian Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Scholar who completed her undergraduate and doctoral studies through Murdoch University in Perth. She has worked as a lecturer at University of Notre Dame (Fremantle), and at Uniting College for Leadership and Theology/Adelaide College of Divinity/Flinders University from 2009–2019. During that time, she was head of discipline for Flinders University and Academic Dean for Adelaide College of Divinity. In 2020 she commences as Dean of the School of Graduate Research at the University of Divinity in Melbourne.

Liz Boase’s research and publication areas include the books of Lamentations and Jeremiah, other prophetic literature, and Genesis. She focusses on a range of hermeneutical approaches, but has a special interest in trauma hermeneutics. Her publications include The Fulfilment of Doom?: The Dialogic Interaction between the Book of Lamentations and the Pre-Exilic/Early Exilic Prophetic Literature (T&T Clark, 2016), and Through the Lens of Trauma, co-edited with Christopher Frechette (SBL, 2016).

Emily Colgan

Emily is a biblical scholar who was born and raised in Aotearoa New Zealand. She holds degrees in Maori Studies and Theology from the University of Auckland, and was awarded a PhD in Theology in 2015. Emily’s research focuses on the relationship between the Bible and contemporary contexts. She is particularly interested in ecological representations within the Bible and what it means to read Scripture in the context of climate crisis.

Emily Colgan is currently working on an ecological commentary of the Book of Jeremiah for the Earth Bible Commentary series (Bloomsbury). She has also written on the Bible and ecological thinking in The Oxford Handbook on Bible and Ecology (Oxford University, forthcoming), The Bible and Art: Perspectives from Oceania (Bloomsbury, 2017), The Nature of Things: Rediscovering the Spiritual in God’s Creation (Wipf and Stock, 2016), and Sexuality, Ideology and the Bible: Antipodean Engagements (Sheffield Phoenix, 2015). Emily is also very interested in biblical depictions of gender and violence. Her most recent publication is a multi-volume work, which she co-edited with Caroline Blyth and Katie Edwards entitled Rape Culture, Gender Violence, and Religion (Palgrave, 2018). She is currently Senior Lecturer in Biblical Studies at Trinity Methodist Theological College in Auckland.

Evelyn Ashley

Evelyn Ashley is a Western Australian who has lived not only in the Perth metropolitan area, but also in the Kimberley, the Goldfields, the Wheatbelt, the Pilbara, and the Peel regions, and currently resides in Canberra. She is a graduate of Vose Seminary and Murdoch University, with her doctoral thesis being on “Paul’s Paradigm for Ministry in 2 Corinthians.” She has more than a decade of experience in lecturing in New Testament and Koine Greek, as well as has many years’ experience in church life, both as a pastor and as a lay leader. As a person who lives with a disability, she feels strongly about access and opportunity being available to people with disabilities.

Evelyn Ashley’s book is Paul’s Defense of His Ministerial Style: A Study of His Second Letter to the Corinthians (Edwin Mellen, 2011). This study of 2 Corinthians indicates that Paul maintained that Christian life and ministry generally, and apostolic ministry in particular, must be carried out through divine power, not human power.

Jacqueline Grey

Jacqui is Dean of Theology and Associate Professor of Biblical Studies at Alphacrucis College. She is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Pentecostal Theology and the University of South Africa. Jacqui is a past president of the Society for Pentecostal Studies (2017) and is also an ordained pastor in the Australian Christian Churches. She has completed a BA (Sydney University), BTh (SCD), and PhD (Charles Sturt University). Her research focuses on Pentecostal theology, particularly how Pentecostals interpret the Bible (hermeneutics).

Jacqui Grey has written and co-edited several books including Asia Pacific Pentecostalism (co-edited, Brill, 2019), Three’s A Crowd: Pentecostalism, Hermeneutics and the Old Testament (Pickwick, 2014), Raising Women Leaders (co-edited, Australasian Pentecostal Studies, 2013), as well as numerous journal articles and books chapters. She also writes for the popular audience with her best-selling book Them, Us and Me: How the Old Testament Speaks to People Today(Australasian Pentecostal Studies, 2015), which has sold over 5,000 copies in Australia alone. In addition to her contribution to the academy, Jacqui is also committed to the mission of the church and served for several years as part of a church planting team in Izmir, Turkey. She continues to teach regularly in colleges located in missional contexts.

Janina Hiebel

Janina Hiebel was born in Germany but has been living and studying in Australia for the past eleven years. She completed her PhD at Murdoch University, Western Australia in 2014 and holds a degree in theology from a German university (2006), specializing in Old Testament studies. Janina’s areas of interest are the period of the Babylonian Exile, and especially the book of Ezekiel. Since 2015, Janina Hiebel has been teaching Old Testament and Theological German at Yarra Theological Union and Biblical Studies at Catholic Theological College (both are colleges of University of Divinity). Currently she is completing the Graduate Certificate in Theological Education. A member of the Focolare Movement, Janina Hiebel is involved in the theological education and formation of its members in Melbourne and in the wider region of Oceania.

Janina Hiebel has published several journal articles, including “Hope in Exile: In Conversation with Ezekiel” (2019), and one monograph: Ezekiel’s Vision Accounts as Interrelated Narratives: A Redaction-Critical and Theological Study (2015).

Jeanette Mathews

Jeanette Mathews is Senior Lecturer in Biblical Studies (Old Testament and Biblical Hebrew) at St Mark’s National Theological College, Canberra, a partner in the School of Theology of Charles Sturt University. She holds a PhD from Charles Sturt University, a Master of Arts (Theological Studies) from the University of Cape Town, a Bachelor of Divinity from the International Baptist Theological Seminary (Rüschlikon, Switzerland) and a Bachelor of Applied Science (Speech Pathology) from Lincoln Institute, Melbourne. Jeanette is an accredited minister in the Baptist Churches of NSW and ACT, and was Associate Minister at Canberra Baptist Church from 1997 – 2007 where she was ordained in 1999. She has been teaching at St Mark’s since 2006.

Jeanette’s area of research is Biblical Performance Criticism of the Old Testament. This method is explained and illustrated in her article ‘Scripture as Performance’ in St Mark’s Review No. 249, 2019 (3). Her PhD thesis on the book of Habakkuk was published as a monograph entitled Performing Habakkuk (Cascade, 2012), and a new monograph entitled Prophets as Performers will be published in 2020. Her current research project will be a contribution to the Smyth and Helwys ‘Reading the Old Testament’ series, with a focus on the Megilloth (Festival Scrolls) and Biblical Performance Criticism.  In addition to a number of essays in journals and edited books, Jeanette has edited two editions of a handbook for new theological students entitled God, by Degrees (Barton Books, 2014, 2019).

Jeanette Mathews is on the Steering Committee of the Performance Criticism of Biblical and Other Ancient Texts section of SBL, and a Senior Fellow of the Baptist Scholars International Roundtable.

Jill Firth

Jill Firth is a Lecturer in Hebrew and Old Testament at Ridley College Melbourne, specializing in Psalms and Jeremiah. She holds a BA from the University of Western Australia, an MDiv and PhD from the Australian College of Theology, and an MA in Spiritual Direction from the MCD (now the University of Divinity). She is a convener of the Evangelical Women in Academia conference, and is co-editing a volume of essays by Australian women scholars.

Jill Firth has published a summary of her dissertation, “The Re-presentation of David in Psalms 140–143” in Tyndale Bulletin, and is currently revising her PhD for publication. She has contributed to a chapter on women in theological education, called “Women in Theological Education in the ACT in 21st Century Australia,” in Theological Education in Australia: Foundations, Current Practices and Future Options (Wipf & Stock, 2018). Forthcoming chapters for edited volumes include “Desert Spring, Disappointment Creek, Dead Dog Waterhole: Is the God of the Book of Jeremiah Bad for Women?”, and “Spirituality from the Depths: Responding to Crushing Circumstances and Psychological and Spiritual Distress in Jeremiah.” See Jill Firth’s full profile here: https://www.ridley.edu.au/about-ridley/ridley-people/faculty/jill-firth/

Kylie Crabbe

After undergraduate study in Psychology, Criminology, and Theology, and a Master of Theology in New Testament in Melbourne, Kylie Crabb completed her doctorate at the University of Oxford. She is an Associate Lecturer through the University of Divinity (Pilgrim Theological College) and a Research Fellow and Acting Program Director of Biblical and Early Christian Studies at Australian Catholic University. Kylie Crabbe works in biblical and early Christian studies. Her doctoral work focused on ancient writers’ accounts of hope, discipleship, and politics. In particular, Kylie Crabbe was interested in how ancient writers portray the structuring of history—that is, how their understandings of the past inform their expectations for the future and their experience in the present. Her forthcoming book Luke/Acts and the End of History (De Gruyter, 2019) considers these (much contested) themes in the New Testament texts Luke and Acts, in comparison with diverse contemporaneous texts, (five Jewish and five non-Jewish, spanning from the histories of Polybius, Diodorus Siculus, and Tacitus, to Virgil’s Aeneid, Josephus’s Jewish War, and 4 Ezra).

Kylie Crabbe’s current work in the “Texts, Traditions, and Early Christian Identities project” at ACU considers questions of impairment and identity in early Christian texts, with a focus on New Testament texts, Apocryphal Acts, early Christian apocalypses, and the Apostolic Fathers. She is also working on a smaller project which considers the intellectual and social context of post-war German biblical scholarship—particularly that of Hans Conzelmann, which continues to dominate Lukan scholarship. She is an ordained Minister in the Uniting Church in Australia and was in congregational ministry in Melbourne prior to moving to Oxford. While at the University of Oxford she taught in a wide variety of New Testament and related areas, including Gospels, Pauline Literature, Second Temple Judaism, and biblical Greek.

Louise Gosbell

Louise Gosbell is an Australian theologian working in the overlap of disability and biblical studies. Louise completed her PhD in Ancient History at Macquarie University in 2015. Her thesis, on disability and the gospels, was published by German publisher Mohr Siebeck in 2018 (The Poor, the Crippled, the Blind, and the Lame: Physical and Sensory Disability in the Gospels of the New Testament).

Following the completion of her PhD, Louise was awarded an interdisciplinary award from the Museum of Ancient Cultures and the Cognitive Sciences Department at Macquarie University for her ongoing research on the senses in the gospel of John. In 2017, Louise was awarded a Senior Research Fellowship with Anglican Deaconess Ministries in Sydney and a DAAD (German Academic Exchange) research grant for a two-moth research trip to Germany in 2017-2018. Louise has published a number of articles on disability and biblical studies including an upcoming book chapter on the imagery of the Body of Christ in light of disability studies. Louise is currently working on a volume on the senses in the gospel of John, as well as a book on disability and the gospels for a broader, non-academic audience. Louise is currently a lecturer in New Testament at Mary Andrews College in Sydney.

Lyn M. Kidson

Lyn Kidson has a PhD from Macquarie University and is now working as a New Testament lecturer and a teaching assistant for Alphacrucis College in Parramatta. She also has a Master of Divinity (SMBC) and a Master of Arts in Early Christian and Jewish studies (Macquarie University), and has worked in various ministries around Sydney. Currently, she presents at conferences both in Australia and in USA. She is a member of the steering committee for the Disputed Paulines seminar at the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature. Her main research interest is in 1 Timothy and her PhD thesis looked at the use of rhetorical strategies in chapter 1 of that letter. She has written and published on gender and numismatics.

Lyn Kidson’s PhD thesis will soon be published under the title Persuading Shipwrecked Men: The Rhetorical Strategies of 1 Timothy 1 (Mohr Siebeck, forthcoming). Other publications include: “The Woman at the Well, Jesus, and Prejudice in Samaria (John 4: 3–43),” in vol. 1, The Impact of Jesus of Nazareth: Historical, Theological, and Pastoral Perspectives. Edited by J. Harrison and P. Bolt. (SCD, forthcoming 2020); “‘Teaching’ and Other Persuasions: The Interpretation of Didaskein ‘to Teach’ in 1 Timothy 2:2.” Pages 125–37 in The Gender Conversation: Evangelical Perspective on Gender, Scripture and the Christian Life. Edited by E. Murphy and D. Starling. Macquarie Park; Eugene: Morling Press; Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2016. Lyn Kidson’s journal articles include: “Fasting, Bodily Care, and the Widows of 1 Timothy 5:3–15.” Early Christianity (forthcoming in 2020); “Anonymous Coins, the Great Persecution and the Shadow of Sossianus Hierocles. Journal of Ancient Civilizations 32 (2017): 35–53; “1 Timothy: An Administrative Letter.” Early Christianity5.1 (2014): 97–116; “Minting in Ephesus: Economics and Self-promotion in the Early Imperial Period.” Journal of the Numismatic Association of Australia (2012 (2013)): 27–36.

Margaret Beirne

Margaret Beirne is a Senior Lecturer in Biblical Studies at St Andrew’s Greek Orthodox Theological College. After thirty years of teaching and administration in secondary education, Margaret went to École Biblique in Jerusalem in 1995 to begin research for a doctoral thesis on the Gospel according to St John. On her return to Sydney, she began lecturing at the Centre for Christian Spirituality, Randwick, while continuing to work on her doctoral thesis. In 2000, she graduated with a DTheol from Melbourne College of Divinity, and has published her thesis as a book, as well as chapters in books and articles in peer reviewed journals. In 2009, she joined the faculty of St Andrew’s where she continues to teach most of the Biblical Studies units. In 2014, Margaret was elected to the General Council of her religious congregation, the Sisters of Charity where she currently serves as the Congregational Vicar.

Margaret Beirne’s publications include: Women and Men in the Fourth Gospel: A Genuine Discipleship of Equals. JSNT Supp series 242 (Sheffield Academic, 2003); “Women Leadership in the Church: Foundations in the New Testament”, in Towards Just Gender Relations. Rethinking the Role of Women in Church and Society. Gunter Prüller-Jagenteufel et al (eds.), Vienna University Press, 2019, 91–101; “Scripture in the Works of St Gregory the Theologian,” in Cappadocian Legacy. Doru Costache and Philip Kariatlis (eds.), St Andrew’s Orthodox Press, 2013, 275–88; “Spiritual Enrichment Through Exegesis: St Gregory of Nyssa and the Scriptures,” in Cappadocian Legacy. Doru Costache and Philip Kariatlis (eds.), St Andrew’s Orthodox Press, 2013, 395–409.

Marie-Louise Craig

Marie-Louise Craig is a lecturer in Biblical Languages and Biblical Studies at Saint Francis College, Brisbane, a partner in the School of Theology of Charles Sturt University, the university where she completed her own theological studies. She has a deep love of Biblical languages and a passion for teaching Biblical Hebrew and New Testament Greek, and Biblical Studies, preferrably from the original languages. She specializes in reading the Hebrew Bible using rhetorical methods with the support of other criticisms.

Marie-Louise’s research is in Hebrew semantics, particularly the history of Hebrew lexicography and its intersection with theology and epistimology, church movements, and language theories. She is currently working on a complete history of Hebrew-English lexicography, which includes a reworking of chapters from her Honours Dissertation and her PhD Thesis, and the writing of two new chapters.

Her published (or soon to be published) articles include chapters in books on languages published by Gorgias Press, an article in Brill’s Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics, and various conference papers. Prior to teaching at Charles Sturt University, Marie-Louise served as a Salvation Army officer in congregational ministry with her husband, Major Gary Craig for 31 years, in New South Wales and Queensland. The preaching was shared between them and together they focused on lay leadership development and growing grace communities. Marie-Louise originally completed concurrent BMus and BA degrees at Queensland University. Her first career was as a music teacher in high schools. Music continues to be an important part of her life.

Marie-Louise Craig’s publications include: “Pioneers and ‘No Through Roads’: The Story of the Early Hebrew-English Lexicons.” In J. Loopstra & M. Sokoloff (Eds.), Foundations for Syriac Lexicography V: Colloquia of the International Syriac Language Project, 21–42 (Gorgias, 2012); “Lexicography: Pre-Modern Period.” In G. Khan, S. Bolokzy, S. E. Fassberg, G. A. Rendsburg, A. D. Rubin, O. R. Schwarzwald & T. Zewi (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics, Vol. 2, 514–20 (Brill, 2013); “Take One Hebrew Lexicon, Add Fresh Theology and Mix Well: The Impact of Theology on Hebrew-English Lexicons.” In R. A. Taylor & C. E. Morrison (Eds.), Reflections on Lexicography: Explorations in Ancient Syriac, Hebrew, and Greek Sources, 147–210 (Gorgias Press, 2014). Her Honours dissertation was titled The Emergence of Hebrew-English lexicons: From Udall to Parkhurst. (Bachelor of Theology Honours Thesis), Charles Sturt University, Canberra. Her Doctoral Thesis was titled Hebrew-English Lexicons of the British Isles: From John Parkhurst (1762) to Benjamin Davies (1872). (PhD), Charles Sturt University.

Mary Coloe

Mary is Associate Professor of New Testament within the University of Divinity in Melbourne, Australia, and is a Catholic nun. Her great love is the Gospel of John and she has published numerous books, essays, and articles on John for academics and non-professionals, some of which are listed on her home page, www.marycoloe.org.au. Her doctorate was, God Dwells with Us: Temple Symbolism in the Fourth Gospel (Liturgical Press, 2001), for which she was awarded a large Australian research grant, resulting in Dwelling in the Household of God: Johannine Ecclesiology and Spirituality(Liturgical Press, 2007).

Mary Coloe is completing a feminist commentary on John for the Wisdom Commentary Series, and expects this to be published in 2020. Mary was appointed for six years to an international dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Church/Disciples of Christ. Her work on John has also taken her into Jewish/Christian studies and interfaith dialogue. She is a member of the SNTS and has taught in Boston MA, Berkeley CA, Jerusalem, and Hong Kong. She laments that women in the Catholic Church are not permitted to be ministers of the Word, and Table in Eucharistic liturgies. This ban impoverishes the church and starves the people of God who hunger for the Word and Bread of life. In her article, “A Matter of Justice and Necessity” (Compass Theological Review, 2011), she wrote: “The liberating God of the Exodus, who hears the cries of all who are oppressed, laments with us and over us, and over our institution for the centuries of neglect, ignorance and prejudice that have been part of women’s experience within the Church that we too would like to call our home.”

Melinda Cousins

Melinda Cousins is Deputy State Executive Minister and Director of Ministry Accreditation for Baptist Churches SA, as well as Teaching Pastor at Richmond Baptist Church. Seeking to bridge the gap between the church and the academy, Dr Cousins also teaches Biblical Studies at Tabor after previously being on faculty there for seven years. She has honours degrees in Law and in Theology, a Master of Arts in Theology and a Graduate Diploma in Pastoral Ministry. Her PhD from Charles Sturt University was on the Psalms of Ascents (Psalms 120-134), completed after receiving a Public and Contextual Theology Scholarship. She is particularly interested in the theological interpretation of Scripture, performative readings of the Bible, and the overarching biblical narrative, and regularly preaches and speaks on the Old Testament in churches and other gatherings. She has served as a short-term volunteer teaching the Bible in theological colleges in Zambia, Central Asia, and South East Asia.

