Ian Harris’s career straddles the worlds of journalism and the church.
Born in Christchurch, he grew up in a Methodist parsonage, and gained an honours degree in English at Auckland University.
Since then he has headed the English Department at Satya Wacana Christian University in Salatiga, Central Java, Indonesia, edited The New Zealand Methodist, been assistant editor of the Auckland Star, served as Director of Communication for the Presbyterian Church in New Zealand, and was for 12 years editorial writer on the Dominion.
In 1990, he was instrumental in founding the Ephesus Group in Wellington whose purpose is to explore new ways of understanding and expressing Christian faith in the increasingly secular world of New Zealand in the new millennium. In 1993, he became the first chairperson of the New Zealand Sea of Faith Network’s steering committee.
Harris’s prime interest is in re-imagining the Christian way in a secular society, as reflected in his book Creating God, Re-Creating Christ (St Andrew’s Trust for the Study of Religion and Society, 1999), and in his newspaper columns: Honest to God in the Dominion and Dominion Post (2001-09), Honest to God (later renamed Faith and Reason) in the Otago Daily Times, and again Honest to God in the New Zealand Methodist monthly Touchstone.