He was interviewed by the Australian Missionary News anchorman Mark Tronson on IPTV (Internet Protocol Television).
In that interview, Rod Benson revealed that when he was nine, his family moved to Papua New Guinea where his father was a lecturer in mechanical engineering. Rod Benson after schooling relocated to Brisbane for theological studies.
His first pastorate was a three year task setting up a new congregation at Flinders Baptist Church in Ipswich, Queensland. This was a new housing estate, where young families were asking the big questions of life.
He and his wife, Michelle, and their young family were then called to Blakehurst Baptist Church in Sydney where his good reputation became established amongst NSW Baptist Ministers.
Many of Rod Benson's sermons and theological papers were published and distributed to Ministers which gave rise to these credentials. Consequently, he was head hunted as a lecturer to Morling Theological College seven years ago.
The Tinsley Institute in Sydney specialises in exploring the social implications of the Gospel and works closely with the office of the Baptist Churches of Australia. In his Australian Baptist role in 2003 Rod Benson travelled to the Middle east as part of an Australian Heads of Churches fact-finding mission that established solidarity with Palestinian Christians.
That trip illustrated to Rod Benson the persecution and struggle of Christians throughout the Middle East. He returned home with a burning desire to impart the nature of 'living Christian principles' to comfortable Western evangelicals.
"It is very important to think about, and act out, being a Christian, not to focus solely on evangelism and the conversion moment," Rod Benson explained.
He went on to express his desire to spread the idea that the social implications of the Gospel are as valid for evangelicals as is evangelism. He wants people to explore ways to live their lives according to God and the Scriptures – which he says will then affect their politics, religion, culture and ultimately our whole society.
Asked by Mark Tronson to discuss being a Christian within our pressurised society, where politics and everyday life take precedence over reflection about the worth of our lives, Rod Benson explained that evangelicals can sometimes be their own worst enemy with their confusing overarching emphasis on 'conversion'.
"As a result," he said, "Evangelicals feel frozen out by the secular society, in so far as their views are not reported on the news, their world view in not given equal weight to the secular view, or even to the views of other world faiths and religions."
To this Rod Benson suggests evangelicals have a lot of work to do, to establish a legitimate voice in our Australian society and one of the ways this can be achieved is through making plain the moral principles they adhere to, in their everyday lives, as followers of Christ.
This Rod Benson live television on the Internet can be viewed at
tv.bushorchestra.com and www.safeworlds.net