At the start of a new decade a significant new initiative has emerged:
Ethos – EA Centre for Christianity and Society. Ethos goes beyond an
ethics of dilemmas, decisions and doing to one of character, culture
and community, centred in Jesus Christ.
Ethos combines the endeavours and personnel of two national Christian
organisations engaged with Australian society: Zadok Institute for
Christianity and Society and the Evangelical Alliance’s Department of
Public Theology.
Both organisations behind Ethos have pedigree: a wealth of experience
and a history of commitment to exploring and promoting Christian
ethical engagement with the world beyond Sunday’s sometimes cloistered
walls into the Monday world where God’s scattered people engage
everyday life: work, leisure, politics, environment.
EA established a Public Theology Department in 2004, with Brian Edgar
serving as the pioneer director, ably succeeded by Ian Packer. It is
highly valued by pastors, academics and church members for its
judicious commentary on contemporary issues. The Public Theology
Department has now been superseded by Ethos which will enhance its
empowering of EA members to engage a new decade of ethical challenges.
The Zadok Institute for Christianity and Society is an independent
organisation whose mission is to promote informed theological
reflection and debate, especially by lay people, on contemporary
Australian issues. Founded in 1976 soon after the Whitlam-era ferment,
Zadok has brought an applied spirituality and world-view into personal,
professional and public life for its large national network. Ethos will
continue to publish Zadok Perspectives and Papers and organise a
two-yearly conference and other events. Zadok’s mission has always been
more effective when it has had a director. Now with two directors its
ministry will be multiplied as Ethos.
Ethos is more than merely the sum of its parts, and more than a
knee-jerk reaction to the latest media bites. Ethos is a network of
outstanding Christian thinkers and activists drawn together into a
series of standing think-tanks. These will be committed to ongoing,
in-depth analysis of critical issues such as climate change (headed by
meteorologist Dr Mick Pope), human rights (Angus McLeay and Mark
Sneddon), bio- and sexual ethics (Dr Denise Cooper-Clarke, ethos
researcher), indigenous issues and business ethics. Ethos is especially
committed to empowering Christian professionals to profess their faith
publicly by word and deed. In doing so we will demonstrate the
relevance and distinctiveness of the public life of the Christian
community, discerning and debating in a spirit of reconciliation. This
points beyond the common party political spirit of church and world to
the divine politics of God’s peaceable Kingdom. To paraphrase Jacques
Ellul, it is in disagreeing robustly but respectfully about penultimate
things that Christians point most effectively to the ultimate. We look
forward to your contributions to this Kingdom-building process.
The Ethos board has recently appointed Dr Gordon Preece to the position
of Director and Revd Ian Packer as Assistant Director. Gordon has
ministered at several Anglican churches in Sydney and is now at
Yarraville Anglican. He lectured at Morling Baptist College Sydney and
was Director of the Centre for Applied Christian Ethics (CACE) at
Ridley College, Macquarie Christian Studies Institute and Urban Seed, a
ministry of hospitality to the homeless.
Gordon is an international leader in workplace theology. He is a
prolific writer as author or editor of 11 books, many articles and of
Zadok Perspectives. He is currently writing a book on the Global
Financial Crisis and editing a book on Bonhoeffer. Gordon is married to
Susan, an asthma and mental health educator and has three spirited
twenty-ish children. He loves the world game and the Cats.
Ian Packer is a Baptist minister based in Sydney with his wife Libby
and their son and three daughters. He did his BA in politics,
philosophy and sociology at Murdoch University, theology at the Baptist
College of WA, and his MDiv at Ridley and Morling colleges and is
currently pursuing doctoral research on vocation. He lectures at
several colleges in theology and ethics and their interface with other
disciplines. This flows from his conviction that there is no sphere of
life excluded from the call to follow Jesus Christ. He serves on the
Baptist Union Social Issues Committee for NSW & ACT and the
executive for the Anabaptist Association of Australia and New Zealand.