The Uniting Church in Australia is calling for the immediate release of all children and their families from Australian-run immigration detention centres, following the publication of a shocking report by the Australian Human Rights Commission. Matt Pulford reports. The Australian Human Rights Commission has released a damning report, entitled The Forgotten Children, on the largest survey of children in detention ...

Dallas Brooks Centre, Melbourne 26 September 2012 IT is a particular pleasure to be part of these centenary celebrations. I grew up knowing about the work of the Australian Inland Mission (AIM), and its successor Frontier Services, and always had a sense of its importance in national life and in the mission of the church. It was simply part of ...

New York, 23 October (ENI) The number of Americans who are praying is increasing at the same time as more of them say they have no formal religious affiliation, a study of religious trends has found. The dynamic represents an "apparent shift in patterns of spiritual practice and identity away from the familiar institutions," Omar M. McRoberts, a University of ...

ERIC IS a tradie. He’s an intelligent 35-year-old bloke with a successful business in a complex and dynamic industry. In the fourth pew from the back, Eric is reminded of the apprenticeship lectures at TAFE college and he’s falling asleep twenty minutes into the Sunday sermon at River Gum Ridge View Estate Uniting Church. According to Redcliffe Uniting Church’s Rev ...

Protestants in the United States may soon become a minority in a country long perceived as predominately Protestant, according to a new study of the US religious landscape. The study by the Washington-based Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, and released on 25 February, found that the number of Protestants in the United States now makes up about 51 ...

Churches in England and Scotland are taking part in wedding fairs this year in campaigns to encourage couples to get married and to do so by marching down the aisle rather than into a registry office. The (Presbyterian) Church of Scotland’s Shaw lands Kirk in Glasgow was to host its own wedding fair on 10 March. Resident minister, the Rev. ...

As Christmas approaches, Australian families are turning to church financial counsellors in increasing numbers who say that a new set of families has emerged who need help: those with steady income, but unmanageable debts. "We’re seeing far more complex stories than ever before," said Barbara Jones, manager of financial counselling for Mission Australia. "We counsel people with a mortgage, a ...