Whitley Lecture delivered in Australia 

As this year’s Whitley lecturer Andy Goodliff had the privilege and honour to visit Australia and deliver the lecture at Whitley College, Melbourne. He explains more 

W. T. Whitley spent ten years in Melbourne, where he started a college for pastors and which in the 1960s was renamed in his honour. Last year Whitley College made the invitation to the UK Whitley Lecturer to deliver the lecture there, but because of COVID, this was the first year this could take place in person.

It was a real joy to be able to make my trip and be hosted by Darrell Jackson, who in the 1990s was a Mission Advisor for the Baptist Union, and who moved out to teach mission studies first at Morling College, Sydney and now at Whitley just over ten years ago. He and his family made me feel very welcome and were excellent guides to Australia and Australian Baptist life (there are similarities and differences).



As well as delivering the lecture I had opportunities to meet some of the faculty at Morling and at Whitley, as well as preach at St Ives Baptist Church, where Darrell’s wife Beth (pictured above) has been the minister (she is about to start a new role for the Baptist Union of Victoria), and to contribute to a pastor’s conference on ministry and church after Covid.



In between these engagements were opportunities to experience something of the cities of Melbourne and Sydney. I also spent an afternoon in the company of Ken Manley and friends. Ken is like the Ian Randall or David Bebbington of Baptist history in Australia. Ken spent some of the 1960s studying at Bristol Baptist College and then at Regent’s Park College, London.

The other delight was catching up with Sean Winter, former tutor in New Testament at Northern Baptist College and  moderator of BU Council and now Principal of Pilgrim College in Melbourne. Sean himself gave an excellent Whitley Lecture back in 2007.

It was great to meet some amazing people, visit some special places, and encounter some stunning wildlife. I am very grateful for the opportunity.



Hopefully this new link the Whitley Lecture offers will foster some new relationships between Baptists in the UK and Australia. 
 

Andy Goodliff has been the minister of Belle Vue Baptist Church, Southend-on-Sea since 2010. Andy is delivering the 2022 Whitley Lecture, entitled The Ruling Christ and the Witnessing Church.

For more details, visit our Whitley Lecture page.