06 December
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On
In Church History

THE STORY OF RAMABAI – FOUNDER OF MUKTI MISSION Rowland S. Ward, 2001 updated 2016   Rowland Ward has been on the Australian Mukti Council since 1999, and Chairman since 2002. If you would like to sponsor a child or otherwise support the work Ramabai began, contact Mukti Australia Inc, 5 Court Street, Box Hill, Victoria 3124 [email: admin@mukti.org.au]   A bit of Hindu background Hinduism, the religion of India, includes a family of religious beliefs dating back 5000 years to a time of simple animal sacrifice. At first the emphasis was on God ‘the heavenly one’ or supreme ruler. However, over time the religionRead More →

18 October
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On
In Church History

Mutiny on the Bounty   The Pitcairn story by Rowland Ward who, with his wife, recently (August 2010) spent two weeks on Norfolk Island Probably most people have heard of the mutiny against William Bligh (1754-1817) which has featured in five films and numerous articles and books. Lieut. Bligh and his crew were on an expedition backed by Sir Joseph Banks to collect breadfruit plants in Tahiti and take them to the West Indies where it was thought they would provide a cheap food source for the slaves. After several months in Tahiti the 26 metre long Bounty set sail with her 44 crew forRead More →

26 October
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On
In Church History

  JOHN CALVIN – THE MAN   An address by Dr Rowland S. Ward given on 24 October 2009 at Creek Road Presbyterian Church, Brisbane John Calvin – a Frenchman who lived from 1509-1564 and was one of a number of notable Reformers of the Church.   Assessments of Calvin’s character have varied widely. In 1577 Jerome Bolsec called him “John Calvin of Noyon, a man among all others who were ever in the world ambitious, presumptuous, arrogant, cruel, malicious, vengeful, and above all ignorant.” He had a few other scurrilous comments which I don’t care to repeat here. Bolsec had left the Catholic ChurchRead More →

12 December
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On
In Book Reviews, Church History

POLITICS, RELIGION AND THE BRITISH REVOLUTIONS – The Mind of Samuel Rutherford by John Coffey (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), xii + 304pp., £40. also now in paperback. This review originally appeared in the Reformed Theological Review, April 1998.   Samuel Rutherford (1600-61) was a complex character known chiefly to later generations through his much-admired Letters still in print in several languages. These evince a piety that has enriched the devotional life of evangelicals ever since. Yet this Scottish Presbyterian minister and commissioner to the Westminster Assembly was also a writer of polemical treatises which seem worlds apart from the Letters. To dip into theRead More →