Melinda Cousins’ recent publications include “Conversing with the God of the Pilgrimage Psalms” in St Mark’s Review, “Preaching the Psalms” for Preaching Today, “A Spirituality of Walking” for Zadok Perspectives, and the chapter “The Psalms and the Senses” for the forthcoming book Grounded: in the Body, in Time and Place, in Scripture.

Merrill Kitchen

Merrill Kitchen, an ordained minister of Churches of Christ in Australia, initially trained as a Medical Scientist and worked in hospitals in Melbourne and Israel / Palestine. After returning to Australia, she engaged in theological studies part-time with the Melbourne College of Divinity, while at the same time tutoring at the University of Melbourne Medical School and then lecturing in the newly introduced health sciences units at the Institute of Catholic Education / Australian Catholic University. Her postgraduate theological studies have been in the areas of social, political, and cultural readings of the New Testament. At the end of 2009 she retired after 10 years as Dean of the Evangelical Theological Association and a further 10 years as Principal of the Churches of Christ Theological College in Melbourne. During that time, she participated in the governing body of the Melbourne College of Divinity (now University of Divinity) serving as its President in 2004-2005. She was appointed a Fellow of the MCD. University in 2010.

Merrill Kitchen has published articles in Pacifica, The Journal of the Australian Institute of Archaeology, Conversations, and Ministry, Society and Theology. Her book chapters include “Holding Hands and Bearing Arms: A Continuing Challenge for Global Communities” in Religion and Ethics in a Globalizing World (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011); “A Protestant Reflection on St Mary of the Cross” in In the Land of Larks and Heroes: Australian Reflections on St Mary MacKillop (ATF Press, 2010); “Women in the Gospels and Parables” in The Meaning of the Gospels and Acts (Dar Alfarabi, 2008); and “Re-reading the Parable of the Pounds” in Prophecy and Passion. Essays in Honour of Athol Gill(ATF, 2002). Merrill Kitchen co-authored a book with Michael Trainor called Journeying with the Christ: An Ecumenical Resource from the Gospel of Mark (Open Book, 2005).

Merryl L. Blair

Merryl L. Blair is Lecturer in Old Testament at Stirling Theological College, the University of Divinity. She was a registered nurse for 20 years and a youth minister for three years, much of which was concurrent with studying theology at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Merryl enjoys introducing people to the wonderful complexities of the Hebrew Bible, in which the struggles and joys of everyday existence are brought into conversation with faith in a God who is totally involved in our existence. Merryl is a past President of the Conference of Churches of Christ in Victoria and Tasmania. She also is a minister at Hartwell Church of Christ.

Merryl Blair’s publications include: “A Woman in Ministry” in Telling Our Story: Women in Ministry (Churches of Christ in Australia, 2012); “The ‘Order of Melchizedek’: Hebrews 7 as a Model for Thinking Ecumenically about Priesthood.” Journal of Ecumenical Studies, 53 (1). 2018, 95–110; “God is an Earthquake: Destabilising Metaphor in Hosea 11.” Australian Biblical Review, 2007; “Beautiful in Its Time: An Optimist Reads Qoheleth” in Wisdom for Life. Australian Theological Forum Series (16). (ATF, 2005).

Merryl represented Churches of Christ in Australia in an International Dialogue between the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and the Roman Catholic Church. The focus of this dialogue was on the Lord’s Supper / Eucharist. Merryl has also taught at Northrise University in Zambia. In 2014, Merryl spent six weeks of her sabbatical at Northrise, her third visit in five years, each visit bringing her more deeply into the community. Since its finding in Zambia in 2004, the university had grown to around 500 students, most of whom are from villages. In addition to teaching biblical studies Merryl has taught community development at Northrise University, where one of the students has started a school, feeding programme, classes, and micro loans programs for women, support for the children’s carers, and links with local health care to assist with getting children tested and treated for HIV and AIDS. Another woman, on the Constitution committee, used insights gained from one of Merryl’s talks on Genesis to argue successfully against writing the subordination of women into the Zambian Constitution. The influence has been two way. Merryl has found her Zambian students more alert to the rhythms of oral story telling than their Melbourne counterparts. Her experience has opened up her understanding of biblical worlds. “Now I understand the world of the OT that I’m actually teaching, because I see people living it out.”

Michele Connolly

Michele Connolly is a Sister of St Joseph of Lochinvar in the Hunter Valley, NSW. From 1976, she taught in secondary schools of the Maitland diocese. In the late 1980s, she began theology studies, first at the Yarra Theological Union in Melbourne and then at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago in 1990, graduating with an M.A. (Theol.). In the early 1990s, she taught New Testament at Catholic Theological Union, Hunter’s Hill, and in many parishes and spiritual renewal centres. After returning from studies for the PhD in New Testament at the Graduate Theological Union, in Berkeley, California, she joined the faculty of the Catholic Institute of Sydney in 2001 to teach New Testament Studies.

Michele Connolly’s book is Disorderly Women and the Order of God: An Australian Feminist Reading of the Gospel of Mark (T&T Clark, 2019). Her articles include: “Antipodean and Biblical Encounter: Postcolonial Vernacular Hermeneutics in Novel Form”, Religions 2019, 10(6), 358; “The World’s Golden Rule in Christian Mode”, Health and Social Care Chaplaincy, July 2015, 3(2): 142–54.

Miriam Bier Hinksman

Miriam Bier Hinksman is an Associate Research Fellow and Visiting Lecturer in Old Testament at London School of Theology. She has a PhD in Old Testament from the University of Otago in New Zealand, her homeland, and her primary area of research is the book of Lamentations. Miriam loves making the Old Testament interesting and accessible to students at all levels, asking the hard questions about how we as Christians can understand and apply the Old Testament to life today. She teaches and preaches regularly at her church in Canterbury.

Miriam Bier Hinksman’s publications include: ‘Perhaps there is Hope’: reading Lamentations as a Polyphony of Pain, Penitence, and Protest in The Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies (T&T Clark, 2016); Spiritual Complaint: The Theology and Practice of Lament (edited with Bulkeley, Wipf and Stock, 2013); “We have Sinned and Rebelled; You have Not Forgiven: The Dialogic Interaction between Authoritative and Internally Persuasive Discourse in Lamentations 3.” Biblical Interpretation, 22:2, 2014, 146–67.

Narelle (nee Melton) Coetzee

Narelle Coetzee holds a PhD from the University of Birmingham (UK) 2016, M.Div. from Sydney College of Divinity, Grad.Dip. Midwifery from University of Western Sydney, and Bachelor of Nursing (honours) from University of Canberra. She worked as a nurse/midwife from 2000–2006. Narelle then joined Alphacrucis College in 2007, becoming a lecturer in Old Testament. She has worked as the Director of Academic Administration, and, after returning from maternity leave, she is currently the Director of Learning and Teaching.

Narelle’s research areas include Lament Psalms, Pentecostal Spirituality, and  Old Testament Wilderness using a Narrative-Geographical Method focus. Her PhD was called “Wild God in the Wilderness: Why does Yahweh choose to appear in the wilderness in the Book of Exodus” (link to thesis: https://etheses.bham.ac.uk/id/eprint/7115/).

Narelle has published the following articles under her maiden name Melton. Melton, N.J. (2013). ‘Wilderness: Holy Yahweh’s Innate Habitat?’ In Lee Roy Martin (ed), A Future for Holiness: Pentecostal Explorations (pp. 9–23). CPT Press, Cleveland, TN; Melton, N.J. (2011). ‘Wooly Sheep and New Fields: The Old Testament and Singleness,’ In Lily Arasaratnam (ed), P.S. I’m Single: Reflections on Singleness (pp. 34–70). APSS, Sydney; Melton, N.J. (2011). ‘Lessons of Lament: Reflections on the correspondence between the Lament Psalms and Early Australian Pentecostal Prayer.’ Journal of Pentecostal Theology, 20, no. 1, 68–80; Melton, N.J. (2009). ‘A Pentecostal Lament: Is there a correspondence between the form of the biblical lament Psalms and early Australian Pentecostal prayer?’ Australasian Pentecostal Studies Journal, 12, 39–72.

Rachelle Gilmour

Rachelle Gilmour is Bromby Senior Lecturer of Old Testament at Trinity College, University of Divinity in Australia. Her research in Biblical Studies specializes in the narrative books of the Hebrew Bible and she is currently writing a volume on Divine Violence in the book of Samuel for OUP.

Rachelle Gilmour has published two books, Representing the Past: A Literary Analysis of Narrative Historiography in the Book of Samuel (Brill, 2011) and Juxtaposition and the Elisha Cycle (T&T Clark, 2014) and a number of articles on different aspects of history, theology, and narrative art in the Hebrew Bible.

Rebecca Burgess

Rebecca Burgess is a Teaching Fellow at Bishopdale Theological College, Nelson, NZ, specializing in Biblical Studies and languages. Her PhD (2017, Otago Uni, NZ) was entitled “A Christian Reading of Psalm 119: An Exploration of Torah as God’s Self-Revelation using a Trinitarian Hermeneutic.” Her research was a rigorous investigation of the practice and legitimacy of grounding Christian reading of Scripture at every level in participation in Christ. Whilst her primary work is in OT and NT, her work is interdisciplinary drawing also on Early Church Fathers and Systematic Theology.

Rebecca Burgess’ publications include: “Trinitarian Hermeneutics in Hilary of Poitiers’ commentary on the Psalms” (Phronema, Vol 29 No 1, 2014); “The Law Preaches the Incarnation: Reading the Law in Hilary of Poitiers’ Commentary on Ps 119.” (Phronema Vol 30 No 2, 2015); “The Unity of Law and Love in Ps 119: A Christian Reading” in Biblical Ethics: Tensions between Justice and Mercy, Law and Love, Piscataway, New Jersey: Gorgias Press, 2019). Her primary passion is serving God through the Church among youth. Her studies and teaching continue to be inspired by the desire to see young people and the church at large more deeply discipled in the way of God in Christ.

Robyn Whitaker

Robyn Whitaker is Senior Lecturer in New Testament at Pilgrim Theological College, at the University of Divinity (Melbourne, Australia). Born in South Africa, Robyn was raised in Australia and the UK. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago Divinity School and has taught at Princeton Theological Seminary and Union Theological Seminary in New York. Her research focuses on the apocalyptic literature of the Bible, particularly Revelation, as well as visuality and visual exegesis of the Bible.

Robyn Whitaker’s first book, Ekphrasis, Vision, and Persuasion in the Book of Revelation, was published in 2015. In addition to her scholarly work, Robyn regularly writes popular articles on the Bible, gender, and sexuality, and co-hosts a podcast for preachers.

Rosemary Canavan

Rosemary Canavan is a Senior Lecturer in Biblical Studies at Catholic Theological College, University of Divinity in Melbourne, Victoria in Australia. Dr Canavan holds a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and Anthropology from University of Adelaide as well as a Bachelor of Theology with Honours and PhD from Flinders University, South Australia. Currently she is President of the Australian Catholic Biblical Association (ACBA) and was President of the Fellowship of Biblical Studies in 2018. Dr Canavan is a member of the Editorial Board for the Exploring Sociorhetorical Interpretation Commentary Series (SBL Press) and is writing the volume on 1 and 2 Thessalonians.

Her doctorate is published as Clothing the Body of Christ at Colossae (2012) and she has book sections such as ““Unravelling the Threads of Identity: Cloth and Clothing in the Lycus Valley” (2019) and “Armor, Gladiators and Peace: A Visual Exegesis of Ephesians 6:10-20” (2017), and articles such as “A Woman, a Coin and the Prosperity of Colossae”(2019) and “Lydia: Open-Hearted to Mission” (2019).

Sarah Harris

Sarah Harris is Lecturer in NT studies at Carey Baptist College and Carey Graduate School, and an ordained Anglican Priest. She has a B.Mus. (University of Canterbury), Dip.Teach. (Victoria University), BD (Laidlaw), and PhD (University of Otago).

Sarah Harris’s research interests are in Gospel studies, Feminist studies, and the Gospel of Luke. Her publications include The Davidic Shepherd King in the Lukan Narrative (T & T Clark, 2016), “When Staff Teams Disagree: Paul as Pastor in Philippians” in Paul as Pastor (T & T Clark, 2018), and “Letting (H)Anna Speak” in Feminist Theology, 27 (1), 60–74.

Sylvia Collinson

Sylvia Collinson is a retired lecturer from Morling College, Sydney. She holds an Honours degree in Theology (London School of Theology), Master of Education (Sydney University), and Ph.D.(Murdoch University). Her doctoral research explored making disciples from a biblical and educational perspective. During her career Sylvia lectured in Bible and Theological Colleges in three states of Australia. She was Acting Principal of the Bible College of South Australia (1988–1989), and served as Vice Principal and Dean of Students in various colleges. She has held pastoral positions in NSW Baptist Churches. She has had significant involvement with Scripture Union International, speaking at National and International Conferences, writing SUI Bible Reading guides, and serving as chair of Australian and Western Australian Councils.

Sylvia Collinson’s publications include Making Disciples: The Significance of Jesus’ Educational Methods for Today’s Church (Paternoster, 2004), contributions to IVP Women’s Bible Commentary (IVP, 2002), and Women’s Study: New Testament (HarperCollins, 1995).

Theresa Yu Chui Siang Lau

Theresa Yu Chui Siang Lau is an Australian Chinese theologian, graduated from the University of Melbourne with a BA, majoring in Jewish Studies and Psychology, BTh from Australian College of Theology and PhD from the University of Melbourne. Her areas of interest include the Gospels, Didache, and early church development. She is an ordained priest in Anglican Diocese Melbourne. Have been a missionary to Spain, currently serving as a lecturer and Online Course Coordinator in Melbourne School of Theology.

A lifelong learner, Theresa Yu Chui Siang Lau has published various journal articles and book chapters in both English and Chinese, including “The Gospels and the Old Testament” in The Content and Setting of the Gospel Tradition(Eerdmans, 2010) and is currently turning her PhD dissertation, titled “Reading the Gospel of Matthew as a Gospel of the Jerusalem Council” into a book.

Vicky Balabanski

Vicky Balabanski, a New Testament scholar at Flinders University of South Australia, has a focus on ecological hermeneutics. She is the daughter of post-war displaced people from Orthodox and Catholic roots, and is ordained in the Uniting Church. Her doctoral work was done in Berne, Switzerland, and this work was published as Eschatology in the Making: Mark, Matthew and the Didache by Cambridge University Press (1997). In 1996, she was a post-doctoral fellow at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem. Her feminist rereading of the “Wise and Foolish Virgins (Mt. 25.1-13)” (2002) has been influential.

Vicky Balabanski is a writer and editor in the international Earth Bible Project. Her Earth Bible commentary – Colossians: An Eco-Stoic Reading – is published by Bloomsbury T & T Clark (2020). Vicky Balabanski has long-term connections with a remote Aboriginal community, and works together with Indigenous writers who are developing their own hermeneutical approaches to reading the Bible.

Wendy Mayer

Wendy Mayer is Professor and Associate Dean for Research at Australian Lutheran College. In 2019, Professor Wendy Mayer was elected Head of the Religion section of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. She is trained as a classicist (in Greek and Latin language and literature) and gained her doctorate in Studies in Religion at University of Queensland in 1996. Since gaining her doctorate she has mostly been working with a team of researchers as they built the international reputation of the Centre for Early Christian Studies at Australian Catholic University. Her career has been research-focused, and fostering and mentoring a research culture that opens up and explores questions of relevance to the contemporary world is her passion. Her latest ARC (Australian Research Council) grant (with Prof. Bronwen Neil, Macquarie University; Prof. Pauline Allen, ACU; and A/Prof. Chris de Wet, University of South Africa) is titled: Memories of Utopia: Destroying the Past to Create the Future (300–650 CE)

Wendy Mayer’s publications include: (with Éric Fournier) ed., Heirs of Roman Persecution: Studies on a Christian and Para-Christian Discourse in Late Antiquity (Routledge, 2019); (with Chris L. de Wet) ed., Revisioning John Chrysostom: New Approaches, New Perspectives, Critical Approaches to Early Christianity 1 (Brill, 2019); (with Chris de Wet) Reconceiving Religious Conflict: New Views from the Formative Centuries of Christianity, Routledge Studies in the Early Christian World (Routledge, 2018); (with Geoffrey D. Dunn) ed., Christians Shaping Identity from the Roman Empire to Byzantium: Studies inspired by Pauline Allen, Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae 132 (Brill, 2015); (with Ian J. Elmer) ed., Men and Women in the Early Christian Centuries, Early Christian Studies 18 (St Pauls, 2014); (with Bronwen Neil) ed., Religious Conflict from Early Christianity to the Rise of Islam, Arbeiten zur Kirchengeschichte 121 (De Gruyter, 2013); (with Pauline Allen) The Churches of Syrian Antioch (300–638 CE), Late Antique History and Religion 5 (Peeters, 2012).

Yael Klangwisan

Yael Klangwisan was born in the sunny coastal town of Whitianga, but has lived overseas for much of her life including, Australia, the USA, Ireland and Thailand. She has worked as exploration geologist, scientist, high school teacher, ESL teacher, asylum seeker advocate and lecturer. Yael is Head of Education in the School of Social Practice, Laidlaw College but also a senior lecturer (Hebrew Bible) for Laidlaw Graduate School.  Yael’s creative works PhD (Biblical Literature/Philosophy) was undertaken at AUT with a focus on the Song of Songs.  At AUT Yael is a leading researcher and supervises doctoral research in Bible and Critical Theory and research engaging creative works methodologies.  

For Yael Klangwisan, the Hebrew Bible is a beautiful and troubled set of texts but one that remains a gift in the present, bringing together, as it has for thousands of years, understandings of divinity and humanity via a diverse array of writings. In her research, Yael engages in innovative explorations of the biblical text especially as it intersects with conceptions and categories in continental philosophy and critical theory. She seeks to utilise curiosity, creative thinking and the poetic imagination in her textual re-readings. She has enjoyed opportunities to work with other women scholars of the bible and theology in Aotearoa New Zealand such as Carolyn Blyth, Emily Colgan and Nicola Hoggard Creegan.

Yael Klangwisan has published widely in journals and contributed to edited books upon the engagement of the bible by philosophers such as Hélène Cixous and Jacques Derrida among others. She has also published widely on the Hebrew Bible with respect to film, contemporary literatures, the arts, poetry, the question of the animal as well as feminist theory, sexuality, Jewish literatures and critical pedagogy. Yael is a published poet and the author of the books Jouissance: A Cixousian Encounter with the Song of Songs (Sheffield Phoenix, 2015) and Earthing the Cosmic Queen: Shir haShirim and Relevance Theory (Wipf and Stock, 2014).

Christian Thought

Christian Thought includes Church History, Ethics, Feminist and Postcolonial Theologies, Indigenous Peoples Studies and Theologies, Race and Intersectionality, Philosophy, Religious and Interfaith Studies, Systematic Theology, and more.

Alana Harris

Alana Harris is a senior lecturer in modern British history at King’s College London. Drawing upon her theological and ecumenical formation at the University of Divinity (Melbourne, Australia), she researches and publishes in areas related to the history of religion, ecumenical and inter-religious relations, gender studies, and feminism. She has established an international expertise in the study of everyday “lived religion”, encompassing material cultures, pilgrimage, oral history, and popular devotion.

