Rev. Dr. John Fox is Priest Assistant at Sumner Redcliffs Anglican Church in Christchurch and Senior Ecumenical Chaplain at University Canterbury. He has worked as an academic, in family and community restoration, in public policy, and as a children’s and youth worker. He earned his doctorate from the University of Auckland, looking into Renaissance Literature in early modern England. He was ordained into the priesthood in 2018 and since then has served as a student and disability chaplain at Auckland Hospital.
John was born with spastic hemiplegia, a type of cerebral palsy, which has shaped much of his life, thought, and work. He is a strong advocate for social care and serves as Trustee of Elevate, the Christian Disability Trust. Alongside his chaplaincy and priestly duties, John is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at Laidlaw College. John also has taught on the Residential Fellowship. He lives in Christchurch, New Zealand.
Most of the time, we get away with not asking ourselves what we really believe. New Zealand is safe, relatively prosperous, and basically cohesive. Our standard of living is good, our people lulled into irreligion and vague worship of the beach and the bach, and crises are far away in other continents or on time scales which make them seem so.
It’s Holy Week, the week before Easter. And what a strange one it is. Instead of organising services, and preparing water for foot washing, and trying not to swipe the Vicar with a nikau palm leaf.