Rev Dr Marita Munro

Bio:

Marita originates from Queensland where she grew up at Annerley Baptist. After BA studies at the University of Queensland she moved to Whitley College in 1975 to study theology and was ordained with the Victorian Baptist Union (BUV) in 1978. Marita has served in Melbourne’s inner city, including the House of the Gentle Bunyip Christian Community and Clifton Hill Baptist. A qualified secondary school teacher she taught in two Melbourne high schools. After completing post graduate studies in Anabaptist studies and Human Rights at the International Baptist Seminary, Rüschlikon, Switzerland, she was appointed Lecturer in New Testament Greek and Church History with the Evangelical Theological Association and joined Whitley’s faculty in 1995. Her PhD research with the University of Melbourne’s History Department explored the history of Victorian Baptists from 1960 to 2000. Marita serves on a number of BUV committees and is President of its Historical Society. A member of Collins Street Baptist, she enjoys walking, following the Hawthorn Football Club, reading, music and spending time with friends and family.

Qualifications:

• PhD, University of Melbourne, ‘ “A Struggle for Identity and Direction”: A History of Victoria Baptists  (c. 1960-c.2000)’
• MA, University of Melbourne, ‘A History of the House of the Gentle Bunyip, 1975-1996’
• MTh, International Baptist Theological Studies Seminary, Switzerland, ‘The Theology and Practice of the  Lord’s Supper in the Writings of Balthasar Huebmaier’
• BD, Melbourne College of Divinity (University of Divinity)
• DipEd, La Trobe University
• BA, University of Queensland

Recent Publications:

• Marita Munro and Roslyn Otzen, eds. ‘Doing What Comes Naturally’, A History of Baptcare:1945-2015. Baptcare, Vic., December 2017.
• Marita Munro. ‘“A Debt of Gratitude”: Martin Luther, Anabaptists and Baptists’. Zadok Perspectives 134 (Autumn 2017): 16—18.
• ————. Biographical essay. In Frank Rees, ed. Baptist Identity into the 21^st Century: Essays in honour of Ken Manley. Melbourne: Whitley College, 2016, 9-24.
• ————.‘“Making Connections”: Australian Baptists and the Public Sphere in the Twentieth Century’. In Douglas Weaver, ed. Mirrors and Microscopes. Milton Keynes, UK: Paternoster, 2015, 188-204.
• ————. ‘Brunswick Baptist Church: the first fifty years, 1862-1912’. Our Yesterdays 22 (2014): 26-55.
• ————.‘No Plaster Saints.’ In Alan Cadwallader, ed. In the Land of Larks and Heroes: Australian Reflections on St Mary MacKillop. Adelaide: Australian Theological Forum: 2010, 157-74.
• Marita Munro. ‘ “A Struggle for Identity and Direction”: A History of Victoria Baptists, c. 1960-c.2000’. Peter Lang, Berlin. Forthcoming

Units Currently Teaching:

• The Story of Christianity Part 1: From the Early Church to Medieval Times
• The Story of Christianity Part 2: From the Reformation to Modern Times
• Baptist Identity: History and Theology of the Baptist Movement
• Discipleship Through the Time Machine
• The Anabaptist Vision
• Under the Southern Cross: Themes of Encounter and Community Identity in the Australian Church
• Patterns in the Practice of Christianity

Research Areas:

• Baptist history (Victorian and Australian)
• Australian religious history