These are issues taken up in Alana Harris’s first monograph Faith in the Family: A Lived Religious History of English Catholicism 1945-82 (Manchester University Press, 2016) and developed in the edited volume The Schism of ’68: Catholicism, Contraception and Humanae Vitae in Europe 1945-75 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018). She is currently editing The Oxford History of British and Irish Catholicism, Volume V 1914 to the Present (2022).

Angeline M.G. Song

Angeline M.G. Song often uses her complex context as a female adoptee of a single woman in postcolonial Singapore, and her experiences as a first generation Peranakan (Malay–Chinese) immigrant in New Zealand, to inform her theology and biblical criticism. Song, who obtained her Ph.D. from the University of Otago, and master’s and BDiv degrees from Auckland, specializes in autobiographical contextual biblical interpretation. She has guest lectured in this area in the United States, Australia, and New Zealand.

In her book A Postcolonial Woman Encounters Moses and Miriam (Palgrave MacMillan, 2015), Song developed a nuanced theory of empathy and interweaved the methodological with the personal to bring a new approach to Exodus 2. The publication had a special book review section dedicated to it at the International SBL meeting in Seoul (2016).

In addition, Song holds Bachelor of Arts and BA (Hons) degrees from the National University of Singapore. She worked as a newspaper reporter, associate news editor and multimedia projects editor with the Singapore Press Holdings before emigrating to New Zealand. During this time, she also served on three youth- related Government committees. In Auckland, Song works with students who have disability issues. She has also been a lecturer teaching literacy, numeracy, and employment skills to adult learners in a tertiary institution based in Otara, one of the poorest suburbs in Auckland. Her learners were/are mostly from minority ethnicities including indigenous Maori, Pacific Islanders, and refugees.

Angeline M.G. Song’s other publications include “Not Just a Bimbo: A Reading of Esther by a Singaporean Immigrant in Aotearoa New Zealand” in Sea of Readings: The Bible in the South Pacific (edited by Jione Havea, Semeia, SBL 2018); “Imaging Moses and Miriam Re-Imaged: Through the Empathic Looking Glass of a Singaporean Peranakan Woman” (edited by Athalya Brenner and Gale A. Yee, Fortress, 2012); “Tamar Versus Tamar Verses: An Empathetic and Focalized Reading” in Portraits of a King Favoured by God. (Biblical Intersections 8, edited by Mishael M. Caspi and John T. Greene. Gorgias, 2012); and “Heartless Bimbo or Subversive Role Model?: A Narrative (Self) Critical Reading of the Character of Esther” (Dialog, 2010). Song also has a pending chapter “Why did Naboth say ‘No!’ to a King?: Some Considerations Before Attempting a Reading of 1 Kings 21 – or any other biblical narrative” for a volume on Minority and Minoritized Criticism of the Bible (to be edited by Fernando F. Segovia and Tat-Siong Benny Liew).

Anita Monro

Anita Monro is an ordained minister of The Uniting Church in Australia. She holds a PhD from Griffith University (Brisbane, Australia) in feminist theological methodology. She has taught hermeneutics, theology, and liturgy at several Australian theological colleges; and was a key contributor to the Uniting Church’s worship book, Uniting in Worship 2(UCA, 2005). She has served on the national Doctrine and Liturgy Commissions of the Uniting Church and in congregations in both Queensland and New South Wales. She is currently CEO of a residential college for women tertiary students located on the St Lucia Campus of The University of Queensland (UQ). She is an Honorary Research Senior Fellow with UQ’s School of History and Philosophical Inquiry.

Anita Monro’s publications include Resurrecting Erotic Transgression (Routledge, 2006) and Public Theology and the Challenge of Feminism (Routledge, 2015; co-edited with Stephen Burns).

Anna McGahan (Anna Weir)

Anna Weir is a performer, poet, scriptwriter, and author based in Melbourne, Australia. She works professionally in Australian television, film, and theatre under her maiden name, Anna McGahan, and has performed in programs such as Underbelly: Razor, House Husbands, Anzac Girls, The Doctor Blake Mysteries and Picnic at Hanging Rock. As a writer, she received the Queensland Young Playwright’s Award in 2008 and 2009, was short-listed for the Queensland Premier’s Drama Award in 2010, and The Saturday Paper’s national essay award ‘The Horne Prize’ in 2016. She co-wrote the immersive poetry and theatre production ‘The People of the Sun’ with Joel McKerrow, which toured Melbourne and Sydney in 2016/2017.

Anna McGahan’s first book Metanoia: A Memoir of a Body Born Again, was published in August 2019 by Acorn Press. Anna is passionate about spiritual revival and restoration within the performing arts industries, and founded the arts collective ‘The Fireplace’ in 2015.

Anne Hunt

Anne Hunt is an Australian Catholic lay woman theologian. She holds several degrees, including MSc(Educ) (Fordham, NYC), MA(Theol) (CathTheolUnion, Chicago), and DTheol (MelbCollDiv). Now Professor Emeritus, she served during her career as inaugural Executive Dean of the Faculty of Theology and Philosophy at Australian Catholic University, Chair of the Council of Deans of Theology (Australia), and President of the Australian Catholic Theological Association. Her area of special interest is trinitarian theology.

Anne Hunt’s monographs include The Trinity and the Paschal Mystery (Glazier, 1997), Trinity: Nexus of the Mysteries of Christian Faith (Orbis, 2005), and Trinity: Insights from the Mystics (Glazier, 2010). She also has an interest in the visual arts as a medium for communicating the mysteries of faith and in theological education more generally.

Antonia Pizzey

Antonia Pizzey was awarded her PhD from Australian Catholic University in 2016. Her research interests include Vatican II, ecclesiology, virtues such as hope and humility, and contemporary approaches to ecumenism, such as Receptive Ecumenism and Spiritual Ecumenism. For her PhD, she investigated the dynamic between Receptive Ecumenism and Spiritual Ecumenism. Antonia Pizzey was a participant in the Global Ecumenical Theological Institute, held at the WCC’s 10th Assembly in October 2013. She received first class for her honours thesis, as well as the University Medal and the Faculty Honours Medal. She teaches theology in the School of Theology at Australian Catholic University.

Antonia Pizzey’s publications include Receptive Ecumenism and the Renewal of the Ecumenical Movement (Brill, 2019) and “God is Love: Ecumenism of the Heart” in Prospects and Challenges for the Ecumenical Movement in the 21st Century: Insights from the Global Ecumenical Theological Institute (Globethics.net Global Series) (Volume 12) (Globethics.net, 2016).

Avril Hannah-Jones

Avril Hannah-Jones was ordained a minister by the Uniting Church in Australia in 2008 and has had congregational placements in rural Victoria and Melbourne. Previously, Avril completed a PhD in history at the University of Melbourne with the thesis topic: “The Sexuality Debate in the Uniting Church, 1977–2000.”

Avril ‘came out’ as queer at the 1997 national Assembly of the Uniting Church and has been fighting for LGBTIQ equality and inclusion for over twenty years. She campaigned for marriage equality in the Uniting Church and in wider Australian society, and was ecstatic when both campaigns were successful. Now she is campaigning to make sure that that ‘one step forward’ will not lead to ‘two steps back’ with the Religious Discrimination Bill.

Avril has written occasional articles for Crosslight, Eureka Street and The Melbourne Anglican. Her other publications have included Christianity in the 21st century: Four Studies for Groups (2014); “Good and Evil in the World of Supernatural” in In the Hunt:Unauthorized Essays on Supernatural, (2009); and “Competing Claims for Justice: Sexuality and Race at the Eighth Assembly of the Uniting Church in Australia, 1997,” Journal of the History of Sexuality, vol. 12 (2003). But Avril is most regularly found blogging at www.revdocgeek.com and tweeting @docavvers.

Caroline Blyth

Caroline Blyth is senior lecturer in Theological and Religious Studies at the University of Auckland. Originally hailing from Scotland, she has lived and worked in New Zealand since 2011. After getting a degree in Psychology, she worked for thirteen years as a mental health nurse, before returning to University in 2000 to take up Biblical Studies. She received her PhD in 2008 and worked for two years at the University of Edinburgh, before getting a permanent post in New Zealand. Caroline’s main research interest is gender in the Hebrew Bible, particularly as it relates to gender violence in all its forms. She focuses primarily on reception history, looking at the ways biblical traditions about women, gender, and gender violence are retold and interpreted in both biblical scholarship and popular culture. She is the co-lead in The Shiloh Project, an online research hub that considers the complex relationships between rape culture and religion. Her current research project compares depictions of femicide and gender violence in the Hebrew Bible with those found so ubiquitously in crime fiction and true crime narratives.

Caroline Blyth has written two monographs: The Narrative of Rape in Genesis 34: Interpreting Dinah’s Silence (Oxford University Press, 2010), which considers biblical depictions of sexual violence in light of contemporary rape myths; and Reimagining Delilah’s Afterlives as Femme Fatale: The Lost Seduction (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2017), where she considers the interpretive and cultural afterlives of Delilah. She is also an enthusiastic editor, having co-edited a number of volumes, including most recently a 3-volume series on Rape Culture, Gender Violence, and Religion (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018; co-edited with Emily Colgan and Katie B. Edwards) and a volume on biblical themes in crime fiction and drama (The Bible in Crime Fiction and Drama: Murderous Texts, London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2018; co-edited with Alison Jack). She is also co-editor of two journals, The Bible and Critical Theory, and Women’s Studies Journal Aotearoa.​

Carolyn Alsen

Carolyn Alsen is an educator and researcher in religious and biblical studies, with a background in higher education, Bible translation in Papua New Guinea, religious education, and pastoral work. Dr Alsen holds an MA in Biblical Studies from Trinity Western University, Canada and a PhD in Hebrew Bible from the University of Divinity, Australia. Her academic role is in the educational leadership of the University of Divinity, Australia. Her Hebrew Bible research is in gaze theories, Evil Eye and surveillance, Critical Theory, biblical decolonizing, gender criticism, the book of Genesis and biblical Semitics. She is currently editing a volume in feminist theologies. She has conducted contextual reading alongside First Nations communities on Vancouver Island, and worked on translation of Syriac manuscripts at the Centre for Biblical and Early Christian Studies, Australian Catholic University.

Carolyn Alsen’s publications include “Veiled Resistance: The Cognitive Dissonance of Vision in Genesis 38,” in Imagined Worlds and Constructed Differences in the Hebrew Bible (2019); “Drones Over Sodom: Resisting the Fantasy of Security,” in Ecological Aspects of War: Engagements with Biblical Texts (2017); “Staring Down the Violence: Surveillance in Genesis,” in Colloquium: The Australian and New Zealand Theological Review (2016) and “Elements of Sentence Construction and Cohesion in Awad Bing,” in Papers on Six Languages of Papua New Guinea (2010).

Carolyn Ellen Kelly

Carolyn Ellen Kelly is currently lead Chaplain at the University of Auckland, to which she was ordained in 2015. After completing BA and MA studies and various roles, she gained a BD (Distinction) from Otago. Her PhD (Aberdeen, 2008) considered the theology of Scottish 19th Century writer George MacDonald. She has a keen interest in western culture, especially interpreting the history of ideas and embodied faith, literature and film, feminism, the created world, and, more recently, how the gospel is lived and transformational in the secular university.

Carolyn Ellen Kelly has lectured on theology and the arts, led retreats and conferences, and her publications include: “Re-forming Beauty: Can Theological Sense Accommodate Aesthetic Sensibility?” in ‘Tikkun Olam’ To Mend the World: A Confluence of Theology and the Arts (J. Goroncy Ed., Wipf and Stock, 2013); and “Art has its Reasons: The Emerging Role of the Arts in Protestant Congregations” with Lynne Baab in Journal of Communication and Religion (2011).

Catherine Laufer

Catherine Laufer (Cathy) is the daughter of Hungarian holocaust survivors, baptised as an infant as ‘protection’ against future genocide. She came to own Christian faith at an Anglican school in Sydney. Cathy’s first career was as a psychologist working with intellectually disabled and highly gifted children, and lecturing in psychology at Australian Catholic University. She was ordained an Anglican priest in Melbourne in 2000 and continued lecturing while working in parish ministry. She has held various teaching and parish positions and is now in charge of the parish of Coolum Beach on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia. Cathy also teaches theology at St Francis College in Brisbane. Her subject areas are Triune God and Anglican history and theology. Cathy’s doctoral work began under the late Professor Colin Gunton in London and was completed at Monash University, Melbourne. Cathy has been a regular sabbatical chaplain at Gladstone’s Library, North Wales, and has lived in the USA and Israel.

Cathy Laufer’s publications include her doctoral thesis (Hell’s Destruction: An Exploration of Christ’s Descent to the Dead, Ashgate, 2013), contributions to two books (Speaking Differently. Essays in Theological Anthropology, Barton, 2013, and A Thoughtful Life. Essays in Philosophical Theology, ATF, 2006) and several journal articles. Her most recent book, But What If She’d Said ‘No’? Backstories to the Bible (Morningstar, 2018) is a venture into narrative theology, using stories to express biblical truths.

Cristina Lledo Gomez

Cristina Lledo Gomez is a Filipina-Australian systematic theologian. She completed her PhD in Theology at Charles Sturt University and her Master of Theology at the Catholic Institute of Sydney (Sydney College of Divinity). After completing her PhD in early 2015, Cristina became Visiting International Research Fellow at Boston College’s School of Theology and Ministry for the academic year, 2015-16, turning her PhD thesis into her first book, The Church as Woman and Mother: Historical and Theological Foundations (Paulist, 2018).

Cristina Lledo Gomez has a passion for social justice and women, writing, researching and presenting on areas such as domestic violence, migration, abuse in the church, ecology, and intersectionality. She has also written on maternal-feminist theologies. Cristina was Social Justice Coordinator for the Catholic Diocese of Broken Bay from 2017–18 and currently Chair of the Australian Catholic Social Justice Council (2019–21). She is the Presentation Sisters Lecturer at BBI–The Australian Institute for Theological Education, a role directed at promoting women’s spiritualities, feminist theologies, and ecotheology. In addition, she is Pastoral Associate for Staff at Australian Catholic University, North Sydney, and Religion and Society Research Fellow for Charles Sturt University.

Christine Elisabeth Burke

Christine Elisabeth Burke is a Catholic theologian and holds a master’s degree from the Jesuit School of Theology in Chicago, and a PH. D from the Centre for Religious Studies in Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. She is a member of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Loreto Sisters), founded by Mary Ward in 1609. With a background in adult faith and leadership formation for an Archdiocese in Australia, she is currently living in the Philippines, supporting younger women studying theology in a second language and lecturing some seminarians in feminist theology and spirituality-a whole new perspective for them given the strong patriarchy in cultures and churches across most of the Asia-Pacific region. She is a member of the Ecclesia of Women in Asia, a network of Catholic women theologians.

Christine Elisabeth Burke’s books include Through a Woman’s Eyes (Collins Dove, 1989) retelling some gospel texts from the experience of the participants, and more recently Freedom Justice and Sincerity (ATF, 2009) and The Gift of Mary Ward (Garratt, 2013), two books exploring the role of Mary Ward, a pioneer in seeking equal participation for women in the ministry of the church.

Christy Capper

Christy Capper is an Anglican priest and currently serves as the Vice-Principal and Director of Missiology at Uniting College for Leadership and Theology in Adelaide, South Australia she is also a lecturer in theology at Flinders University. Christy began her undergraduate degree in history in 2002 before working in university ministry until 2009 when she started studying theology. She completed a Graduate Diploma in Theology and a Master of Arts in Vocational Practice at Tabor Victoria before completing a Master of Theological Studies and a PhD with the University of Divinity.

Christy Capper’s doctoral work was entitled The Theological Imperative to Authenticity and was in the field of theological anthropology. Her other academic interests include feminist theology, theology of the body, and the intersection between theology and popular culture. Christy’s publications include “A Mutual Understanding” in We are Pilgrims, edited by Darren Cronshaw and Rosemary Dewerse (UNOH, 2015), and she looks forward to being able to engage in more publishing – especially in the area of authentic selfhood, now that her doctorate is complete.

Claire Renkin

Claire Renkin has a PhD in Art History from Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. During the 1990s she lectured in art history at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Since 2001 Claire has lectured in art history and spirituality at Yarra Theological Union, University of Divinity where she teaches courses on the art and spirituality of Western Europe from Late Antiquity to the Early Modern period. Her research and publications focus on visual imagery, gender, and female sanctity, c. 1300-1700.

Claire Renkin’s publications include: “Sanctity” in Imagination, Books and Community in Medieval Europe (2010), “Visualising Spiritual Intimacy in the Franciscan Tradition: An Image from a German Fifteenth-Century Life of St Clare” in Interpreting Francis and Clare of Assisi: From the Middle Ages to the Present (2010), “Real Presence: Seeing, Touching, Tasting: Visualising the Eucharist in Late Medieval Art” in Reinterpreting the Eucharist. Explorations in Feminist Theology and Ethics (2013), “’A Feast of Love’: Visual Images of SS. Francis of Assisi and Mary Magdalen and late Medieval Mendicant Devotion” in Poverty and Devotion in Mendicant Cultures 1200 – 1450 (2016).

Danielle Anne Lynch

Danielle Anne Lynch is Director of Mission at St Augustine’s College, Cairns, where she teaches Religion. Danielle is a musician-theologian and composer and works in the area of music in and as theology. She is a member of the Australian Catholic Theological Association. Her doctorate on theology of music was awarded by the University of Leeds in 2015.

Danielle Anne Lynch’s areas of interest include Music as Theology, Theology and the Arts, Systematic Theology, Feminist Theology, Mission and Evangelization, and Religious Education. Her book God in Sound and Silence: Music as Theology was published in 2018 by Pickwick. Danielle can be found at www.danielleannelynch.com and on twitter @DALynch146.

Deborah Guess

Deborah Guess is a systematic theologian with a special research focus on ecological theology. She is Research Associate and Adjunct Teacher at Pilgrim Theological College, University of Divinity, Australia. Dr Guess holds a BA (Hons) from the University of London and a BTheol, MTheol, and PhD from the University of Divinity. Deborah is also a practitioner of permaculture.

In addition to a number of published book chapters and journal articles, Deborah Guess has also co-edited Ecological Aspects of War: Religious and Theological Perspectives from Australia, 2017, and is currently co-editing a collection of works on the topic of a just and ecologically sustainable peace. Dr Guess is also currently writing a monograph on an eco-theology of place.

Denise A. Austin

Denise A. Austin is an Australian Pentecostal historian. She is Deputy Vice President Research and Standards and Professor of History at Alphacrucis College. She is also Director of the Australasian Pentecostal Studies Centre and has won many research grants related to the preservation and promotion of Pentecostal heritage. She holds a Ph.D. from University of Queensland. Denise is an ordained minister with Australian Christian Churches (Assemblies of God in Australia), and chair of the Theological Commission of Asia Pacific Theological Association. She publishes widely in the areas of Pentecostal, Asian, and oral history, and speaks regularly at national and international conferences.

