The speaker was Iain Provan, a professor at Regent College, a small theological school and seminary that is either accused or celebrated in Canada as a haven for arch-conservative social views or for dangerously progressive politics and economics.

Among its graduates are Premier Mike Baird and his chief of staff, Bay Warburton. In his oration, Provan called on the graduating class of 2014 to be bold and fearless, to be iconoclastic, but most of all to be dangerous.

“Be dangerous to those who worship money and material possessions – the idols of mammon," he said. "Lay bare the utopianism at the heart of modern economic ideology. Deride the universal expectation of more. Unmask the false gods; and proclaim that Jesus is Lord.”

In the front rows, the graduating class sat enthralled. At the back other students shifted excitedly in their seats, some whispering agreement as Provan's language soared.

“I charge you, most seriously . . . [to] be dangerous to all who, in the pursuit of [false] gods, damage other people, and damage God's good creation. Be dangerous to the powerful who want to use and oppress the weak, and to the rich who want to use and oppress the poor.

“Be dangerous to those who diminish the importance of the individual person, in the womb or in the twilight years, or in between – to those who trample the individual soul, out of deference to the convenience of other family members, the health of the economy, the good of the state, or the well-being of the planet.” An Australian listening may be forgiven for thinking that Provan is calling for his young charges to oppose pretty well everything that marks business as usual on Macquarie Street. Normally it might not be fair to use a young man's education as predictive of his future course, but Regent College is not a normal school. Unlike most seminaries, Regent was created not to prepare its graduates to become clergy, but to give them an evangelical Christian education with a view to returning them to the secular world to serve God in their chosen professions.

Nonetheless, Baird says he wanted to become a minister when he left a senior position as an investment banker with Deutsche Bank to study at Regent in 1994. Today Baird says Regent has informed his later life, and he credits one of his Regent professors, Loren Wilkinson, with prompting him to consider politics instead of a life in the clergy. Wilkinson has the balding pate and wild hair and beard of a cartoon professor, and long expressive hands and fingers. In conversation in his little office at Regent, he pauses often to think before giving long and considered answers that are often as much parable as a direct response to questions. He says  what comes to mind when he thinks of Baird is a young man of great integrity exhausted by his previous profession. He says it is often the case that his students arrive ‘‘shell shocked’’ by the secular world, looking to find a deeper meaning in life.

His job, he says, is often to prepare them to return to that life with the understanding that God can be served as fully by, say, a merchant banker or politician, as he can by clergy. In keeping with Regent’s broader outlook, Wilkinson rejects the modern separation between our private religious lives and our public lives, in which we are expected not to discuss our religious or moral convictions.

‘‘Who doesn’t live by a set of values?’’ he says. ‘‘Every political leader, whether he calls it Christianity, whether he calls it secular humanism, Marxism, whatever, brings his own values to it.’’ After considering his own comment for a moment, Wilkinson rejects his own use of the term ‘‘values’’. ‘‘In fact, values is an empty term. It actually does not mean a single thing. Hitler was living by his values, did a really good job of it.’’ Wilkinson prefers the term virtues, as defined by Aristotle and introduced to Christian thought by Thomas Aquinas, the 13th century theologist and philosopher.

‘‘Virtues can be defined and they are real ... it could be argued that they are universal,’’ says Wilkinson, adding that Baird was exposed to this idea at Regent. ‘‘He would have learned something about the virtue of honesty ... that there is a genuine substance to moral behaviour, that it is not a matter of personal choice and what you can get away with.’’

Wilkinson rejects the suggestion that a political leader imbued with a sense of the universal truth of his own understanding of virtue risks imposing his world view on others.

‘‘To be a person who lives by virtue is not sectarian, it is to be more human. We don’t flourish when we mistreat each other.

‘‘Is that imposing values? No, that is making people more human. More fully what they are made to be. Helping people achieve their full potential as human beings is not imposing values.’’

That imperative to help people reach their full potential is key to a Regent education, where it is often referred to in shorthand as ‘‘flourishing’’. Helping people to flourish is the point of the place, as is the pursuit of shalom, or peace, between peoples and God and a general sense of spiritual completeness. Rejecting things that hamper flourishing, such as corruption and pornography, brings us closer to Shalom, says Wilkinson.

He links this activist stance to the influence of Dutch Reformed Church, a product of the reformation, the adherents of which believe God is best served by righting wrongs in the broader community, rather than by cloistering themselves in the Mennonite tradition. ‘‘There are a lot of schools you go to that will make life easier for you,’’ says Wilkinson. ‘‘The job of Regent is almost always to make life harder for students, in that it requires them to pull together two worlds that they are used to keeping separate. It is easier to keep your faith in one pocket and job in the other.’’

Speaking on the phone a few days later, Baird avoids any mention of God, although he describes his year at Regent as deeply formative.

Discussing his view of his new role, you can hear echoes of Regent College without its telling language. He does not speak of flourishing, but he does speak of the centrality of service. ‘‘In a simple sense my faith is a framework and there is a connection in wanting to serve and looking after others.’’

One man who says ‘‘he should jolly well hope’’ that Regent’s teaching will have an impact on Baird’s governing is Paul Williams, the executive director of the college’s affiliated think tank, the Marketplace Institute.

