Ross Clifford

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Rev Dr Ross Clifford (born 1951) is an Australian Baptist theologian, political commentator, radio personality and author. A former lawyer who later joined the ministry, Clifford became a campaigner on moral issues while a suburban Sydney pastor in the 1980s. He has since become a prominent figure in the broader Christian community, serving as a head of several religious organisations and serving as an occasional media spokesperson. He unsuccessfully ran for a seat in the New South Wales Legislative Council in 2003, but retains a successful radio program on Sydney station 2CH.

Clifford was born and raised in the northern suburbs of Sydney, and had a private school education. His conversion to faith in Christ occurred at the 1959 Billy Graham crusade in Sydney. Clifford initially studied law and obtained the Diploma of Law from the Solicitors Admission Board of NSW. He worked as a solicitor in the infamous inner Sydney suburb of Kings Cross and then served as a barrister specialising in family law in the Northern Territory and New South Wales.

Although he had trained as a lawyer, Clifford decided to enter the Christian ministry, and studied for the BTh at Morling Baptist Theological College in Sydney. He initially served as pastor at South Windsor Baptist Church, and first became involved in public life in the 1980s, when he became a campaigner for moral standards in advertising and publications while pastor of the Gymea Baptist Church. He also contributed to church and public discourses concerning right-to-life issues, and the proposed Australian Bill of Rights that was debated and defeated during Bob Hawke's term as Prime Minister of Australia.

In the early 1980s he took a sabbatical from his preacher's post to study apologetics at the Simon Greenleaf School of Law in Anaheim, California. Clifford's writings place him within that school of thought known as evidentialist apologetics. His MA thesis examined the apologetics arguments of eight lawyers concerning the resurrection of Christ. The thesis, which was originally published in Russian in 1991 by Missionswerk Friedensstimme, was released in Australia under the title Leading Lawyers Look at the Resurrection (1991). It has been subsequently published in Arabic. On the strength of the Russian version of the book he was invited to speak in the Soviet Union where he met some of the personal staff of Mikhail Gorbachev, various members of the Soviet legal profession, and pastors of Baptist churches. He made a follow-up visit to some of the republics of the former Soviet Union, dialoguing about legal reforms, church issues, and spoke in a number of Soviet prisons.

He served as Senior Pastor at Gymea Baptist Church from mid-1985 until late 1991. He also became involved with the Sports and Leisure ministry in Australia, and eventually co-wrote two books recounting the spiritual conversions of Australian and International sports-stars such as Nick Farr-Jones, Wes Hall and Bernhard Langer.

During 1991 he co-founded with Philip Johnson a para-church ministry known as The Community of Hope, which began developing exhibitor's booths as a form of dialogue and witness in alternate spiritual festivals in Sydney. Their collaborative venture became the basis for the book Shooting for the Stars, which recreated encounters between the authors and new spirituality seekers in festivals. This dialogical and apologetic activity in New Age festivals spanned the years 1991-2003, and has been the subject of much discussion in most of his publications released between 2001-2004.

He was invited to deliver the annual Leonard Buck lecture in Missions at the Bible College of Victoria in 1995, and chose as his topic The Mission of the Church and the New Age Movement. In recent times the apologetic work on alternate spirituality has continued in books concerning the Christian symbolism of tarot cards (Beyond Prediction), and contextual apologetics with new age (Jesus and the Gods of the New Age). He was one of several Australian contributors to the ground-breaking book Encountering New Religious Movements, which was awarded Christianity Today's Book of the Year 2005 award in the "missions" category of literature.

In 1992, Clifford assumed the post as lecturer in theology at Morling Baptist Theological College. He also enrolled at the University of Sydney and completed by coursework a Master of Theology degree. He later undertook doctoral studies through the Australian College of Theology, and was awarded a ThD for his dissertation on the legal apologetic of John Warwick Montgomery. In 1997 Clifford was appointed the Principal of Morling Baptist Theological College.

He served as President of the New South Wales Council of Churches throughout the late 1990s, during which time he oversaw an apology to the state's indigenous population for harm caused by the activities of early missionaries, vocally supported gun control in the wake of the Port Arthur massacre and resisted a push from the hotel industry to put poker machines in hotels across the state. In early 1999, Clifford became a Sunday evening radio announcer, being appointed to fill a talkback vacancy on Sydney easy listening station 2CH.