Denise A. Austin’s current research focus is Pentecostal higher education in Australia. Some of her publications include: Kingdom-Minded People: Christian Identity and the Contributions of Chinese Business Christians (Brill, 2011); Asia Pacific Pentecostalism, co-edited with Jacqueline Grey and Paul Lewis (Brill, 2019); and “‘Flowing Together’: The Origins and Early Development of Hillsong Church within Assemblies of God in Australia,” in The Hillsong Movement Examined: You Call Me Out Upon The Waters (Palgrave McMillan, 2017).

Denise Goodwin

Denise Goodwin lectures in Research Methodology and Religious Education at Catholic Theological College University of Divinity, Melbourne, Australia. She holds a Doctor of Philosophy from Australian Catholic University along with a degree in Education. Her research interests include applying qualitative methodology in theological research, social science research methodologies applied to theological research and the spirituality of war affected children. Denise has published several articles on theological learning methods and qualitative methodology as well as presenting on these topics at international and domestic theological conferences. Dr Goodwin is a member of the Academic Board of Catholic Theological College and sits on the Human Research Ethics Committee for the University of Divinity as well as holding pro bono roles on the boards of several not for profit community organizations.

Edwina Murphy

Edwina Murphy is Senior Lecturer in Christian Thought and History at Morling College, Sydney. She has previously served as a Baptist pastor. Her degrees include a BEc (Sydney), BMin and MTh (Australian College of Theology), and a PhD (Macquarie). Her research interests revolve around Cyprian, a third-century bishop, and how the early church interpreted scripture. Edwina is a member of the Council of the International Association of Patristic Studies and co-chair of the Contextualizing North African Christianity section at the Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting.

Edwina Murphy’s publications include The Bishop and the Apostle: Cyprian’s Pastoral Exegesis of Paul (De Gruyter, 2018); Deacons and Diakonia in Early Christianity (WUZNT, 2018), edited with Bart Koet and Esko Ryökäs; The Gender Conversation (W&S, 2016), edited with David Starling; and a devotional, Ancient Wisdom, Living Hope (Morning Star, 2012).

Elaine Mary Wainwright

Elaine Mary Wainwright is Professor Emerita of the University of Auckland where she established and was Head of the School of Theology/Department of Theology from 2003–2010 and again in 2014. She is a New Testament scholar of international renown, specializing in the study of the gospels, in particular the Gospel of Matthew. Professor Wainwright has had a long career in biblical studies, teaching and supervising research students, both at the University of Auckland and in the Brisbane College of Theology/Griffith University.

Elaine Mary Wainwright is currently writing the Matthew volume in the Wisdom Commentary series, a feminist commentary on each biblical book, being published by Collegeville Liturgical Press, and has recently published Habitat, Human and Holy: An Eco-Rhetorical Reading of the Gospel of Matthew in the Earth Bible Commentary Series (Sheffield Phoenix, 2016). Her publications include: The Bible in/and Popular Culture: A Creative Encounter (SBL, 2010); Women Healing/Healing Women: the Genderisation of Healing in Early Christianity (Equinox, 2006); and Shall We Look for Another: A Feminist Re-reading of the Matthean Jesus (Orbis, 1998).

Elizabeth Agaiby

Elizabeth Agaiby is an Australian-born Coptic Orthodox historian who specializes in the field of Coptic Studies. She holds a PhD from Macquarie University, Sydney Australia, and a PhD from the University of Göttingen in Germany. Prior to her current position as a lecturer and research coordinator at St Athanasius College, University of Divinity Melbourne, Dr Agaiby held various corporate positions in Business Marketing in Australia, the UK and the UAE. Her areas of interest include Christianity in Late Antiquity, Early Egyptian Monasticism, and Coptic Archaeology.

Elizabeth Agaiby’s latest publications include The Arabic Life of Antony Attributed to Serapion of Thmuis: Cultural Memory Reinterpreted (Brill, 2018), and The Greek, Coptic and Arabic Sayings of Antony the Great (co-authored with Tim Vivian, Liturgical Press, forthcoming). Dr Agaiby is currently leading a project to digitize and catalogue the entire collection of Coptic and Arabic manuscripts at the ancient Monastery of St Paul the Hermit at the Red Sea, Egypt.

Erin Martine Sessions

Erin Martine Sessions is an Australian theologian working broadly in interdisciplinary spaces. This year she took on a new role as lecturer in Integrative Studies at Excelsia, a Christian liberal arts college in Sydney. For the 6 years prior to this she lectured in Church History and Old Testament studies at Morling College, the Baptist Bible College of NSW and ACT. Erin’s area of specialization is more an area of generalization: her academic pursuit is to break down barriers between different disciplines and work to integrate them, rather than keep our knowledge in silos. She has degrees in Theology, History, and Literature and is completing her PhD on Song of Songs and the primary prevention of gender-based violence.

Erin Martine Sessions recently published an article called “‘Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires’: How does the Song of Songs speak to Australia’s problem with intimate partner violence?” Crucible 9.1 (November 2018). Her poetry is available at https://erinmartinesessions.com.au

Gemma Cruz

Gemma Cruz is a former Fellow at the Center for World Catholicism and Intercultural Theology at DePaul University in Chicago, USA. Her main area of research is migration theologies. She also does research in missiology, liberationist theologies, Asian theologies, and theologies on women and gender issues. Her research projects include “Faith on the Move: Christianity and the Intercultural Church” (ACURF), “Asian Catholicism and Globalization” (ACU-IRPS and Georgetown’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs), and “Christian Mission and Multicultural Relations” (Australian Theology Research Foundation, Inc). She is also the Coordinator of the research project “Mission and Evangelisation in the Context of Migration: Asian Perspectives” which is funded by the Centro Internazionale di Animazione Missionaria (CIAM), a centre in the Vatican. Other upcoming research projects include “Women and Mission: The Feminine Genius” for the Oxford Handbook of Mission Studies and “Contemporary Theologies of Migration” for the book Christianity and the Law of Migration, which will be published by Cambridge University Press.

Gemma Cruz’s publications include Toward a Theology of Migration: Social Justice and Religious Experience (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), and An Intercultural Theology of Migration: Pilgrims in the Wilderness (Brill, 2010). Her book chapters include: “Brothers and Sisters Across Borders: Theological Perspectives on Catholic Transnationalism,” in Migration, Transnationalism and Catholicism, eds. Dominic Pasura and Marta Bivand Erdal (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), 23–50; “Christianity and the Cause of Women in Asia,” in The Oxford Handbook on Christianity in Asia, eds. Felix Wilfred et. al. (Oxford University Press, 2014): 302–14; “A New Way of Being Christian: The Contribution of Migrants to the Church,” in Theology, Migration and World Christianity, eds. Peter Phan and Elaine Padilla (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013): 95–120; “Weapons of the Weak: Cultural Forms of Resistance and their Implications to Missionary Theology and Practice,” in Mission and Culture: The Louis J. Luzbetak Lectures, ed. Stephen Bevans (Orbis, 2012): 249–74; “God Before Us, God Among Us: Interreligious Dialogue from an Intercultural Feminist Perspective” in Schilebeeckx and Contemporary Theology, eds. Lieven Boeve, Frederiek Depoortere, and Stephan Van Erp (T & T Clark, 2010): 85–97.

Hanna Hyun

Hanna Hyun is a lecturer with the Sydney College of Divinity, teaching in cross-cultural communication, comparative religious studies, inter-faith dialogue, apologetics, introduction to Islam, reconciliation, and justice. She is Director of the Centre for Islamic Studies in Sydney. Her PhD was awarded in 2012 by the Reformed Theological Seminary, and the PhD title was Ahmadiyyat Muslims’ Understanding and Acceptance of the Justice of God.

Hanna Hyun’s publications include: Hanna Hyun, “Making a Place for the Theological Foundation of ‘Migration and Refugee’ – Review of Daniel G. Groody’s Perspective and Hospitality as a Metaphor of Mission.” Theology of Mission 55 (2019): 428–58; “The Study on the Samaritans’ Faith in the Messiah in the Context of Early Christians and Its Correlation with the Ebionites’ Christology and Missional Applications to Muslims Today” Mission Studies 37, Missio Dei in Context Oceania (accepted and forthcoming 2019); “The Modern Dhimmi and Slavery in 21st Century Islamism Based on the Origins of ISIS and Salafiya Movement,” Theology of Mission, Spring 38 (2016), 87–122; “Islamic State(ISIS), Jihad, and Good News,” Faith and Scholarship, 20:1 (2016), 199–231; “Syrian Refugee and Diaspora Missions” Theology of Mission, Vol. 37 (Nov., 2014), 407–48; “God’s Perspective on Muslim Women-Christian Participation in Islamic Gender Critique.” The Journal of Korean Evangelical Missiological Society, 21:1, (Mar. 2013), 151–94; “Peace to the Suffering Land, Iraq,” Ministry and Theology, 2, (2015), 158–61.

Heather Thomson

Retired Australian theologian, Dr Heather Thomson, taught systematic theology at St Mark’s National Theological Centre in Canberra, part of the School of Theology at Charles Sturt University. She gained her BTh and MTh from the Sydney College of Divinity, and her PhD from Charles Sturt University.

After being involved in the Movement for the Ordination of Women in the Anglican Church of Australia for almost 15 years, Heather developed an interest in feminist theology and hermeneutics, leading to further development of these topics in her theological studies. Having spent 2 years of her childhood in Nigeria, Heather maintained her African interests, and learned theologically from the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians. She also made a study of the Asian theologian, Chung Hyun Kyung, and from Chung’s involvement at the 1991 WCC meeting in Canberra, and the Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians. By the time she was teaching theology, it was clear that race, class, and gender had to be considered together, and incorporated into all levels of theological studies. Peace, justice and reconciliation grew to become central interests in theological studies and teaching.

Heather Thomson’s publications include: The Things that Make for Peace (Barton, 2009); “Justice and Gender: On Feminist Theology and Restorative Justice” in The Bible, Justice and Public Theology, ed. David Neville (Wipf and Stock, 2014); “Taking Stock: The Joy and Challenge of Ordained Women in the Anglican Church” in St Mark’s Review(no. 228, 2014), a survey of women priests for the 20th Anniversary of the ordination of women to the priesthood in Australia.

Jacqueline Service

Jacqueline Service is a Lecturer in Theology at Alphacrucis College, Sydney, Australia, where she specializes in Trinitarian Theology; Christian Classical Theism; Divine Ontology and Human Well-Being, Theology of Social Justice; and International Aid and Development. She completed her doctoral research through the Centre for Public and Contextual Theology (PaCT), Charles Sturt University (CSU), Canberra. For her thesis, she received one of the highest academic honours – the Higher Degree by Research University Medal (her PhD thesis title is Divine Self-Enrichment and Human Well-Being: A Systematic Theological Inquiry). She is currently a Trustee for the International Anglican Order of the Cross and has been actively involved various Board memberships and church ministries over many years. Alongside these undertakings, she worked as a lawyer in Commercial and Government Legal Practice, and, for over a decade, at the Australian Government’s Agency for International Development (AusAID) managing, reviewing and designing aid programs across the Pacific and South West Asia. Her work involved managing key partnerships with the Fiji Government, the World Bank, Asian Development Bank and various United Nations agencies. Jacqueline has a B.A. Intercultural Studies (Missiology); Bachelor of Laws (with Honours); Graduate Diploma in Legal Practice; a Master of Theology (with Distinction), and a PhD.

Jacqueline Service’s recent publications include “Contesting the Dynamics of Secular Development: An Ontology of Trinitarian Well-Being as Rationale for Human Well-Being” (2019), “The Australian Election: A Moment or a Movement?” (2019), and “A Disabled Trinity: Help or Hindrance to Disability Theology” (2015). She is currently turning her PhD dissertation, entitled Divine Self-Enrichment and Human Well-Being: A Systematic Theological Inquiry, with Special Reference to Development and Humanitarian Aid into a book.

Jane Foulcher

Jane Foulcher is the Associate Head of School of Theology at St Mark’s National Theological Centre, a partner in the School of Theology of Charles Sturt University. She is an Anglican priest with experience in urban and regional contexts, and in chaplaincy as well as parish ministry. Her doctoral research was in the area of monastic theology, and she has a particular interest in the relationship between theology and practice. Jane has been an academic associate in the School of Theology since 2007, teaching in systematic and practical theology, as well as in St Mark’s formation program for Anglican ordination candidates.

Jane Foulcher’s publications include: Reclaiming Humility: Four Studies in the Monastic Tradition (Cistercian, 2015); “Hildegard meets Moltmann: The Shape of Hope in the Book of Divine Works” in The Greening of Hope: Hildegard for Today, ed. Katherine Massam. (Morning Star, 2015); “Ageing, Humility, and the Monastery.” Journal of Religion, Spirituality & Aging 26, no. 2–3 (2014): 148–59; “Humility: Christian de Chergé and the ‘other’.” In Speaking Differently: Essays in Theological Anthropology, ed. Phillip Tolliday and Heather Thomson, 105–23 (Barton, 2013); “Sharing the Poetry of Grace: The Theologian as Preacher” in Embracing Grace: Essays in Honour of Graeme Garrett, ed. Heather Thompson, 23–36 (Barton, 2009); “Hand Dances and Waltzes: Reclaiming Common Worship for the Twenty-First Century” in B. Kaye (ed) ‘Wonderful and Confessedly Strange.’ Australian Essays in Anglican Ecclesiology, 157–78 (ATF, 2006).

Janette Gray

Janette Gray was a Sister of Mercy. She lectured in systematic theology at the United Faculty of Theology (Parkville) and was Principal of Jesuit Theological College, Parkville. She was previously Senior Lecturer in theology at Notre Dame University (Fremantle WA), and taught systematic and pastoral theology at Murdoch University (WA), Edith Cowan University (WA), the Margaret Beaufort Institute of Theology, Cambridge (UK), and in the PACT programme at Providence College (Rhode Island). Janette Gray’s teaching areas included the theology of the human person, Church, Trinity, and feminist theology. Her research areas included the theological forerunners to Vatican II, Vatican II, the Christian anthropology of Chenu, contemporary religious life, and women and religious experience.

Janette Gray’s publications included M-D Chenu’s Christian Anthropology: Nature and Grace in Society and Church(ATF, 2019), Neither Escaping Nor Exploiting Sex: Women’s Celibacy (St Pauls, 1995), as well as co-editing Bodies, Lives, Voices: Gender in Theology (Bloomsbury, 2016).

Janice McRandal

Janice McRandal is a systematic theologian who specialises in feminist, queer, postcolonial, and public theologies. She is the Director of the newly formed Centre for Public Theology at Wesley Mission Queensland, while teaching and writing as a Research Fellow of Charles Sturt University.

Janice McRandal’s publications include Christian Doctrine and the Grammar of Difference: A Contribution to Feminist Systematic Theology (Fortress, 2015), and Sarah Coakley and the Future of Systematic Theology (Fortress, 2016).

Jennifer Close

Jennifer Close’s first degree was in Fine Arts (painting) and then she trained as a teacher. For many years her work was shared between secondary school teaching for Brisbane Catholic Education and freelance liturgical art making. In 2005, Jennifer was awarded a PhD in Theology from Griffith University. The title of her thesis was A Feminist Understanding of Liturgical Art. These days she spends her time teaching theology and maintaining her art practice, which has become more digital over the years. In teaching, Jenny’s main areas of interest are Liturgy and Sacramental Theology.

Josephine (Jo) Inkpin

Josephine (Jo) Inkpin is an Anglican priest, Lecturer in Church History and Senior Tutor at St Francis College Brisbane within Charles Sturt University. Jo has previously taught history and theology within Oxford University, Cambridge University Extension Courses (UK), the North East Ordination Course (UK), St John’s Morpeth (CSU) & Newcastle School of Theology, and worked in several different capacities (including theological education, community development, peace and reconciliation, ecumenism, interreligious dialogue and environmental mission), at local, regional and national levels. An historian, theologian, social ethicist, and border crossing activist, she is currently particularly engaged in issues of gender & sexuality and Australian Reconciliation.   She has held various leading roles in interreligious organisations (including the Australian National Dialogue of Christians, Muslims & Jews) and is currently co-chair of the Anglican Church Southern Queensland’s Reconciliation Action Plan, and a member of the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Australia.  Jo is also a transgender woman, married to another female priest, and a national board member of Equal Voices, the Australian national network of LGBT+ Christians and allies.

Jo’s academic interests include gender and sexuality, peace and reconciliation, spirituality and difference. Publications include her Ph.D Combating ‘the Sin of Self-Sacrifice’: Christian Feminism in the Women’s Suffrage Struggle 1905-1918;  Journey of Promise: young Australian Christians, Muslims and Jews seeking understanding (DVD resource (NCCA,  2004); ‘The Lazarus Demand – Overcoming Indigenous Poverty: A Biblical Reflection on John Ch.11’, co-authored with G.Mundine (Australian e-Journal of Theology, Feb 2006); Religion and Violence, editor, and chapter  ‘Towards a Global Ethic of Peace and Reconciliation’ (ATF Press, 2007); Kerker: It’s Time, co-edited with G.Mundine (NATSIEC, 2007); ‘Coming Right Way: Reconnecting with Land and People in Australia’ (Eremos 106, 2009); ‘Encountering God in Difference’, in Encountering God, ed. Nigel Leaves (Morning Star Publishing, 2014); ‘Building a Model City of Peace and Harmony Down Under’, in We Will Seek Peace and Pursue It,  ed. Neil Paynter (Wild Goose Publications, 2015); From bishops to bunya nuts: bringing Australian Reconciliation, Ecology and Mission together’ (Australian Journal of Mission Studies, vol 10 no 2, Dec 2016).

Jude Long

Jude Long is an Australian educator and theologian. She is currently the Vice-Principal Academic of Melbourne School of Theology / Eastern College. Prior to this she served for 8 years at Nungalinya College, a combined churches training college for Australian Indigenous peoples. She also served as the Dean of Students and Lecturer at the Bible College of Victoria teaching theology, history and missions. Jude holds a Doctor of Ministry, a Master of Arts in Missiology, and a Bachelor of Theology from the Australian College of Theology. Her 50,000 word doctoral thesis was entitled, Developing a Methodology for Teaching Theology for Personal Transformation. She is passionate about both theology and educational methods and principles. Her more recent work at Nungalinya has involved engaging with Australian Indigenous theologies, and exploring the contributions they can make to the Australian church.

Jude Long’s publications include, “Suburban Mission: A Distinctly Australian Context? Towards a Missiology for Australia’s Suburbs”, St Mark’s Review no 186, 2001(3): p. 10-17; “Miss-iology meets Ms-theology: Missiology and Feminist Theology in Creative Interaction”, Mission Studies XIX, 2002: p.155-173; “Finding the Treasure of God’s Attributes. Teaching Theology and Religion”, 12(3), 2009: p.249; “Teaching Adults: Insights from Educational Philosophy”, Journal of Christian Education, 53(1), 2010: 49-60; “Aboriginal Women in Mission”, Australian Journal of Mission Studies, December 2013, p.38-39; “Teaching a Method for Indigenous Theologising”, Australian Journal of Mission Studies, 2018; and numerous small articles on Indigenous Ministry. She currently has two chapters for books awaiting publication.