Its mission is to ‘‘take the gospel public’’ by providing ‘‘well-informed expressions of the gospel that reveal its truth, necessity and relevance to all spheres of public life’’. Though they have not met, Williams and Baird share similar CVs.

Williams was an economist who was looking for more when he attended Regent as a student in the early 1990s before returning to his profession as a consultant. His clients included the British Labour government before he returned to Regent almost a decade ago. Williams says the college cannot be categorised as either politically liberal or conservative, although he agrees its philosophy is reflected in the views of conservative Canadian politician Preston Manning, who the institute recently named as a senior fellow.

Williams warns against looking for Regent’s teaching in Baird’s policy making. Instead, he says, it may be reflected in his ‘‘posture’’ as leader. That means, says Williams, it is likely he will have the view that a wide gap between rich and poor, or a lack of universal access to healthcare and education, as not conducive to flourishing. ‘‘Every person you meet is in an image bearer [of Christ], so how you treat them is how you are treating God. That is the moral force of the incarnation.’’

.....

When I met Williams he thrust into my hands a pamphlet by Manning on the leadership lessons of the life of Moses. Manning is a formative figure in Canadian politics. He founded the Reform Party that eventually evolved into the Conservative Party that holds office. His chief advisor was Stephen Harper, the conservative prime minister. Before it splintered, the Reform Party was known as populist and socially conservative to the point of controversy. It advocated shrinking government services, dismantling the Department of Indian Affairs and was strongly opposed to abortion and gay rights.

‘‘Homosexuality is destructive to the individual, and, in the long run, society,’’ Manning has been reported as saying. Manning opposed Canada’s bilingualism and multiculturalism, and other members of the party were eventually accused of making outright racist and homophobic public comments. At the same time, Manning was and remains an avowed environmentalist, advocating for a link between conservation and conservatism. This view is reflected more broadly in Regent’s teaching.

Wilkinson, who advised Baird to consider politics, is best known as an environmental theologian. He rejects the notion of ‘‘man’s dominion over the earth’’ cited in early verses of the Book of Genesis, emphasising instead later references to mankind’s responsibility as a steward of God’s creation. Wilkinson is a trenchant critic of Harper’s support of tar sands mining and his government’s lack of action on climate change.Williams believes that Baird’s Regent education may be noticeable in the issues he gives priority to more than in his policy setting. ‘‘We [at Regent] are always focusing on the human dimension of any sort of decision. We are not left or right wing.’’ He says the support of the marketplace common to conservative governments is perfectly in keeping with Regent philosophy. ‘‘There is something in us that is made to work, to be creative, to work together,’’ he says. But he likens supporting growth for growth’s sake as advocating for cancer. ‘‘Sometimes it seems we have managed to create systems where human beings are serving the system not the other way around. Jesus was ruthless on this.

‘‘Mike will have certainly picked up on this anthropological point of people-keeping and earth-keeping at Regent, this is fundamental to what God has revealed through the Bible.’’ Baird’s best friend at Regent was Tim Hedberg and the two remain close. ‘‘Put it this way,’’ says Hedberg, now a pastor in the state of Washington, ‘‘if Mike called me and said he needed some help with something, I would put down the phone and call the airline for a ticket.’’

Baird has made flying visits to Hedberg when in the US and their two young families have shared a Disneyland holiday.

According to Hedberg, while at Regent, Baird focused on things he considered serious, particularly his family and his faith. More than once Hedberg describes Baird as ‘‘intentional’’.

He remembers that Baird struggled with the idea of being seen to follow his father into ‘‘the family business’’ before coming to the conclusion that he might best serve God in office.

‘‘I think he came here with the weight of his family name on his shoulders and the weight of his faith on his shoulders. He wanted to use his life to honour God.

‘‘He was not a celebrity here, but people knew when he walked into the room. He did not take over the room when he walked in, but he could have if he wanted to,’’ says Hedberg, who today seems a little awe-struck by Baird.

When we discuss the state of politics in NSW and the public sense that some individuals and groups have special access to the state’s highest offices, Hedberg shakes his head and laughs. ‘‘That’s not the game we’re playing now, boys,’’ he says. ‘‘There is a new sheriff in town.’’

The two have only exchanged a few brief emails since Baird came to office, but Hedberg has the sense that Baird believes his shock elevation can be seen as God opening a door for him, giving him the opportunity to serve more fully. ‘‘In some sense this was a gift given to him, not something he pursued.’’ Baird does not describe his ascension the same way. ‘‘I was delighted with my role as treasurer,’’ he says. ‘‘All of us expected to Barry to be premier for a very long time.’’

When I mention Williams’ comment about relentless growth and cancer, he says he does not agree with every opinion born in Regent, but agrees growth should be pursued in balance with the needs of individuals and the environment.

‘‘I think my time there taught me in a very deep and significant way to respect everyone ... I have this very deep sense that every person matters, that is hopefully what I will bring to the government.’’

Despite Regent’s dedication to dissolving the gulf between personal morality and public life, to advocating for tangible virtues over mushy values, Baird says it is not his job or intention to legislate on behalf of his own moral code.

It’s not clear if that would satisfy Provan, who ended his speech to graduates of Regent with the command: ‘‘Don’t be safe. Don’t be polite. And certainly don’t be nice. Be good. Be Godly. And be very, very dangerous.’’