In 2003, after several years of juggling his educational and radio commitments, Clifford attempted to make a move into politics, nominating as a Christian Democratic Party candidate for the New South Wales Legislative Council at the 2003 state election. He received the second position on the CDP ticket behind incumbent member Reverend Gordon Moyes, and took a significant role in the party's campaign. At the time, the CDP was trying to rebuild itself after the 1999 election, when leader Fred Nile nearly lost his seat to the fledgling Registered Clubs Party. Though they had hopes of improving their vote enough to elect two members at the one election (as members serve eight-year terms) for the first time since the early 1990s, these proved unfounded, and only Moyes was ultimately elected.

Clifford looked set to receive a second chance at a political career in late 2004, when Nile resigned from the Legislative Council to run for a seat in the Australian Senate. As the party's highest unelected candidate at the previous state election, he was the obvious choice to replace Nile in the Legislative Council, and was ultimately nominated to fill the casual vacancy. However, he again missed out when Nile lost the election, and to the surprise of much of the parliament, nominated himself for his own vacancy. This caused some protest from the Greens as well as several independent members, who walked out in protest at Nile's move.

Clifford remains active in the Australian Christian community, and is currently serving as the head of the Baptist Union of Australia, having been appointed to that role in December 2005. He continues as Principal of Morling College, and was also appointed in late 2004 as the Australian Chairman of the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelisation, and was a group co-ordinator at the 2004 Lausanne Forum in Pattaya, Thailand, dealing with alternate spiritualities and new religions.

He is occasionally asked for comment by the media, and has most recently spoken out against the industrial relations changes introduced by the Howard government in 2005. In addition to his own talk-back show on 2CH, Clifford is interviewed once a week by the Western Australian radio station Sonshine-FM. He is married and is the parent of two adult children. The Australian Commonwealth Government bestowed on him the Centenary Medal (January 2001) in recognition of his ministry.

[edit] Books

Leading Lawyers Look at the Resurrection (Sutherland: Albatross Books, 1991).
and Philip Johnson, Shooting for the Stars (Sutherland: Albatross Books, 1993).
and Philip Johnson, Sacred Quest (Sutherland: Albatross Books, 1995; a revised edition of Shooting for the Stars).
and Ric Chapman, The Gods of Sport (Sutherland: Albatross Books, 1995).
The Mission of the Church and the New Age Movement (Lilydale: Bible College of Victoria, 1995).
Leading Lawyers' Case for the Resurrection (Alberta, Canada: Canadian Institute for Law, Theology and Public Policy,(1996).
and Philip Johnson, Riding the Rollercoaster: How The Risen Christ Empowers Life (Sydney: Strand, 1998).
and Ric Chapman, The International Gods of Sport (Sydney: Strand, 1999).
and Philip Johnson, Jesus and the Gods of the New Age (Oxford: Lion, 2001/Colorado Springs: Victor, 2003).
and John Drane and Philip Johnson, Beyond Prediction: The Tarot and Your Spirituality (Oxford: Lion, [2001]]).
"Reframing a Traditional Apologetic to Reach 'New Spirituality' Seekers," in Encountering New Religious Movements: A Holistic Evangelical Approach, Irving Hexham, Stephen Rost and John Morehead, eds. (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2004)pp 193-208.
John Warwick Montgomery's Legal Apologetic: An Apologetic for all Seasons (Verlag für Kultur und Wissenschaft/Culture and Science Publishers, Bonn, Germany, 2004).

[edit] External links

Biography page from Morling College
Clifford's CV at the Christian Democratic Party site [1]
Clifford's bio at radio station 2CH [2]
Lausanne Occasional Paper no. 45, Religious and Non-Religious Spirituality in the Western World ("New Age") [3]
Ross Clifford, "Christians in Conflict: Should Christians Go To Court?" delivered at the Lawyers Christian Fellowship, March 1992.[4]
Ross Clifford, "Justification of the Legal Apologetic of John Warwick Montgomery," Global Journal of Classical Theology, 3/1 (2002).[5]
Craig Seaton, book review of Shooting for the Stars, Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith, 46 (September 1994), p. 196 [6]
On Clifford's contributions to legal apologetics see