Julie Trinidad

Julie Trinidad is a theologian based in Adelaide. She is a lecturer in Catholic Studies at the University of South Australia. Julie holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in both Education (Adelaide and Flinders Universities) and Theology (Flinders University and the Catholic University of Leuven). Her PhD was awarded by the Australian Catholic University. Julie also works as part of the Staff Spiritual and Religious Formation Team at Catholic Education South Australia. She has been Ministry Formation Program Coordinator and Coordinator of Youth Ministry for the Catholic Archdiocese of Adelaide. Julie is a current member of the Australian Lutheran-Catholic Dialogue and the South Australian Council for Christians and Jews. She convenes the Gender Justice Working Group of the Australian Catholic Theological Association.

Julie Trinidad’s publications include: “The Holy Spirit and Lay Ecclesial Ministry: Reflections for the 2020 Plenary Council”, Australasian Catholic Record, vol. 96, no. 3 (2019), 345–58; “The Decree on the Apostolate of Lay People Apostolicam Actuositatem and ‘Co-Workers in the Vineyard of the Lord’ in Dialogue with the Communio Theology of Walter Kasper”, in AC Mayer (ed.), The Letter and the Spirit: On the Forgotten Documents of Vatican II (Peeters, 2018), 221–31; “The Holy Spirit in the Theology of Walter Kasper: Engaging the Faith Experience of the Laity,” Marriage, Family and Spirituality (INTAMS) vol. 20, no. 2 (2013), 191–97.

Kate Harrison Brennan

Kate Harrison Brennan is the CEO of Anglican Deaconess Ministries, which raises up women with theological formation for practical and public engagement. She studied international development at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar and spent the last year of her doctoral studies in politics at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton. She then returned home to Australia from New York, where she had been Director of Global Affairs and Strategic Communications at the Australian Consulate-General, to be Advisor to Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

Subsequently, Kate Harrison Brennan founded Global and Smart as a digital storytelling platform and agency for products made responsibly and sustainably. Her edited volume, Making Global Institutions Work, was published by Routledge in September 2014. She has been a guest lecturer in New York, Melbourne, and Sydney and has tutored law, politics, and international development.

Kate Tyler

Kate Tyler grew up in Wellington, New Zealand, before moving to Nelson where she has been based for the majority of her theological study. She completed a Bachelor of Theology through Bishopdale College in partnership with Laidlaw College, a Postgraduate Diploma of Theology through the Laidlaw-Carey Graduate School, and a PhD in Systematic Theology through the University of Otago.

Kate Tyler’s doctoral research on the relationship between the Trinity and the Church in Thomas Torrance’s theology was recently published as The Ecclesiology of Thomas F. Torrance: Koinonia and the Church by Fortress/Lexington (2019), and she has several other journal articles and chapters in edited collections. She continues to explore the intersection between biblical theology, the doctrine of God, and the mission of the Church. Kate has been the College Director at Bishopdale College (www.bishopdale.ac.nz) since the end of 2016, lecturing in biblical studies and systematic theology as well as fulfilling Registrar responsibilities.

Katharine Massam

Katharine Massam joined the faculty of what is now Pilgrim Theological College within the University of Divinity in 2000 (as the first Catholic laywoman to be appointed to the ecumenical faculty of Pilgrim’s predecessor college, the United Faculty of Theology (UFT)). She is a historian working at the intersection of history and theology with a particular interest in the lived experience of faith and belief. Originally from Perth, Katharine completed doctoral work at the University of Western Australia (with Patricia Crawford and Tom Stannage), and taught at Murdoch University and Edith Cowan University (with Lenore Layman and Peggy Brock). Before moving to Melbourne, she held teaching and research positions at the University of Adelaide and the Australian National University. Her research explores intersections between Christian tradition and wider culture in postcolonial, settler societies, including Australia. She writes on the history of Christian spirituality (especially Benedictine traditions), cross-cultural encounter in the Australian mission context, the dynamics work and leisure, and is especially interested in methodologies that open-up neglected sources and experience (such as historical readings of space and place, devotional literature, art, music, and material culture).

Katharine Massam is author of 3 monographs: Sacred Threads: Catholic Spirituality in Australia (Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 1996), On High Ground: One Hundred Years at Aquinas College (Nedlands: UWA Press, 1999), and The Bridge Between: Spanish Benedictine Missionary Women in Australia (Canberra: Australian National University Press, 2020), and some 30 other refereed articles and book chapters. Katharine was recognised as a member of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) in 2017.

Kathleen Williams

Kathleen Williams R.S.M. lectures in systematic theology, especially in the areas of grace and theological anthropology, method in theology, and mystical theology. A particular interest is the work of philosopher/theologian Bernard Lonergan. Kathleen is a former member of the Executive Council of WOCATI (World Conference of Associations of Theological Institutions).

Kathleen William’s publications include: “God’s Image Revealed in Authentic Living: Mutual Enrichment through the Drama of Theological Education across Cultures” in Enfleshing Theology: Embodiment, Discipleship, and Politics in the Work of M. Shawn Copeland (Fortress, 2018).

Kerrie Handasyde

Australian religious historian Kerrie Handasyde received her doctorate from the University of Divinity in 2019, having studied under the mentorship of Katharine Massam and Judith Raftery. She currently teaches at Pilgrim Theological College and Stirling Theological College within the University of Divinity, and is a member of the steering committee of the Australian Collaborators in Feminist Theologies. Her areas of interest include the histories of women, children, literature and nature in Dissenting traditions.

Kerrie Handasyde has had articles published in journals including the Journal of Religious HistoryJournal of Australian Liturgy and Stone-Campbell Journal, and has recently contributed to Pneuma: Journal of the Society of Pentecostal Studies and Lisa Isherwood’s Cultural History of Women and Christianity, 1920-present (forthcoming).

Maeve Louise Heaney

Maeve Louise Heaney VDMF is a Catholic systematic theologian and Director of the Xavier Centre for Theological Formation at Australian Catholic University. She is Vice-President of the Australian Catholic Theological Association (ACTA) and Acting President of the International Network of Societies for Catholic Theology (INSeCT), also as representative of the Asia-Pacific region. She completed her Bachelor’s in Sacred Theology at the Instituto Teológico Verbum Dei, San Pablo Apóstol, in Madrid and her Licentiate and Doctorate in Sacred Theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, where she also taught for two years. She is a member of a Catholic Institute of consecrate life called Verbum Dei. A theologian, musician, and composer, Maeve Louise Heaney writes and researches on music, theology, spirituality, and the role of women in the Church. She was awarded a laureate of the European Society for Catholic Theology (ESCT) Emerging Scholars Essay Competition, with an essay on “Music and Embodiment: What Music Tells Theology about the Word” in 2011; and was the Bannan Fellow at Santa Clara University in 2011–2012, and a Research Fellow at the Lonergan Institute at Boston College in 2019.

Maeve Louise Heaney’s publications include Music as Theology: What Music Says about the Word, Princeton Theological Monograph Series (2012); “Music and Theological Method: A Lonerganian Perspective, Theological Studies (September 2016); “Music’s Multilayered Subversion of the Word”, Literature and Theology (2017) 31 (2): 200–14; “From the Particular to the Universal: Musings of a Woman Theologian” in Catholic Women Speak Network (ed.). Shared Visions: Women Responding to God’s Call (Paulist, 2018); and “New Styles” in Carlos Alberto Moreira Azevedo, Richard Rouse (ed.) Chiesa e compositori; Parole e Suoni (Aracne editrice, forthcoming). In 2014 she released her 4th CD: Break the Crystal Frame, with Willow Publishing, Australia, and is currently working on her next book and CD.

Maja Whitaker

Maja Whitaker began her undergraduate studies with a Bachelor of Science in Anatomy, which led to work as an Assistant Research Fellow in the Anatomy and Bioethics departments as the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand. Her primary areas of interest were the use of dead bodies and human material, reproductive ethics and stem cell technology as well as neuroethics and enhancement technologies.

This preoccupation with the body has informed her theological research, which explores the importance of the body to the Christian eschatological hope. She is currently completing her PhD in Theology with the University of Otago, with the working title Perfected Yet Still “Disabled”: Continuity of Embodied Identity in the Resurrection. In this work she is exploring theories of identity and theological anthropology (particularly nonreductive materialism) to understand how embodiment as an essential part of personal identity might be continuous between the pre- and post-resurrection bodies. She is looking at this question through the lens of disability theology, and advances the possibility that for some persons with disabilities these bodily features are identity-defining and so must be retained in the post-resurrection body, but they would be as manifestations of diverse embodiment rather than disability. This leads to a critique of Western modernity’s ideals of power, autonomy, and success in favour of a theology of limits and weakness.

Maja is involved with ministry in the ACTS Churches of New Zealand. With her husband Dave, she pastors Equippers Church Timaru, a growing Pentecostal church in the lower South Island of New Zealand. They have four young daughters, and she blogs about spiritual growth, personal formation, parenting, and theology at www.somewhitespace.blog

Maja’s publications include: Whitaker MI (2019) “Perfected Yet Still Disabled? Continuity of Embodied Identity in Resurrection Life.” Stimulus: The New Zealand Journal of Christian Thought and Practice 26 (2); Jones DG, Whitaker MI. (2009) Speaking for the dead: The human body in biology and medicine, second edition. Aldershot: Ashgate; King MR, Whitaker MI, Jones DG (2014) “I see dead people: Insights from the humanities into the nature of plastinated cadavers.” Journal of Medical Humanities 35(4):361–76; Jones DG, Whitaker MI (2013) “The contested realm of displaying dead bodies.” Journal of Medical Ethics 39 (10): 652–3.

Margaret Campbell

Margaret Campbell teaches systematic theology at Pilgrim Theological College in Melbourne. Margaret’s areas of research interest include trinitarian theology, the Christian mystical tradition, the doctrine of creation, religious language, and pastoral care. These inform her research which centres on the theology of Catherine Mowry LaCugna, author of God for Us: The Trinity and Christian Life. Margaret has written on Kathryn Tanner’s critique of LaCugna’s “social trinitarianism” and has conducted research for Uniting Aged Care Victoria and Tasmania (now Uniting AgeWell) on the “Theology and Spirituality of Aged Care”. She is currently exploring two related themes – LaCugna’s comparison of the doctrine of the Trinity to an icon and her quest to reconnect spirituality with theology.

Margaret Campbell’s publications include: “Catherine LaCugna’s Trinitarian Theology,” UCA Conversations, Centre for Theology and Ministry, no. 1 (2007); “The Trinity as Model: Tanner and LaCugna on the Trinity and the Shaping of Human Community,” Colloquium 48, no. 2 (2016): 146–60; “Creation Ex Amore: LaCugna’s Reflections on the God-World Relationship in the Light of Tanner’s Radical Interpretation of Divine Transcendence,” Colloquium 50, no. 2 (2018): 109–29.

Margaret Mowczko

Born and bred in Sydney, Margaret Mowczko is a late-comer to (formal) biblical studies. She earned a BTh from the Australian College of Ministries in her 40s. In her 50s, she earned an MA with a specialization in early Christian and Jewish studies from Macquarie University. She won the Paul Dovico Prize from Macquarie University in 2015 for her master’s research project on deacons in the apostolic and post-apostolic church.

Margaret Mowczko’s recent publications include “Wealthy Women in the First-Century Roman World and in the Church,” Priscilla Papers 32.3 (2018): 3-7. Margaret’s essay “What did Phoebe’s position and ministry as διάκονος of the church at Cenchrea involve?” was included in the book Deacons and Diakonia in Early Christianity: The First Two Centuries, published by Mohr Siebeck in December 2018. And she is currently working on an entry entitled “Birth Pangs, Maternal Imagery” for the forthcoming second edition of Dictionary of Paul and His Letters being published by InterVarsity Academic.

For the past decade, Margaret has hosted a popular blog at MargMowczko.com. Here she writes about the biblical basis for mutuality, or equality, between men and women in Christ, with the aim of making the best of contemporary scholarship accessible to “ordinary” Christians around the globe. (Her blog has received well over 100,000 page views each month in 2019). Margaret considers the online engagement that the blog generates to be her primary ministry.

Marguerite (Maggie) Kappelhoff

Marguerite (Maggie) Kappelhoff was born in Canada, born again in the Middle East, and has lived in Australia for the past two decades. Maggie’s qualifications, training, and experience are primarily in social work, theology, and higher education in which she has held positions that include counsellor, chaplain, pastor, lecturer, and Academic Dean. She has recently been appointed as the inaugural Dean of Academic Programs at the University of Divinity, Melbourne, where she also previously served as the Director of Academic Services.

Marguerite (Maggie) Kappelhoff holds a PhD in systematic theology from Charles Sturt University and St Marks National Theological Centre in Canberra (2015) entitled: The Marks of the Church as ‘Gift’ and ‘Task’: A Paradigm for the Twenty-First-Century Church, which considers the transcendent and dynamic nature of the four creedal marks of the church: ‘one, holy, catholic, and apostolic’ and their relevance for ecumenical dialogue. A related book chapter of the same name was published in 2015 in Hope in the Ecumenical Future (Pathways for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue) and a forthcoming monograph drawing from her thesis work is under review. Some of her current projects and forthcoming book chapters include: Common Ground: The Gift of Womanist Theology in the Midst of a #MeToo Era(Lexington Fortress Press, Decolonizing Theology Series); Theology of Work: Eschatology, Co-Creativity and the Pneumatological Impetus (Wipf & Stock, Theological Monograph Series); and Colonialism and the Challenge of Reclaiming the ‘Marks of the Church’ (Lexington Fortress Press, “According to All”: Catholicity in Postcolonial Perspectives).

Marita Munro

Marita Munro was the first woman to be ordained by Australian Baptists. She grew up in Queensland and after completing a Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Queensland, moved to Victoria to undertake studies in theology and ministry. She helped found the House of the Gentle Bunyip, an alternative ecumenical Christian community working with the poor in Melbourne’s inner city. Following post graduate studies in Anabaptist studies and Human Rights at the International Baptist Theological Seminary in Switzerland, she joined the faculty of Whitley College: The Baptist College of Victoria as a lecturer in New Testament Greek and Church History.

Marita Munro’s PhD research with the University of Melbourne explored the recent history of Victorian Baptists and is due for publication in 2020 in the Peter Lang series: “A Struggle for Identity and Direction”: A History of Victoria Baptists (c. 1960-c.2000). As Whitley’s Professor of Baptist Studies, Marita is committed to fostering research into the Baptist story, has co-edited with Roslyn Otzen ‘Doing What Comes Naturally’, A History of Baptcare:1945–2015(Baptcare, 2018), and contributed the chapter ‘“Making Connections”: Australian Baptists and the Public Sphere in the Twentieth Century’ in Douglas Weaver, ed. Mirrors and Microscopes (Authentic, 2015). Marita is particularly passionate about women being empowered for leadership in church and society. Participation in work parties to the Middle East and rural India have expanded her faith horizons.

Maryanne Confoy

Professor Maryanne Confoy RSC was awarded the Ignatian Companions Medal at the Jesuit Province Gathering held on Wednesday 24th April 2019 in Sydney. The Ignatian Companions Medal is awarded from time to time to express gratitude to people associated with the Province’s mission. Such people are not those who have simply ‘done their job’ over a period of time but who have given of themselves in voluntary ways beyond the parameters of their position descriptions. They have shown outstanding and generous service to the mission of the Society of Jesus in Australia.

Maryanne Confoy is a Religious Sister of Charity. Maryanne and Michael Smith established the foundation of the Arrupe Program and was one of its first lecturers and supervisors. She is a Fellow of the University of Divinity. Maryanne has completed a Bachelor of Arts, postgraduate studies at Boston College and at Harvard Graduate School of Education, and a PhD in Theology and Education from Boston College. Her publications include articles on spirituality and ministry, a biography on Morris West, books on spirituality and the contemplative life, priesthood, religious life, and Christian ministry. Maryanne Confoy’s books include Religious Life and Priesthood: Perfectae Caritatis, Optatam Totius, Presbyterorum Ordinis (Paulist, 2008), Morris West: A Writer and a Spirituality (HarperCollins, 1997), and Morris West: Literary Maverick (Wiley, 2005).

Mary Elizabeth Fisher

Mary Elizabeth Fisher came to follow Christ while a journalist for The Courier Mail in Brisbane after graduating from the Australian National University in Canberra. She studied further at Queensland Bible Institute, the Alliance College of Theology in Canberra, Asbury Theological Seminary in the United States of America on scholarship, and King’s College University of London funded by Asbury Seminary. In the area of Chinese studies, she studied at the Yale-in-China Centre at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and on an Australian Federal Government scholarship at the Peking Languages Institute and then at Nankai University in Tianjin while studying Modern Chinese History. During those years in China, while seeking to serve Christ in China, she also sought to understand how China interpreted the missionary period in China from 1840 onwards following the Opium Wars which led to the missionary movement into China. She then served as Central Administrator for Educational Services Exchange With China negotiating with the Chinese Government for the several hundred English teachers, business-people, and lawyers who taught In Chinese Universities. She served as ESEC Coordinator of the First International Conference on University Assessment co-sponsored by Peking University and ESEC in 1987.

In 1987 Mary Elizabeth Fisher joined InterVarsity USA as an IFES seconded worker as Associate Director of Missions an Urbana. This work involved many facets of international programs and training relating to Asia and Eastern European Countries as well as programming for the triennial InterVarsity Urbana Student Conference for approximately 25,000 University students. During this time, she also was invited by 15 different China-focused organizations to offer training in preparation for service in China. She was a Staley Guest Lecturer at numerous USA Christian Universities. She also was an invited as a delegate at the Lausanne Conference in Manila and Bangkok. In 1993 Asbury Seminary invited Mary Elizabeth Fisher to teach in the area of Biblical Theology and Theological Method and Praxis. She was on faculty from 1994 to 2005 when she returned to Australia and taught for two semesters at Macquarie Christian Studies Institute and guest lectured at a number of theological colleges. She also pastored at Sydney Chinese Alliance Church.

Mary Elizabeth Fisher has written about China under a “nom de plume” to ensure safety for her friends. She was involved in preparing a Bible Study series for InterVarsity Press on ten Global Issues, writing in the area of Technology and Personhood. Her area of research at King’s College was in the area of the hermeneutical implications of Alaisdair MacIntyre, Hans-Georg Gadamer, and Paul Ricoeur for a Trinitarian reading of the Old Testament – Whose Old Testament? Wherein Christian Scripture? China influenced her greatly in the area of studying Trinitarian Theology and a Trinitarian Reading of the Canonical Narrative. Currently, Mary Elizabeth Fisher is working with a team of six friends who are seeking to produce a book about the Biblical Theology of the Bible in narrative form focused for families. This has been instigated by parents of young children wanting something that helps their families understand the canonical narrative as a whole theological narrative of God’s Mission from Creation to New Creation.

