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IN THIS ISSUE From the editor .............................................................................................. 3 Our team ....................................................................................................... 3 Books which inspire ....................................................................................... 4 The Global Edwards ...................................................................................... 9 Theological Education book ........................................................................ 10 Reformation Day @ 500 ............................................................................... 11 Supporting HDR........................................................................................... 12 Conferrals .................................................................................................... 13 Research update .......................................................................................... 13 Policy updates ............................................................................................. 13 Professional Development ........................................................................... 14 ACT News .................................................................................................... 14 College News .............................................................................................. 14 Publications ................................................................................................. 15 Events .......................................................................................................... 16 Positions Vacant ........................................................................................... 16 with God – the man of the love poetry not FROM THE EDITOR erased but transformed. Rev Megan Powell du Toit NEXUS Editor Publications and Policies Administrator Editor of Colloquium I have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of library — Jorge Luis Borges OUR TEAM or our end of year edition, I decided to Strategy & Operations do an edition on books, to give you lots F of reading material for the summer Dean & CEO holidays. Rev Dr Martin Sutherland Executive Assistant to the Dean Academics from within and outside the ACT Tara Holdaway graciously answered my request for a book Director of Quality & Operations which had influenced their theology and/or Paul Yeates spirituality. In doing so, something of their Quality Assurance Officer selves is also revealed – the suggestions show Meredith Walker-Harding humour, compassion and that within many of Director of Finance our academics beat the hearts of poets. Vicki Chen I’ve written a roundup of some noteworthy Financial Accountant books of 2017. I’m sure many of you will argue Mary Ann Navidad with this list and have books you think should Learning, Teaching & Research have been included. Feel free to email me with suggestions! Associate Dean, Director of Research Rev Dr Graeme Chatfield Two soon to publish books from the ACT Research Students Administrator Monograph Series have been featured, and Elizabeth Kohn you will see I carried the book theme over into Director of Learning & Teaching that feature as well. Dr Geoff Treloar And as usual, this issue is Publications & Policies Administrator packed with information Colloquium Editor and news from within the Rev Megan Powell du Toit ACT and beyond. Academic Services As for me, which book Registrar would I have chosen? This Simon Davies was a hard choice – I Academic Administrative Officers considered Alister Asanka Gunerathne McGrath, the first Adam Kelley theologian I read, who Elisa Norris revealed to me that this Diana Tadjudin type of thinking was like food and water to me. Or Nouwen’s Wounded Healer, which informed my pastoral practice greatly. But, given my love of poetry, I’m going to go with John Donne’s religious poetry which presents a deeply personal and honest relationship 3 BOOKS WHICH INSPIRE this book is to provide the titles for some of asked several Australasian academics his prayers: from within and outside the ACT to share * Prayer in Celebration of the Greatest I with me a book which has influenced their Invention Ever, the Wicked Hot Shower theology and/or spirituality. Freedom was given as to what kind of book it could be. * Prayer of Bemused Thanks for Scrunchies & The outcome is a spectrum of genres – from Those Other Weird Lovely Things Women theology to devotional, extending beyond Wear in Their Hair the expected into novels and poetry. In this * Prayer for Women Named Ethel and Men we see the many and varied ways God may Named Elmer, for We Will Not See Their nudge our thinking along. Within these Likes Again recommendations I found old favourites and books to add to my always expanding to * Prayer in Reluctant but Abashed Hesitant read pile. Enjoy. Appreciation of Death Megan Powell du Toit * Prayer for Sisters Not Related to You by Blood * Prayer for My Man Daniel Age Three Who Matthew Anstey Will Die from Cancer in About Two Weeks Principal of St Barnabas College Few books have A.J. Culp had such a profound impact on Lecturer at Malyon my soul as Brian College Doyle's A Book of I’ve always been Uncommon Prayer: fascinated by 100 Celebrations stories. This, no of the Miracle & doubt, is how a kid Muddle of the like me—from Ordinary. Simply rural, blue-collar the best way to people—ended up convince someone studying English to read (and reread) Literature & 4 Writing at university. I realised I’d get to The value of Austen and her six perfect spend several years reading and telling novels is that stories! Yet for all this, when I went on to exposure to literary graduate school to study theology, I found greatness assists myself forced to read the Bible’s own stories theological as if they were accounting sheets. The students to stories, it seemed, were containers of truth recognise the that needed to be extracted, sorted, and beauty and tabulated. Fortunately, along the way I came cleverness of the under the guidance of an Old Testament literature of the scholar, M. Daniel Carroll R., who directed Bible. The regular me to Robert Alter’s The Art of Biblical rereading of her Narrative. For me, this was like walking literary corpus also through a magic wardrobe: the stories assists in a deeper suddenly came alive and drew me into the understanding of biblical world. many Bible passages. One recent example I came across in my own studies was 2 Samuel 7:1, where Austen provides a much needed Louise Gosbell clue that this verse gives David’s viewpoint Lecturer at Mary Andrews College and is not an objective account by the narrator. What we have in verse 1 is a biblical I first came across Nancy L. Eiesland’s book instance of what is called “free indirect The Disabled God: Toward a Liberatory discourse”, such as perfected by Jane Theology of Disability when I began my Austen, and particularly evident in her novel BTh honours thesis addressing disability in Emma. This may be defined as a narrative the gospels. I was surprised at the time how “technique for rendering a character’s little academic thought in his own idiom while maintaining interest there was in the third-person reference and the basic disability from biblical tense of the narration” (Cohn, Transparent scholars. Eiesland’s Minds, 100–101). book was thus a breath of fresh air for me at the time. In Michael Jensen Eiesland’s view, Rector of St Mark's Anglican Church, Darling disability was not Point wholly unconnected from the biblical I read Miroslav Volf's Exclusion and texts, but rather, at Embrace when I was at theological college. the heart of the It was a revelation to me that a person with Christian message: God in his great power an orthodox chose to disable himself by taking on the theology could also limitations of the human body through the have a rich political incarnation. Though the view of Jesus as and social vision for ‘disabled’ rocked many scholars at the time, reconciliation and this concept is a helpful reminder of the peace. Usually, it great juxtaposition of the powerful God was liberal theology dwelling in limited human flesh and who is that had majored on thus able to “empathise with our politics. But Volf, weaknesses” (Heb. 4:15). interacting with all the philosophers I had read in my Greg Goswell English degree, Academic Dean and Lecturer at Christ showed that the College Biblical gospel is applicable to the real world 5 - the divided and hurting world. I've told thinking through the cultural frame that I people since that it changed my life! brought to my church, and expectations I had upon spiritual formation, property, privacy, family and authority, dispute Yael Klangwisan resolution and communication. It Co-Head of School of Social Practice at complexified questions from "Who should Laidlaw College have the authority to speak in church?" through to "How do we demonstrate Rubem Alves, The forgiveness?" and "How should conflict Poet, The Warrior, occur?" The Prophet. This is a beautiful, poignant and Erin Sessions courageous text Associate Academic Dean at Morling College written by the Brazilian liberation I grew up on poetry. When I became a theologian, Rubem Christian, I looked to poets like Gerard Alves. Alves Manley Hopkins, develops what Elizabeth Bishop might be a theology and Czeslaw of poetry or perhaps Milosz. Hopkins a compelling poetic rendering of theology showed me how to itself. Alves' aesthetic sensibility combined praise God for with his