In 1945, shortly before his 18th birthday, Ted Wixted enlisted in the Royal Australian Navy and served the closing months of World War 2 as a signalman on a naval vessel.

 

The 1950s was a period of intense study for Ted.  In 1952 he published a book, The Race is Run.  The aim of the book is summed up on the first page:

“When the idea of producing a book was conceived originally, my intention was merely to present, in a concise form, a collection of interesting but little known facts on matters concerning the Bible.  However, in searching out the facts on one question I soon found that many more questions had to be resolved.  Step by step, in seeking the answers, I became more than ever convinced that many simple Biblical facts have either been distorted or misrepresented.  Presenting the Truth has been made the primary object of this work.”

Regent Press Pty. Ltd. of Brisbane printed the book.  This company also published The Clarion, at one stage in a newspaper format but ending as “a monthly journal devoted to national and international religious, political, economic and cultural problems.”  It was published for 18 years until January 1956.

 

During the 1950s Ted was an occasional contributor to The Clarion by way of articles and letters that related to biblical and ecclesiastical subjects.  These commentaries were a natural progression from the studies that underlay The Race is Run.

 

The long article published in The Clarion in 1954 entitled A Cameo of History and accompanying diagram The Credentials of the Roman Church are included in the first posts for this section.  Another article published in The Clarion eighteen months later, The Olympics..., is posted here as well.  This article also appears in the Public forum pamphlets section.

 

The Credentials diagram as it appeared in The Clarion has minor errors of fact and omission, some of which almost certainly occurred in copying or at typesetting.  There are also alternative dating methods which could be applied with respect to the reigns of emperors who ruled jointly.  I have taken the liberty of amending a few details in the diagram without affecting the integrity of the document as it was originally published.

 

By 1950 Ted had little formal schooling, certainly not the university education he would later acquire.  The following decade saw him engage in a variety of studies and activities that prepared him for his years as a public forum speaker.  The Race is Run and The Clarion articles are of interest for their intrinsic value, but also because they provide an insight into formative years of his thinking on biblical and related matters. 

 

August 2009

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The Clarion

30.7.1954     A Cameo of History
30.7.1954    The Credentials of the Roman Church
Jan 1956      The Olympics — The Greeks… and a Hebrew Bible