Megan Powell du Toit

Megan Powell du Toit is ordained as a minister in the Baptist Association of NSW and ACT. She has honours degrees in both theology and English Literature, and is currently working on a PhD on tensions within evangelicalism. She has worked as a pastor, lecturer, and editor. She is currently Publishing Manager at the Australian College of Theology, and editor of the peer-reviewed theological journal Colloquium. She has published two academic chapters on gender, in Theological Education edited by Bain and Hussey (Wipf and Stock, 2018) and The Gender Conversation edited by Starling and Murphy (Wipf and Stock, 2017).

Magen Powell du Toit writes, speaks, and podcasts as a public theologian. She writes for online media such as Ethos, Eternity News, CASE, and Fixing Her Eyes. She has a podcast for Eternity News with theologian Michael Jensen, called With All Due Respect, and has also appeared on ABC podcast God Forbid. Her particular research interests are evangelical theology, gender, theology and the arts, and social media spirituality.

Michelle Jones

Michelle Jones is a consecrated Catholic woman who lives a life of prayer in Porongurup, Western Australia. Her theological endeavours emerge from her contemplative life and are aimed at enriching the interior lives of others, as well as her own. She is particularly passionate about the Carmelite theological tradition and its contemporary relevance.

Michelle Jones’s publications include The Gospel Mysticism of Ruth Burrows (ICS, 2018) and Ruth Burrows: Essential Writings (Orbis, 2018). Michelle is involved with online theological education; she is a lecturer with BBI – The Australian Institute of Theological Education, and the Carmelite Institute of Britain and Ireland. She holds an STD and an STL from the Pontifical University of St Thomas Aquinas, and a Master of Theology from the University of Notre Dame, Australia.

Monica Jyotsna Melanchthon

Feminist Biblical scholar, Church worker, and Lutheran theologian, Rev Dr Monica Jyotsna Melanchthon has several degrees – a BA from Mount Carmel College (Bangalore University, India), a Bachelor’s in Divinity (BD) from the United Theological College, Bangalore (Senate of Serampore College, [University]); a Th.M. and a PhD from the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, USA, where she wrote a dissertation on the theme, Rejection by God: The History and Significance of the Rejection Motif in the Hebrew Bible (Peter Lang, 2001).

Prior to her current position as Associate Professor, Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies at the Pilgrim Theological College. Parkville, Australia (University of Divinity), Melanchthon, born and raised in India, taught Hebrew Bible and Gender Studies at the Gurukul Lutheran Theological College and Research Institute in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. Melanchthon has been active in several organizations and ecumenical bodies. She has contributed to various study projects of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) and has participated and presented regionally and internationally in various programs related to the Bible, Hermeneutics, Lutheran Tradition and theology, gender, interfaith dialog, Mission, Development, and Theological Education initiated by the LWF, the World Council of Churches (WCC), the Council of World Mission (CWM), and the Asian Women’s Resource Center for Culture and Theology (AWRC). In 2009, her alma mater, LSTC recognized her work by awarding her the Distinguished Alumna Award for Theological Education in the Global Church.

Monica Jyotsna Melanchthon is an active member of the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL), and sits on the SBL council. She was the co-editor of the International Voices in Biblical Studies (IVBS), a series of the SBL and is currently on the editorial boards of Semeia Studies and Horizons in Biblical Theology. She co-chairs the Steering Committee of the “Asian and Asian-American Hermeneutics Group,” of the SBL and the group on Bible and Postcolonial Studies of the ISBL. She is also the founding secretary and the current President of the Society of Asian Biblical Studies to foster biblical scholarship and research in Asia that takes seriously the Asian context—its cultures, religions, and methodologies. Her involvements are driven by the conviction that Scripture and its interpretations should meet people at the point of their needs and struggles. With strong commitments to context and liberation of the marginalized, who, in the Asian/Indian context, are the poor, women and Dalits, she has contributed toward developing Dalit and Indian Feminist hermeneutics and theologies and interpretation of Biblical texts drawing on insights from the social biographies of these communities, their perspectives and their lived experiences. Four major issues, namely, gender, religious plurality, caste/poverty, and the environment as they intersect with context have dominated her theological reflection, thinking and praxis.

Monica Jyotsna Melanchthon’s publications attest to her global profile among biblical scholars who engage in contextual biblical interpretations. She has authored many articles and book chapters, several of which are forthcoming: “Rape Matters: Dinah (Genesis 34) meets Asifa Bano” (2020); “Reading for Justice, Dignity and Life: Feminist Interpretations of the Hebrew Bible in South Asia,” (2020); “Intersections: Reading Caste, Gender and Violence in the Jephthah narrative” (2020); “Ecology in the Book of Isaiah (2020). Her published works include “Scripture and Scriptures in the Worship Space,” (2019); “Making Connections: Dinah, Luther and Indian Women” (2019); “Culture Tricks in Biblical Narrative” (2016); “Engaging Women’s Experiences in the Struggle for Justice, Dignity, and Humanity: Hebrew Bible Readings by South Asian Women,” (2014); “Protect me from those who are violent!”— Psalm 140: A Cry for Justice, A Song of Hope” (2014); “Reading Rizpah across Borders, Cultures, Belongings…all the way to India” (2014); “Toward Mapping Feminist Biblical Interpretations in Asia’ (2014); The Servant in the Book of Judith: Interpreting her Silence, Telling her Story,” (2010). Monica Jyotsna Melanchthon is currently engaged in two major writing projects: a feminist commentary on 1 Kings (Wisdom Commentary Series, Liturgical Press) and an earth centred reading of Joshua 1-11 (Bloomsbury).

Nicola Hoggard Creegan

Nicola Hoggard Creegan is a theologian based in Auckland, Aotearoa/New Zealand, where she is a co-director of New Zealand Christians in Science. Nicola studied mathematics and biology in New Zealand and Australia, but her PhD in historical and philosophical theology is from Drew University in New Jersey, where she studied under Catherine Keller and Thomas Oden. In 2000 she returned to her native Aotearoa, and taught systematic theology at Laidlaw College until 2014. Her research interests have been in feminist theology and the science/theology interface. In the summers of 2003–2005 she took part in the Oxford Summer Seminars in Science and Christian Faith. From 2012–2013, Nicola Hoggard Creegan was a part of the Human Nature Project with scientists and theologians at the Center for Theological inquiry in Princeton, and in the summers of 2015–2016 she was a part of the Human Uniqueness Project at Notre Dame under Celia Deane-Drummond and August Fuentes.

Nicola Hoggard Creegan’s publications include Living on the Boundaries: Evangelical Women, Feminism and the Theological Academy (IVP Academic, 2005, written with Christine Pohl), Animal Suffering and the Problem of Evil(Oxford University Press, 2013), and Creation and Hope: Ecological Anticipation and Action (Pickwick, 2018, edited with Andrew Shepherd). She hopes to publish a book on free will in dialogue with the sciences in 2021/22.

Pat Fox

Sr Pat Fox grew up in Box Hill, and joined the Sisters of Sion in 1969. She began by working with street kids and women in housing commission flats. After studying law in the early 1980s, she worked in legal aid centres in Victoria, before volunteering for the Philippines in 1990. There, she worked in rural areas, and was later elected National Coordinator of the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines. More recently, she has worked with an Agricultural Workers Union. Her support for people struggling for human rights and social justice antagonised powerful figures in the Philippines, and she was forced by President Duterte to leave in November 2018. Pat Fox’s story was reported in news media worldwide. See, for example: “The nun vs the President: How Sister Patricia Fox got under Rodrigo Duterte’s skin”, ABC News, 23 April 2018, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-23/how-sister-patricia-fox-got-under-rodrigo-dutertes-skin/9686864; “Australian nun Patricia Fox lands in Melbourne after being deported from the Philippines”, ABC News, 4 Nov 2018, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-04/australian-nun-sister-patricia-fox-lands-in-melbourne/10463696.

Patricia Madigan

Patricia Madigan, a member of the Congregation of Dominican Sisters of Eastern Australia and the Solomon Islands, is the Director of CIMER, the Dominican Centre for Interfaith, Ministry, Education and Research (www.cimer.org.au) which focuses especially on women’s roles and participation in the religious faith traditions and women’s contributions to building societies of peace, justice and care of creation. From 1997 to 2013 she served as Director of the Catholic Church Office for Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations, Sydney, and was a founding member of the Women’s Interfaith Network. Dr Madigan holds a B. Arts – La Trobe University; B. Divinity – University of Divinity, Melbourne; M. Phil (Ecumenics) – Trinity College, Dublin; and PhD – University of Sydney (Arabic and Islamic Studies), with graduate research experience at Harvard Divinity School and the American University of Cairo. She is currently a sessional lecturer in the Dip. Pastoral Ministry program of Divine Word University, Papua New Guinea.

Patricia Madigan’s publications include Women and Fundamentalism in Islam and Catholicism: Negotiating Modernity in a Globalized World (Peter Lang, 2011), Iraqi Women of Three Generations (2014), co-authored with Martha Ann Kirk CCVI, and many journal articles and book chapters including “Graced by Migration: An Australian Perspective” in Christianities in Migration: The Global Perspective, eds Elaine Padilla and Peter Phan (AIAA, 2016).

Rebekah Earnshaw

Rebekah Earnshaw is an Australian reformed evangelical theologian with interests in systematic and historical theology, especially Calvin, creation, and providence. Rebekah grew up in Sydney and initially studied ceramic engineering at UNSW. She completed her BD from Moore Theological College and MA (Theology) from Christ College, which equipped her to serve women and children at Chatswood Presbyterian Church from 2006-2014. Her passion for learning and theological education then took her to the University of St Andrews, Scotland, where she completed her doctoral work under Professor John Webster DD FRSE. Since 2017, she has served at Dordt University, Iowa, USA, as Assistant Professor of Theology and Department Chair.

Rebekah Earnshaw’s doctoral volume is forthcoming with V&R, entitled Creator and Creation: Calvin on Genesis and she will contribute a volume on Creation to Lexham Press’ I Believe textbook series.

Robyn Horner

Robyn Horner is a teaching and research academic within the School of Theology at the Australian Catholic University, and a member of the Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry. From 2010 until 2015, she held the position of Associate Dean (Learning and Teaching) of the Faculty of Theology and Philosophy. The aim of her research is to find new ways of thinking religious phenomena within contemporary Western contexts, characterised as such contexts are by the immense cultural challenges of secularisation, pluralisation, and detraditionalisation. She investigates this area both theoretically (especially through the use of hermeneutic phenomenology, together with a variety of post-structuralist tools of critique), and practically (in collaboration with researchers in Belgium who have developed scales for measuring individual and communal religious expressions of identity: the Enhancing Catholic School Identity Project). Her distinct contribution to the field is the way in which she approaches the signification of religious phenomena by means of affection or disturbance, and interprets them contextually. She is currently working on a monograph on revelation, and is part of a major project: Atheism and Christianity: Moving Past Polemic. Robyn teaches and supervises in the area of enhancing Catholic identity, post-structuralism and French phenomenology, and theological re-contextualisation.

Robyn Horner’s publications include Jean-Luc Marion: A Theo-Logical Introduction (Ashgate, 2005), and Rethinking God as Gift: Marion, Derrida and the Limits of Phenomenology (Fordham University Press, 2001).

Rocio Figueroa Alvear

Rocio Figueroa Alvear is a Peruvian Theologian, Lecturer in Systematic Theology at Good Shepherd College in Auckland, and an External Researcher at the Centre for Theology and Public Issues at Otago University, New Zealand. She has a bachelor’s degree and license in theology from the Pontifical Faculty of Theology in Lima and her doctorate in theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. She has previously lectured and worked in Peru, Italy, and Mexico. She worked in the Holy See as head of the Women’s section in the Pontifical Council for the Laity. Figueroa’s present research focus is theological and pastoral responses for survivors of Church sexual abuse.

Rocio Figueroa Alvear’s publications include: Figueroa Alvear, R., and Tombs. D. “Recognizing Jesus as a Victim of Sexual Abuse. Responses from Sodalicio Survivors in Peru” (“When Did We See You Naked?” No. 3). (D. Tombs, Ed.). Centre for Theology and Public Issues, University of Otago, 2019; Figueroa Alvear, R., and Tombs. D. “Listening to Male Survivors of Church Sexual Abuse: Voices from Sodalicio Abuses in Peru. (Canonist, 8[1], [2017]); Figueroa Alvear, R., and Tombs. D “Lived Religion and the Traumatic Impact of Sexual Abuse: The Sodalicio Case in Peru” in Trauma and Lived Religion. Transcending the Ordinary, ed. R. Ruard Ganzevoort-Srdjan Sremac (Palgrave, 2018); Figueroa Alvear, R., Covenant of Love – Sources (México City, 2015); Figueroa Alvear, R., Man and Woman, Equal or Different? (Puebla, 2013); Figueroa Alvear, R., Towards My Own True Self (Mexico City, 2011).

Ruth Lukabyo

Ruth Lukabyo is a senior lecturer and Dean of Women at Youthworks College. She teaches Christian History as well as Sexuality and Identity to students training to be children’s and youth ministers in the Anglican church and beyond. She is on the Australasian regional committee of the International Association for the Study of Youth Ministry and a member of the Strategy and Research Group of the Sydney Diocese of Sydney. She has a doctorate in history from Macquarie University and has published various journal articles.

Ruth Lukabyo will soon publish her thesis in book form: From a Ministry to Youth to a Ministry of Youth: Aspects of Protestant Youth Ministry in Sydney 1930–1959 (PhD, Macquarie University, 2018) . She is currently writing a paper on youth ministry education in Australia and the formation of Youthworks College.

Sally Douglas

Sally Douglas’ interdisciplinary research spans biblical studies and systematic theology, as she reflexively engages with biblical and early church texts and the potential implications of re-engaging with these, often suppressed, texts in contemporary context. Douglas is an Honorary Research Associate and Associate Lecturer at Pilgrim Theological College, within the University of Divinity in Melbourne, and has received multiple academic awards, including the Dean’s Prize in both her undergraduate and postgraduate degrees. Douglas’ research currently focuses on questions of Christology, soteriology, gender, and discipleship. The central question that informs her research and writing is ‘So what?’ – ‘So what might this mean for how we understand ancient texts in light of contemporary research?’; ‘So what might this mean for understandings of the Divine?’ and ‘So what might this mean for how we live?’.

Sally Douglas works in the mode of scholar-pastor, as well as lecturing and researching in the fields of biblical studies and theology, she is a Uniting Church Minister, serving an inner city parish. Douglas is also a dynamic public speaker who is regularly asked to contribute within local, national, and international settings.

Sally Douglas’ academic publications include Early Church Understandings of Jesus as the Female Divine: The Scandal of the Scandal of Particularity (London: Bloomsbury, 2016); ‘“I Desire Mercy not Sacrifice”: How Soteriology Constructs Discipleship – A Test Case’, Colloquium (2020); ‘Being the Church: An Exploration of Mission’, The Australian Journal of Mission Studies, (2015) and ‘A Decoding of Evil Angels: The Other Aetiology of Evil in the Biblical Text and its Potential Implications in our Church and World’, Colloquium, (2013). Douglas also writes ‘popular level’ theology articles, including: ‘Why We Must Reject Consumerist Culture’ (2019); ‘Seeking a Meaningful Understanding of Suffering and God’ (2019); and ‘Violence Against Women: When the Church Fails’ (2017) https://crosslight.org.au/2017/07/21/violence-women-church-fails/

Sarah Bacaller

Sarah Bacaller specializes in the philosophy and development of Christian thought, with particular experience in the contemporary development of Churches of Christ identity in Australia, and with a recent growing focus on German Idealism. Sarah has particularly enjoyed educative sequences in psychology, Australian Indigenous studies, and Christian thought and history (systematic theology).

Sarah Bacaller’s publications have included the curating and editing of the writings of Gordon Stirling, a significant leader in contemporary Churches of Christ in Australia (Page 13: A Selection and G.R. Stirling’s Purple Patches), and audiobooks produced and narrated by Sarah and published on Audible.com include Cameos on Christian Identity: GR Stirling’s Purple Patches (Gordon Stirling, ed. Sarah Bacaller), Hegelian Fragments (Stephen Curkpatrick), Hegel’s Philosophy of Mind (trans. William Wallace), and The Wisdom and Religion of a German Philosopher (ed. Elizabeth Haldane, foreword Sarah). Current writing projects include a chapter for Transforming Vocation, a monograph on the affirmation of secular work (Morling College, Wipf & Stock) and a doctoral thesis that seeks to bring Hegel’s understanding of the self into dialogue with attachment theory, with a hope to further explore implications for theological ethics and method. Sarah has also been co-editor of the Stirling Theological College online open-access student journal, reo: a journal of theology and ministry.

Sarah Bachelard

Sarah Bachelard is co-founder and leader of Benedictus Contemplative Church – an independent, ecumenical worshipping community based in Canberra, Australia. Sarah completed a Bachelor of Arts in Theology at Oxford University on a Rhodes Scholarship in 1992, and was a student of the Most Reverend Dr Rowan Williams. She holds a doctorate in moral philosophy from the Australian National University, and was ordained a priest in the Anglican church of Australia in 2006. Sarah has taught at St Mark’s National Theological Centre in Canberra, but since 2011 has worked as an independent theologian and teacher of Christian meditation and contemplative prayer. She is a member of the World Community for Christian Meditation, and in 2019 delivered the annual John Main Seminar for the WCCM.

Sarah Bachelard’s work focuses on contemplative spirituality and community, and on the connections between contemplation, ethics and theology. She has written two books, Experiencing God in a Time of Crisis (Meditatio, 2017), and Resurrection and Moral Imagination (Routledge, 2016), as well as several articles and book chapters.

Seforosa Carroll

Seforosa (Sef) Carroll is an Australian Fiji born Rotuman theologian who spent her formative years growing up in Lautoka, the Western side of Viti Levu in Fiji. These formative experiences continue to inform Sef’s theological reflections on eco-theology, climate justice, migration, interfaith dialogue, religious pluralism, cross-cultural relationships, gender and culture from a diasporic perspective of a migrant who calls Australia one of her homes. Sef graduated with a PhD in theology at Charles Sturt University in 2015. Sef is a CTI Fellow and was a resident member of the 2017-2018 Inquiry into Religion and Migration at the Center of Theological Inquiry, Princeton, USA and is a Research Fellow of the Public and Contextual Theology Research Center (PaCT), Charles Sturt University, Australia.  She was also a visiting lecturer in contextual theologies and interfaith dialogue with the School of Theology, United Theological College, Charles Sturt University.  Sef is the Oceania representative on the executive board of the Global Network of Public Theology (2017-2019). From 2008-2016 Sef was the Administrator of Manahine Pasefika (Association of Oceanian Women Theologians), whose primary objective was to “make Oceanian women’s voices heard through print”. Sef just completed her placement with UnitingWorld where she worked as a theological researcher (climate and gender) and church partnerships manager facilitating church relationships in Australia and the Pacific.  Sef begins a new role with the World Council of Churches in Geneva in January 2020.

