The late Australian Rev Ted Noffs, nominally Methodist, embraced the rich kaleidoscope of chaos that comes with championing the discarded and downtrodden. He was accused by his own church hierarchy of heresy for his disavowal of doctrine that Christ’s suffering would save the world; he believed, as demonstrated by his deeds, that we on Earth could save ourselves.
Ministering to misfits – itinerant people, sex workers, drug users and the mentally shattered – Noffs founded the Wayside Chapel in Sydney’s Kings Cross in 1964, personally marrying thousands of couples in the face of bigotry against interreligious and interracial unions.
