About

Along my life journey I have no memory of not being a Christian. I am told, though, that I must have experienced a believer’s conversion at some point in my life. Like many other Christian-raised believers, I do not have a before and after story to share. My faith was shaped within an ethnically-mixed background although I was raised in Australia. My mother was American-born; my father, Asia Minor (Turkish)-born. Both were Greek and Greek Orthodox so I was baptised as an infant in the Greek Orthodox Church. The first theological question I ever had came at some time in early childhood. For the first time, I heard someone praying in English. English! Could God understand the prayer? All of my spiritual experiences up to that moment had happened in the context of a Greek Church. Just before I reached 7 years of age, my family moved to Melbourne. No more nearby extended family, no more sunshine as I had experienced it, constant and predictable, no more Greek Orthodox Church – at least on a regular basis. Circumstances led us to living further from a Greek Orthodox Church so I was sent to a local Church and Sunday school which happened to be Methodist. Just as well I had the shock of learning that God could speak English a few years earlier because that probably inoculated me from getting too fussy about the missing icons, candles, incense and priestly robes.

I am grateful for the presence and ministries of the Greek Orthodox, Methodist and later, Baptist, Anglican and Presbyterian Churches in my life. They have all offered me valuable theological perspectives and good Christian communities. The continuity among all of these churches is their high view of Scripture – and this includes the Greek Orthodox Church. My mother and aunty, both Greek Orthodox Christians, revered Scripture and had influenced my Christian walk. I found my way into the Protestant Church at age 7 and I could not now see myself in any other Christian expression of worship. Every now and then I would be lobbied to attend worship at the Greek Orthodox Church but as my understanding of faith came via the Protestant Church, I could not return. I was troubled by this so consulted my mother’s kindly Greek Orthodox priest who assured me that worship in a way that is meaningful to me is fine. So I happily embrace Protestantism while at the same time acknowledging the faith of those from Christian traditions outside of my own. 

Counterintuitively, it took Catholics to teach me grace. The film, ‘The Passion Of The Christ’, helped me to apprehend God’s grace at a spiritual level. Although I could understand grace intellectually, it was not until I saw that film that my spiritual understanding of grace was awakened in a new way. Having experienced so many Christian traditions, this was the one thing, this grace, that I wanted to understand…and I eventually did. Along the way, I have had to sort out my beliefs in many aspects of faith. I have pondered for a long time the inherent leftism of the majority of evangelicals I know. I was in “cell” groups with them, like we were in Marxist cells. I would not know how to classify my position theologically but I agree with most but not all Reformed theology and with the Arminian belief in human free will. I strive to read Scripture for what it is saying rather than through a sometimes limiting theological framework. That said, I do study Scripture within the confines of commonly accepted creeds across Christendom such as the Nicene Creed. I see the need for theology but continue to try to evaluate everything I read, see and hear through the grid of Scripture. I believe this to be loving God with all my mind.

I offer this resource, sometimes exploring faith, sometimes our culture, both Christian and worldly, in the hope that you will be encouraged to pursue your knowledge of faith in Christ as He is shown to be in the Bible, our ultimate guide. I also wish it to be an encouragement to anyone exploring Christianity, whether for the first time, or again. God’s revelation in the Bible is as relevant to us today as in every age, if you read it carefully. I encourage you to pursue your understanding of Who God is and of knowing Him.