Sef is a great believer in the powerful role theology can play in bringing about transformative change. Sef is an interdisciplinary theologian whose research falls into the categories of public, contextual and practical theologies. Migration, Home, and Hospitality are key themes in Sef’s research and publications. Her recent and forthcoming publications include “Negotiating ‘Home’ in an age of uncertainty” in Reimagining Home: Understanding, reconciling and engaging with God’s stories together edited by Darrell Jackson, Darren Cronshaw & Rosemary Dewerse, Morling Press, 2019, pp.3-20; “Feminism and Christianity in the Global South” in Encyclopedia of Christianity in the Global South, edited by Mark Lamport and George Thomas Kurian, Rowan & Littlefield Publishers, May 2018, pp.279-282; “Living in the here and now: Christian environmental ethics and climate justice” in Cross Cultural Eco-theology in an Indian Ocean Context edited by David Reichardt & Vasantha Chilkuri Rao, Delhi, ISPCK, 2018, pp. 160-169;  “Too late for Justice? Disappearing Islands, Migration and Climate Justice”, in Christian Theology in the Age of Migration: Implications for World Christianity edited by Peter Phan, Lexington Books, forthcoming; “Reimagining Home: Migration and Identity in a changing climate” in Horizons in Contextuality edited by Jione Havea, Lexington Books, forthcoming  and “Homemaking as redemptive transformative practice” in Enacting a Public Theology  edited by Clive Pearson, forthcoming. In 2014 Sef and William Emilsen co-editied Great Spiritual Leaders: studies in leadership for a pluralist society, Canberra, Barton.

Sue Patterson

Sue Patterson is Senior Lecturer in Philosophical and Applied Theology and Dean of Courses at Bishopdale College in Nelson, New Zealand. Dr Patterson holds BA, BD and PhD degrees from the University of Otago. She has also been a Fulbright Scholar and post-doctoral research scholar at the Center for Theology Inquiry, Princeton, US. She is an ordained minister in the Anglican Church, has previously taught at Trinity College, Bristol (UK) and ministered in the Republic of Ireland. Her main research interest has been the relationship between theology, language, and culture.

Sue Patterson’s publications include Realist Christian Theology in a Postmodern Age (Cambridge University Press, 1999) and Word, Words and World: How a Wittgensteinian Perspective on Metaphor-Making Reveals the Theo-logic of Reality(Peter Lang, 2013), and various chapters in books and articles in scholarly journals from 1991 to the present time.

Suzanne McDonald

Suzanne McDonald is an Australian Reformed theologian, and is currently Professor of Systematic and Historical Theology at Western Theological Seminary in Holland, Michigan, USA. She has taught at Western Theological Seminary since 2014, and prior to that taught for 7 years in the Religion Department at Calvin University (Grand Rapids, Michigan).  She is from Perth, Western Australia, and did undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in English Literature at the University of Western Australia and Oxford University respectively, before turning to theology with an MA from Cambridge University and her PhD on the doctrine of election from the University of St Andrews. She has written two books (Re-Imaging Election: Divine Election as Representing God to Others and Others to God, Eerdmans, 2010; and John Knox for Armchair Theologians, WJKP, 2013), and many essays and articles on a range of topics in systematic and historical theology.

Suzanne is ordained in the Christian Reformed Church in North America, and in addition to her seminary teaching she regularly engages with churches on a variety of issues, with a particular passion for the intersections between scripture, theology, and pastoral care in relation to dementia, and the Christian call to earth-keeping.

Tanya Riches

Tanya Riches is an Australian theologian, social scientist, author, and songwriter. She completed her PhD in 2016 at Fuller Theological Seminary, winning the David Allan Hubbard Achievement School Award for the School of Intercultural Studies. Her committee included international development scholar Bryant Myers, theologian Amos Yong, and anthropologist Sherwood Lingenfelter. She is currently Senior Lecturer at Hillsong College, Sydney Australia where she teaches and is the head of the Research Committee.

In 2017, Tanya Riches released a book coedited with musicologist Dr Tom Wagner entitled The Hillsong Movement Examined: You Call Me Out Upon the Water (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), a collection of essays written on Hillsong Church by critical insiders and empathetic outsiders. Her monograph entitled (Re)Imagining Identity in the Spirit: Worship and Social Engagement in Urban Aboriginal-led Pentecostal Congregations was released through Brill’s Global Pentecostal and Charismatic Studies Series in 2018. She has also published over five chapters, and ten journal articles in theology, anthropology, and disability studies. Before her theological studies, she was a songwriter, with her most popular song Jesus What a Beautiful Name (1996) reaching #10 on the Australian and #100 in the United States Christian congregational charts, as well as in many other countries globally.

Tanya Wittwer

Australian theologian Tanya Wittwer received her M.Div. from Wartburg Theological Seminary, Dubuque, Iowa and her PhD in homiletics from Flinders University in Adelaide, South Australia. Having previously worked in community service, the environment, and population health, she is currently lecturer in pastoral theology at Uniting College of Leadership and Theology, Adelaide College of Divinity. Her areas of interest include homiletics; pastoral care; power, gender and sexuality; ecclesiology; education and formation.

Tanya Wittwer’s publications include “Subordination and Headship: A Case Study in Lutheran Hermeneutics.” Lutheran Theological Journal (LTJ)53 (2019):22–38; “Like offering an apple to a child: Bonhoeffer on Preaching.” LTJ, 49 (2015):86–95; and Domestic Violence: Handbook for Clergy and Pastoral Workers, first published by the Joint Churches Domestic Violence Prevention Program (North Adelaide, SA) in 1995 and revised and republished 1998, 2000, 2010, and 2017.

Tracy McEwan

Tracy McEwan is an Australian feminist theologian. She is currently undertaking a PhD in theology and sociology at the University of Newcastle. Her research will explore the religious identity and participation of Gen X Catholic women in Australia. In 2018, Tracy was the NCLS Research Summer Scholar. Her research, writing and presenting interests include: Catholic ecclesiology, gender, sexuality and women’s religious experience; Church participation, generations and life stage; multicultural church communities; religion and violence. Her background in mathematics, theology and sociology enable her to meaningfully apply various empirical methods of analysis to an understanding of church within an Australian context. Since 2016, Tracy has been teaching religious education and theology as part of the sessional teaching staff at BBI – The Australian Institute of Theological Education. Tracy has previously tutored in religion and theology at the University of Newcastle, lectured and tutored in Mathematics at the University of Wollongong, and worked as a mathematics and statistics tutor at the University of Technology Sydney.

Tracy McEwan’s recent academic publications include “Changing Patterns of Religious Practice and Belief among Church-attending Catholic Women in Australia” in the Journal for the Academic Study of Religion (2017) and “Re-framing Religious Identity and Belief: Gen X Women and the Catholic Church”, with Kathleen McPhillips in the Journal for the Academic Study of Religion (2017). Tracy has published a short article for NCLS Research titled “Confident and gifted young women willing yet under-involved in Catholic parishes” and recently co-authored a series for NCLS Research on churchgoers and worship.

Tracey Rowland

Professor Tracey Rowland’s primary degrees were in law and government from the University of Queensland. She then completed a Bachelor of Letters in Philosophy from the University of Melbourne and a Master of Arts degree in political philosophy, also from the University of Melbourne, along with a Graduate Diploma in the German language, and the Goethe Institute’s Certificate of German as a foreign language. She then won a Commonwealth Scholarship to Cambridge University where she wrote her doctoral dissertation on twentieth-century theological engagements with the idea of culture, with reference to the philosophy of Alasdair MacIntyre and the theology of Henri de Lubac and Joseph Ratzinger. In 2001 she was appointed the Dean of the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family in Melbourne, a position she held until 2017. During this period she also completed the pontifical degrees, a Licentiate in Sacred Theology and a Doctorate in Sacred Theology, both from the Lateran.

Tracey Rowland has published six books: Culture and the Thomist Tradition (London: Routledge, 2003), Ratzinger’s Faith: The Theology of Benedict XI (Oxford University Press, 2008), Benedict XVI: A Guide for the Perplexed (London: Bloomsbury, 2010), Catholic Theology (London: Bloomsbury, 2017), The Culture of the Incarnation: Essays in Catholic Theology (Steubenville: Emmaus Academic, 2017) and Portraits of Spiritual Nobility (New York: Angelico, 2019). She is a member of the editorial board of Communio: International Catholic Review and was appointed to the 9th International Theological Commission in 2014. In 2009 she was awarded the Archbishop Michael J Miller Award for the Promotion of Faith and Culture by the University of St. Thomas in Houston and in 2010 she was awarded the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland. She has published over 150 articles in all and is presently editing a collection of essays on the Anglican Patrimony for publication with Bloomsbury, a collection of essays on the subject of healing fractures in fundamental theology (with Peter McGregor) and a book on early-to-mid 20th-century German theology with a special focus on the mentors of the Ratzinger generation, “Illuminating Hope: Defenders of Christian Humanism after Kant and Nietzsche” (London: Bloomsbury, 2021).

Val Webb

Val Webb grew up in Brisbane, Australia, but spent almost thirty years of her adult life in the United States. She has a B.A. and a B. Sc. (honours) from the University of Queensland where she worked as a research microbiologist. Other careers prior to theology include art gallery owner, artist, business woman and hospital public relations. Val gained her Ph.D. in systematic theology from Luther Seminary, St. Paul, Minnesota USA in 1996 with her thesis “Ministry and Ordination in the Uniting Church in Australia; an historical, contextual and constructive theological study” (UMI, Ann Arbor, Michigan).  She has taught Theology and World Religions at the University of Minnesota and Augsburg College, Minnesota, USA; and as adjunct faculty in Australia at Whitley College, Melbourne; Murdoch University, Perth and United Theological College/Charles Sturt, Sydney.

As well as published papers and articles, Val Webb has eleven published books, including In Defence of Doubt: an Invitation to Adventure (Chalice Press, USA,1995; Mosaic Press, Australia, 2012); Why We’re Equal: Introducing Feminist Theology (Chalice Press, USA, 1999); John’s Message: Good News for the New Millennium (Abingdon Press, USA, 1999); Florence Nightingale: the Making of a Radical Theologian (Chalice Press, USA, 2002); Like Catching Water in a Net: Human Attempts to Describe the Divine (Continuum New York & London, 2007); Stepping out with the Sacred: Human Attempts to Engage the Divine (Continuum New York & London, 2010); and Testing Tradition and Liberating Theology: Finding Your Own Voice (Morning Star Publishing, Australia, 2015). She has been guest presenter at many events in Australia and the USA, together with three invited speaking tours of the United Kingdom.

Victoria Lorrimar

Victoria Lorrimar is an Australian theologian interested particularly in the interface between theology and science. Since 2018 she has been lecturer in theology and ethics at Trinity College Queensland, as well as Academic Dean. Dr Lorrimar holds a B.Sc. from the University of Western Australia, majoring in genetics and biochemistry, and an M.Div. from the Australian College of Theology through Vose Seminary. She completed her doctorate in theology under the supervision of Alister McGrath at the University of Oxford, exploring a theology of human creativity that can engage questions of human technological enhancement.

Victoria Lorrimar’s publications include: “Creatures Bound for Glory: Biotechnological Enhancement and Visions of Human Flourishing” in Studies in Christian Ethics, 32:2, 2019 (co-written with Michael Burdett); “Human Flourishing, Joy, and the Prospect of Radical Life Extension” in The Expository Times, 129:12, 2018; “Mind Uploading and Embodied Cognition: A Theological Response” in Journal of Religion and Science, Feb 2019; and “​Church and Christ in the Work of Stanley Hauerwas” in Ecclesiology, 11:3, Oct 2015.

Xiaoli Yang

Xiaoli Yang was born in the great land of the Middle Kingdom. She lived and grew up in various subcultures of Asia and moved to Australia as an overseas student at university. Being a bridging person between the East and the West, Xiaoli has been travelling extensively and serving both locally and overseas as a lecturer, pastor and mentor. She is also an ordained minister, an accredited spiritual director and a bi-lingual poet. She contemplates human conditions poetically and integrates these in theological and missiological reflections. She has won various awards and grants including Australia Poetry Cup Slam Award (1998), APA (2011-3), grants to IAMS (2016) and Purdue University (2019), and ADM Summer Fellowship (2020). She gained a Ph.D. (Intercultural Theology) from the University of Divinity (2015) and a MDiv from the Australian College of Theology (2003). She was part of the Young Women Leaders Mentoring Network and the Australian National Committee of Lausanne Movement. Currently, she serves on the Executive Committee of Australian Association of Mission Studies and the Editorial Board of Australian Journal of Mission Studies. She also holds research and supervisory positions at a few Australian universities and teaches with Theologians without Borders as an ICETE Academy Fellow. Her research interests include Intercultural Theology; World/Asian Christianity, Poetic Theology, Comparative Theology, ethno-hermeneutics, and Christian Spirituality.

Xiaoli Yang has published monographs, book chapters, peer-reviewed articles, encyclopedia entries, and poetry widely including A Dialogue between Haizi’s Poetry and the Gospel of Luke—Chinese Homecoming and the Relationship with Jesus Christ (Brill, 2018). Book chapters include: “Creation and Tian” in T&T Clark Companion to the Doctrine of Creation (T&T Clark, 2021); “Titus” in An Asian Introduction to the New Testament (Fortress, 2020); “The Beauty of Poetry – Discerning the Images of Christ in Chinese Tradition” in Beauty and Tradition (St Pauls, 2020); “Mark Cartledge: A Practical Theologian” in Voices of the Spirit: A Primer to Contemporary Pentecostal Theology (Wipf and Stock, 2020); “A ‘Steam Boat’ Theology of Home—Reading the Gospel of Luke with Chinese Eyes” in Reimagining Home (Morling, 2019); “Poetry as Theology—a Creative Path” in Challenging Tradition: Innovation in Advanced Theological Education (Langham, 2018); “Verse by Verse: The Use of Poetry in Advanced Theological Education” in Challenging Tradition: Innovation in Advanced Theological Education (Langham, 2018).

Indigenous Theology

Indigenous Theology includes theology done by Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander, and Māori theologians.

A separate post will offer a summary of Indigenous theologians in the lands we now call Australia, written by them.

Public Theology

Public Theology includes issues and themes at the intersection between the society, the church, and the academy (theology that focuses on issues of public concern).

Denise Cooper-Clarke

Denise Cooper-Clarke (MB BS, BTh, MBHL, PhD) is a medical ethicist with special interests in professional ethics and the ethics of virtue. She formerly taught medical ethics at both Melbourne and Monash Universities and is an adjunct lecturer in Ethics at Ridley College Melbourne. She was Moderator for Philosophy and Ethics at the Australian College of Theology for ten years, concluding in 2018. She is a voluntary researcher with Ethos Centre for Christianity and Society.

Her publications include “Whose Marriage, which Sexuality? Sexuality and the Virtues”, in Whose homosexuality?: Which authority?: Homosexual practice, marriage, ordination and the church, eds Brian Edgar and Gordon Preece. Adelaide: ATF Press, 2006, “The Moral Usefulness of the Law: 1 Timothy 1:8-11” in Sexegesis, eds Michael Bird and Gordon Preece. Sydney South: Anglican Press Australia, 2012, “Living with ‘Assisted Dying’: An Introduction to the Issues and Ethics of Voluntary Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide in Australia”, in Engaging Ethically in a Strange New World edited by Michael Brautigam and Gillian Asquith. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2019, and a number of articles on bioethical issues in Zadok Perspectives.

Diane Rayson

Dianne Rayson is a public theologian with special interest in ecotheology and ecoethics. She gained her PhD from The University of Newcastle with the thesis, ‘Bonhoeffer’s Theology and Anthropogenic Climate Change: In search of an ecoethic’. Her upcoming book is titled ‘Bonhoeffer and Climate Change: Theology and Ecoethics’ (Lexington, 2020).

Di has published on a range of contemporary issues from a theological perspective, including rape culture, war and ecology, and interfaith engagement. Her theology is deeply influenced by the life and work of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Di has convened the Australian Bonhoeffer Conference for several years, is Assistant Editor of the ‘The Bonhoeffer Legacy: An International Journal,’, and a Board member of the International Bonhoeffer Society.

She has held several lecturing positions and currently teaches and researches at the University of Newcastle. Prior to becoming a theologian she held senior roles in government in public policy. She also worked in PNG with Service Fellowship International in public health.

Dr Rayson is an international speaker and is a semi-regular guest on ABC radio in Newcastle. She preaches in a variety of church settings including her home church in the Anglican diocese of Newcastle.

Enqi Weng

Enqi Weng teaches media and religious units at Deakin University. She is also a Research Fellow to the ARC Discovery Project “Religious Diversity in Australia: Strategies to Maintain Social Cohesion.” Her monograph, Media Perceptions of Religious Changes in Australia: Of Dominance and Diversity will be published by Routledge in 2020. She was formerly a Research Assistant to the UNESCO Chair of Cultural Diversity and Social Justice at the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalization. Enqi’s doctoral thesis examined religious changes and changing attitudes toward religion through a study of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Q&A program. Her thesis argues that religious beliefs and practices are richer and more complex than the narrow interpretations of ‘religion’ in the media and popular consciousness. More broadly, she is interested in the relationship between media and society and especially media’s influences and effects on religious and social changes. Her other research curiosities include cultural/religious diversity, religious literacy, and sociological concept of the sacred. She was a contributor on the Melbourne team involved in the “Religion on an Ordinary Day” media project (2013–2015) that was part of the Religion and Diversity Project housed at the University of Ottawa.

Enqi Weng’s publications include “Through a National Lens Darkly: Religion as a Spectrum”, Journal for the Academic Study of Religion 32(1), 3–26 (2019); “The Heavens Opened and Cried: Mediatized National Mourning for Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew”, Asian Communication Research 13(2), 65–85 (2016); “The Trappings of Time: The Effects of Global Social Media Uprisings on Singapore’s Political Scene”, in Movements in Time Revolution, Social Justice and Times of Change, Castle upon Tyne (2012), 151–64; “Observing the Impact of Locative Media on the Public Space of Contemporary Cities”, Polymath: An Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences Journal (2012), Vol. 2, 1–10.

Gabrielle McMullen

Gabrielle McMullen served as Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic) at Australian Catholic University (ACU). She joined ACU as rector of its Ballarat campus in 1995. In 2000, Professor McMullen accepted the national role of pro and subsequently deputy vice-chancellor (academic). Since her appointment, she played a pivotal role in the development of ACU’s faculties, library, Indigenous education and research, and community partnerships in Ballarat, Brisbane, Canberra, Melbourne, and Sydney, and especially in the development of the new Melbourne campus. Professor McMullen’s list of academic achievements is extensive. She was awarded the degree of Bachelor of Science with First Class Honours and also received the annual CSR Chemicals Prize. She undertook postgraduate studies in organic chemistry, obtaining her Doctorate from Monash University. From 1977 to 1981, she was at Freiburg University in Germany as an Alexander von Humboldt fellow and then a Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft post-doctoral fellow. On her return to Monash University she was first sub-dean and then dean of Mannix College while undertaking teaching and research in the department of biochemistry, progressing from senior tutor to senior lecturer. Outside her employment, she has also made extensive wider contributions, for example, to the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne, the Catholic Education Office Melbourne, the academic board of Catholic Theological College and St Vincent’s health board.

