Rhys studied German at the Universities of Melbourne and Cologne, graduating with an MA, before commencing theological studies at Ridley where he gained his MTh on Austrian revivals of the eighteenth century. His doctorate investigated the ecclesiology of Jonathan Edwards, the eighteenth-century leader of the Great Awakening in colonial America.
Rhys joined the Faculty at Ridley in 2004, after working in both parish and student ministry. He was ordained priest in the Diocese of Melbourne in 1997, and he has served on the ministry teams of both small and large Melbourne Anglican parishes, including Heidelberg and Carlton, as well as Prahran and Brimbank. His heart for student ministry began with involvement in the AFES while as an undergraduate, and continued as Anglican Chaplain amongst tertiary students at Latrobe University and then at the University of Melbourne. He also serves on the General Synod Liturgy Commission, the General Synod Doctrine Commission, and he is a Canon at St Paul’s Cathedral, Melbourne.

Teaching Areas

Church History and Theology and Christian Worship.
Leading students in the Anglican Institute seeking ordination, and overseeing Ridley’s daily Chapel services.
Leading study tours to the sites of the German and Swiss Reformations.

Research Interests

He has frequently been a Visiting Fellow in the Yale Divinity School, and leads the Jonathan Edwards Center for Australia, housed at Ridley, which sponsors the study of evangelical history and provides an international cohort of Edwards scholars as colleagues. He is presently writing a book for Oxford University Press on the Kingdom of God in the writings of Edwards, and to honour the eight-hundredth anniversary of the death of Francis of Assisi in 2026, he has just completed the translation of a biography of Francis from German for Yale University Press. Rhys has also written on the role of lament in the evangelical movement, the history of mentoring, the notion of muscular Christianity since the nineteenth century, and the place of Anglican witness to the Gospel in contemporary ministry. A besetting sin is to travel overseas to visit friends and sites of historical interest.

Hobbies & Interests

His commitment to mentoring means he drinks too much coffee, which leads him to dream one day of writing a book entitled The Best Book in the History of the World on Mentoring.