Features

Churches must tackle their own demons if the scourge of domestic violence is to be overcome, writes Dianne Jensen. The chilling stories take time to trickle down through the years, but the tragedy of abuse at the hands of family lingers across the generations. We all know this to be true. Domestic violence is not a fancy term for marital ...

The 14th Uniting Church Assembly will be talking about marriage when it meets in Perth in July this year. Bruce Mullan explores some of the issues. Marriage has been a constant theme in the political conversation in Australia for several years as part of broader discussion about the legal recognition of same-gender relationships. The increasing public debate was acknowledged by ...

What is postmodernism and what does it mean for the life and witness of the church? Rohan Salmond explores how to live and share the gospel in a rapidly changing cultural landscape. Forget everything you think you know; we no longer live in the modern world. We’re over it, or beyond it or whatever. Anyway, the Age of Reason is so ...

On the centenary of the Gallipoli landing, take time to honour the Christian witness of those who took a stand against war. Dianne Jensen reports. Thomas Roberts was only 16 years old when he was sentenced in 1914 to solitary confinement on half rations in the Queenscliff Fort for refusing to attend military drill. The Quaker was among thousands of ...

Australians were glued to their screens last December during the Lindt café hostage drama. What can we learn from the way the tragedy unfolded? Dianne Jensen reports. We all remember those first images of hostages holding up a black flag with white Arabic writing in the window of the Lindt café. The crisis in Sydney’s central business district absorbed our ...

If there’s one principle that religion and quantum physics agree on, it’s that the search for truth requires an open mind. Physicist Dr Joel Corney talks to Dianne Jensen. Consider this: The only thing we can be sure about is that uncertainty is fundamental to the universe. University of Queensland (UQ) Senior Lecturer in Physics Dr Joel Corney is a ...

Lent is a season binding Christians together no matter their church tradition, but it is observed very differently depending on where you go. What does it look like for the Uniting Church to observe Lent? Rohan Salmond explores. For more than 1000 years Christians everywhere have observed Lent, an annual 40-day time of fasting and reflection in preparation for Easter. ...

There were plenty of passionate discussions around how the Uniting Church forms people in their faith at the 31st Synod in October last year. Mardi Lumsden explores how theological study deepens and even shakes your faith, and why that could be essential to your faith journey. The Uniting Church’s foundational document the Basis of Union outlines the importance of the ...

Telstra Business Woman of the Year 2014 Anne Cross is CEO of UnitingCare Queensland, the largest not-for-profit health and community services provider in Queensland. Anne talks to Dianne Jensen about her lifelong commitment to building a more compassionate society. What were the issues that really fired you up as a student? I was at university in the 1970s, a time ...

It’s much easier to be a young person in a church full of other young people, and it’s no secret that some Uniting Church members are gravitating to younger, cooler denominations—or leaving church altogether. Rohan Salmond talks to some young people who have made the choice to stick around. It’s a statistical oddity that one of Australia’s youngest denominations—the Uniting ...