Gabrielle McMullen’s publications include: Listening, Learning and Leading: The Impact of Catholic Identity and Mission (Connor Court, 2014); Review, Reimagine, Renew: Mission Making a Difference in a Changing World (Edited with Scales and Fitzgerald, Connor Court, 2014); Hearing Healing Hope: the Ministry of Service in Challenging Times (Edited with Scales and Fitzgerald, Connor Court, 2019).

Julia Baird

Julia Baird is a globally renowned author, journalist, broadcaster, and historian who specializes in gender and religion. She hosts the Drum on ABCTV, and writes columns for the New York Times and the Sydney Morning Herald. Her first work as a student historian was a first-class honours thesis examining the politicization of women in the Anglican church, based on The Movement for the Ordination of Women, a subject she has reported on ever since (women can still not be priests or preach to mixed congregations in her own Sydney Anglican diocese).

After her first book, Media Tarts, which was based on her history PhD about the portrayal of female politicians was published in 2005, she moved to the U.S. to take up a fellowship at the Kennedy School at Harvard. When she was deputy editor of Newsweek in New York, she began work on a major biography of Queen Victoria called Victoria the Queen: An Intimate Biography of the Woman who Ruled an Empire. This was published in 2016 by HarperCollins to critical acclaim and became a bestseller. Her latest book, Phosphorescence: On Awe, Wonder and the Things That Sustain You When the World Goes Dark, will be published in April 2020 by HarperCollins.

Julia Baird’s in-depth investigation into domestic violence in faith communities for the ABC earned her four Walkley Our Watch Awards and a Gowland Legal Award for excellent in reporting about domestic violence.

Justine Toh

Justine Toh is Senior Fellow at the Centre for Public Christianity where she speaks and writes about the Christian faith in a secular age in publications like the Sydney Morning Herald, The Spectator, and ABC Religion & Ethics. She hosts the occasional series Spiritual Lifehack on ABC RN’s Soul Search and, very occasionally, guest hosts ABC RN’s God Forbid, a panel program exploring contemporary religion. Justine is also a presenter of the documentary For the Love of God: How the Church is Better and Worse Than You Ever Imagined (Centre for Public Christianity, 2019). She has a PhD in Cultural Studies from Macquarie University in Sydney.

Kathleen McPhillips

Kathleen McPhillips is a sociologist of religion and gender at the University of Newcastle, Australia. Kathleen has a long involvement in feminist Christian movements and work. She was a founding member of Sydney Women-Church, The Australian Feminist Theology Foundation (AFTF) and Women Scholars in Religion and Theology (WSRT). Kathleen has written extensively on the role of women in the church, employing feminist, psychoanalytic and sociological frameworks to issues around gender and religion. More recently she has been investigating institutional child sexual abuse in religious organisations and has extensive experience in attending, reporting on and analysing the Catholic Church at the Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sexual Abuse and has held numerous research grants.

Kathleen McPhillips is on the international board of the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion and Feminist Dissent and is an associate editor of the Journal for the Academic Study of Religion. She is managing editor of the Seachanges online journal and Vice President of the Australian Association for the Study of Religion. She has a long list of publications and has recently published in Feminist TheologyJournal of Feminist Studies in Religion, and Journal of Australian Studies, Psychoanalytic Dialogues and Journal for the Academic Study of Religion. Kathleen has extensive experience teaching in the sociology of religion and gender at University level at both undergraduate and postgraduate level.

Marion Maddox

Marion Maddox works in the area of religion and politics. She is currently Professor in the Department of Modern History, Politics and International Relations at Macquarie University, Sydney. She previously taught Religious Studies at Victoria University Wellington (2000-2007) and the University of South Australia (1992-1996), and Australian Politics at the University of Adelaide (1997-1998). As Australian Parliamentary Fellow (1999-2000), she wrote her first book, For God and Country: Religious Dynamics in Australian Federal Politics.

Marion Maddox holds PhDs in Theology (Flinders, 1992) and Political Philosophy (UNSW, 2000). She was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities in 2017. She has held several distinguished fellowships, including an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship, ‘Religion, State and Social Inclusion: Lessons from Schools in Three Countries’, and visiting fellowships in sociology of religion at EHESS Paris and Sciences-Po Aix en Provence, in studies of religion at the University of Newcastle and Leibniz University Hanover and in Australian politics at the University of Adelaide and at ANU’s Research School of Social Sciences.

She is the author of numerous articles and chapters, and several books, including God Under Howard: The Rise of the Religious Right in Australian Politics (Allen & Unwin 2005), shortlisted for the Queensland Premier’s Award, which the Times Literary Supplement called ‘impressive’ and ‘an exemplary case study of the interaction between religion and politics in Australia today’; and Taking God to School: The End of Australia’s Egalitarian Education (Allen & Unwin, 2014), which Hon. Michael Kirby called ‘deeply disturbing’ and Hon. Peter Garrett called ‘essential reading’.

Meredith Lake

Meredith Lake is a historian of religion, society, and culture with a PhD from the University of Sydney. Her books include Faith in Action: HammondCare (UNSW Press, 2013), a study of one of Australia’s largest but least known Christian charities from the Great Depression to the 21st century, and The Bible in Australia: a cultural history (NewSouth, 2018). The Bible in Australia has won various awards, including: Winner, 2019 NSW Premier’s History Awards, Australian History prize; Winner, 2019 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards, Australian History prize; Winner, 2019 CHASS Australia Prize for a Book; Winner, 2018 Australian Christian Book of the Year.

Meredith Lake took up a Distinguished Undergraduate Scholarship at the University of Sydney, where she studied with some of the leading cultural historians in the country. She graduated with a PhD for research on religious narratives about land in colonial Australia. Since 2009, Meredith has worked in the education and not-for-profit sectors, telling true stories about religious faith and how it plays out in society and culture. Her innovative essay on Christianity and colonialism beat an international field to win the 2012 Bruce Mansfield Prize for best article in the Journal of Religious History. She’s also written for The Conversation, spoken on various radio shows, and appeared at the Sydney Writers Festival. She is an Honorary Associate of the Department of History, Sydney University.

Natasha Moore

Natasha Moore is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Public Christianity (CPX) in Sydney, which seeks to engage the secular public with a picture of the Christian faith that is gracious, rigorous, and non-defensive. She has a PhD in English Literature from the University of Cambridge and is the author of Victorian Poetry and Modern Life: The Unpoetical Ageand For the Love of God: How the Church Is Better and Worse Than You Ever Imagined, as well as editor of 10 Tips for Atheists and Other Conversations in Faith and Culture.

Natasha Moore has written for publications including Christianity Today, the ABC, The Sydney Morning Herald, SBS, and The Spectator Australia on topics such as books, politics, domestic violence, Scripture in schools, church history, death, taxes, Thanksgiving, and freedom of speech. She co-hosts CPX’s Life and Faith podcast and speaks regularly at conferences and schools.

Ruth Powell

Ruth Powell is Director of NCLS Research, a research centre that focuses on church vitality and community spirituality and wellbeing. Ruth has worked with NCLS Research since 1991 and became Director in 2007. She also holds a position as Associate Professor and Research Fellow, Public and Contextual Theology Research Centre, Charles Sturt University, as well as Honorary Professor at Alphacrucis College.

Major projects for NCLS Research include the five-yearly National Church Life Survey, which commenced in 1991 and forms the basis of one of the largest, most comprehensive databases on church life of its kind in the world. The 2016 NCLS included around a quarter of a million church attenders from 3000 local churches from around 20 denominations. Ruth’s role involves managing research projects on both church and community life, as well as developing resources for local churches, denominational leaders and other community agencies. Her own primary research interests lie in assisting churches to reflect on their interaction with the wider Australian community. As well as church health, and tracking changes in church life over time, she has studied age differences and cultural diversity in churches, effective leadership, religiosity and spirituality in the wider community.

As well as a range of academic articles, occasional papers and commissioned reports, Ruth has co-authored NCLS Research publications on church life such as Winds of Change, Shaping a Future, Taking Stock, Build My Church, Mission under the Microscope, and Enriching Church Life. Her doctoral thesis focussed on age differences among church attenders.

A list of some of Ruth’s publications can be found online: http://ncls.org.au/research/ruth-powell

Sandie Cornish

Sandie Cornish is an Australian of Asian and European descent. She works with the Office for Social Justice of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, and in private practice as a consultant. Sandie is a sessional lecturer with the Australian Catholic University. She has been Director of Quality and Community Engagement for the Sydney College of Divinity, Province Director of Mission of the Society of the Sacred Heart in Australia and New Zealand, and has worked with the Good Shepherd Sisters in research and social policy. She also worked with the Australian Jesuits assisting in research, policy, planning, and formation in their social ministries. Sandie was the Social Justice Education Coordinator for the Diocese of Broken Bay where she had responsibility for the coordination of adult faith programs in social justice, and the development of academic programs in Catholic Social Teaching offered in distance mode through the Broken Bay Institute. Prior to this she led the Hong Kong based international human rights agency, the Asian Center for the Progress of Peoples.  She was the first woman to head a national agency of the Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference, serving as the National Executive Officer of the Australian Catholic Social Justice Council for five years.

Sandie holds a Bachelor of Economics and a Master of Public Policy in addition to a Licentiate in Catholic Social Doctrine and Ethics from the Pontifical Gregorian University and a PhD in Practical Theology from the Australian Catholic University.

Sandie is a specialist in Catholic Social Teaching and has assisted Australian Bishops in their teaching and public engagement in social justice issues for over twenty years. She played a significant role in each of the major research and consultation activities of the Catholic Bishops’ Committee for Justice, Development and Peace during the late 1980’s and 1990’s. Her interests include economic justice, refugees and asylum seekers, integral ecology, women in the church, a community engagement approach to practical theology, and Ignatian spirituality.

Sandie writes for both popular and academic audiences and blogs at www.social-spirituality.net  Her publications include Sandie Cornish & Andrea Dean, eds. Still Listening to the Spirit: Woman and Man Twenty Years Later, Sydney: Office for Social Justice of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, 2019; Cornish, Sandie. “Governing in an Ignatian Spirit Today”, Promotio Iustitiae, No 125, March 2018. 22–26; Cornish, Sandie. “Laudato Si’: Making the Connections”, Asian Horizons, Vol 9, no 4, December 2015, pp 609 –20; Cornish, Sandie. “People on the Move and Catholic Social Teaching”, Asian Horizons, Vol 8, no 4, December 2014, pp 810–22; Duncan, Bruce & Sandie Cornish. “The Council’s Call to Renewed Social Engagement”, in Neil Ormerod et al eds. Vatican II: Reception and Implementation in the Australian Church. Mulgrave: Garratt Publishing, 2012; Cornish, Sandie. “Introducing Caritas in Veritate”, in Neil Ormerod & Paul Oslington, eds. Globalisation and the Church, Strathfield, St Paul’s, 2011; Cornish, S., & Freeman, D., “Connecting Catholic Social Teaching to Contemporary Australia”, in Daniel McDonald ed., Catholic Social Teaching in Global Perspective, Gregorian University Studies in Catholic Social Teaching, New York: Orbis, 2010; Macdonald, Marie, Peter Carpenter, Sandie Cornish, Michael Costigan, Robert Dixon, Margaret Malone, Kevin Manning, and Sonia Wagner. Woman and Man One in Christ Jesus. Sydney: Harper Collins, 1999.

Alphabetical List of the 160+ Australian and New Zealander Women in Theology

Alana Harris

Amelia Koh-Butler

Angela Sawyer

Angeline M.G. Song

Anita Monro

Anna McGahan (Anna Weir)

Anne E. Gardner

Anne Elvey

Anne Hunt

Anne Klose

Anne Mallaby

Anne Pattel-Gray

Antonia Pizzey

Avril Hannah-Jones

Brooke Prentis

Carol Tasker

Caroline Batchelder

Caroline Blyth

Carolyn Alsen

Carolyn Ellen Kelly

Carolyn Tan

Cass Kwakye

Catherine Laufer

Catherine Playoust

Cathy Hine

Cathy Ross

Cheryl McCallum

Christine Aroney-Sine

Christine Elisabeth Burke

Christine Redwood

Christy Capper

Claire Renkin

Claire Smith

Coralie Bridle

Cristina Lledo Gomez

Csilla Saysell

Danielle Anne Lynch

Danijela Schubert

Deborah Guess

Debra A. Snoddy

Debra Hirsch

Denise A. Austin

Denise Champion

Denise Cooper-Clarke

Denise Goodwin

Denise Powell

Dianne Rayson

Dorothy A. Lee

Drene Somasundram

Edwina Murphy

Elaine Mary Wainwright

Elizabeth (Libby) Byrne

Elizabeth (Liz) Boase

Elizabeth Agaiby

Emily Colgan

Enqi Weng

Erin Martine Sessions

Evelyn Ashley

Evelyn Hibbert

Gabrielle McMullen

Gemma Cruz

Grace Lung

Hanna Hyun

Heather Thomson

Jacqueline Grey

Jacqueline Service

Jane Foulcher

Janette Gray

Janet Turpie Johnson

Janice McRandal

Janina Hiebel

Jeanette Mathews

Jennifer Close

Jennifer Turner

Jenny Te Paa Daniel

Jill Firth

Josephine (Jo) Inkpin

Jude Long

Julia Baird

Julie Trinidad

Justine Toh

Kara Martin

Karen Kemp

Karen Pack

Karen Walker

Karina Kreminski

Kate Harrison Brennan

Kate Tyler

Katharine Massam

Kathleen McPhillips

Kathleen Williams

Kerrie Handasyde

Kylie Crabbe

Lee Miena Skye

Louise Gosbell

Lyn M. Kidson

Lynne M. Taylor

Maeve Louise Heaney

Maja Whitaker

Mandy Smith

Margaret Beirne

Margaret Campbell

Margaret Mowczko

Marguerite (Maggie) Kappelhoff

Marie-Louise Craig

Marion Maddox

Marita Munro

Mary Coloe

Mary Elisabeth Fisher

Maryanne Confoy

Megan Powell du Toit

Melinda Cousins

Meredith Lake

Merrill Kitchen

Merryl L. Blair

Michele Connolly

Michelle Jones

Miriam Bier Hinksman

Moeawa Callaghan

Monica Jyotsna Melanchthon

Moyra Dale

Naomi Wolfe

Narelle Coetzee

Natasha Moore

Nicola Hoggard Creegan

Pat Fox

Patrica Madigan

Patricia Harrison

Penelope L. Martin

Rachelle Gilmour

Rebecca Burgess

Rebekah Earnshaw

Robyn Horner

Robyn Reynolds

Robyn Whitaker

Robyn Wrigley-Carr

Rocio Figueroa Alvear

Rosalind M. Gooden

Rosemary Canavan

Rosemary Dewerse

Ruth Lukabyo

Ruth Powell

Sally Douglas

Sandie Cornish

Sarah Bacaller

Sarah Bachelard

Sarah Harris

Seforosa Carroll

Sue Patterson

Suzanne McDonald

Sylvia Collinson

Tamie Davis

Tanya Riches

Tanya Wittwer

Taryn Dryfhout

Thalia Kehoe Rowden

Theresa Yu Chui Siang Lau

Tracy McEwan

Tracey Rowland

Val Webb

Vicky Balabanski

Victoria Lorrimar

Vivian Soesilo

Wendy Mayer

Xiaoli Yang

Yael Klangwisan

Holding Up Half the Sky

The biblical vision for women, and for their role as teachers, witnesses, disciplers, leaders, and theologians, transforms not only personal lives, but also the church and the world. But only the truly biblical vision can do this. The church needs a biblical vision for women teaching, leading, and theologising in the local church and the church worldwide, and of women and men theologising together as equal partners.

“Women hold up half the sky” and they make up more than half the church. It’s due time that the church honoured and amplified the voices, gifts, and theologies of women in the way Jesus intended.

Further Reading and Resources

This post is part of a series The Global Church Project team are running profiling (mainly) female theologians from all over the globe — see our other articles in this series:

Series Editor: Graham Joseph Hill

Celucian L. Joseph, “20 Haitian Theologians and Biblical Scholars You Should Know About

Jocabed Solano and Drew Jennings-Grisham, “Some Indigenous Women Theologians You Should Know About

Stephanie A. Lowery, “9 African Women Theologians You Should Know About”

Emmanuella Carter, “17 African American Women Theologians You Should Know About”

Juliany González Nieves, “23 Latin American Women and USA Latinas in Theology and Religion You Should Know About”

Grace Al-Zoughbi Arteen and Graham Joseph Hill, “18 Arab Female Theologians and Christian Leaders You Should Know About”

Jessie Giyou Kim and Graham Joseph Hill, “18 Asian Female Theologians You Should Know About (Plus Others For You To Explore)”

Graham Joseph Hill and Jen Barker, “20 Australian and New Zealander Female Theologians You Should Get to Know in 2020”

Graham Joseph Hill and Jen Barker, “160+ Australian and New Zealander Women in Theology You Should Know About”

Graham Joseph Hill and Jessie Giyou Kim, “12 Women on Changing the World: A 12-Session Film Series on Transforming Society and Neighborhoods”

Juliany González Nieves, “Caribbean Christian Theology: A Bibliography”

Juliany González Nieves offers “A Reading List on Latinx and Latin American Theologies” HERE and downloadable HERE. See “A Latinx Theology Reading List” by Santi Rodriguez, HERE.

 

About Graham Joseph Hill and Jen Barker

Graham Joseph Hill (PhD) is the Founding Director of TheGlobalChurchProject.com. He is Principal and Assoc. Professor at Stirling Theological College (University of Divinity). Graham has written 10 books. His latest books are Global Church (IVP, 2016) and a co-authored book with Grace Ji-Sun Kim called Healing Our Broken Humanity (IVP, 2018). In 2020 his new book on biblical equality comes out called Holding Up Half the Sky: A Biblical Case for Women Leading and Teaching in the Church (Cascade, 2020).

Jen Barker founded the website fixinghereyes.org in 2015 as a platform for Australian Christian Women’s voices. She is a primary school teacher in Sydney and has also worked in marketing and communications.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cover Image: Shutterstock Image ID: 1569550615. Purchased 12 Dec 2019. Confirmation number SSTK-08117-8C98

© 2019 All rights reserved. Copying and republishing this article on other Web sites, or in any other place, without written permission is prohibited.

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Graham Joseph Hill

Rev. Dr. Graham Joseph Hill serves as Mission Catalyst for Church Planting and Missional Renewal with the Uniting Church in NSW and ACT, Australia. Previously, he was the Principal of Stirling Theological College (Melbourne), the Vice-Principal of Morling Theological College (Sydney), and an Associate Professor at the University of Divinity, Australia. Graham is an ordained and accredited minister with the Baptist Churches of Australia. He has planted and pastored churches and been in ministry since 1988. Graham is the author or editor of 13 books. Graham writes at grahamjosephhill.com

Graham's qualifications include: Honours Diploma of Ministry (SCD), Bachelor of Theology (SCD), Master of Theology (Notre Dame), and Doctor of Philosophy (Flinders).

See ORCID publication record: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6532-8248

 

© 2024. All rights reserved by Graham Joseph Hill. Copying and republishing this article on other Web sites, or in any other place, without written permission is prohibited.

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