Queensland Synod News

The former president of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, the Rev. Allan Boesak, a one-time leader of South Africa’s African National Congress in the Western Cape province, has provoked a storm in the ANC after telling trade unionists the ruling party has brought back the language of racial division. Boesak told a National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa ...

Churches has written to US President George W. Bush urging the lifting of sanctions on North Korea and also the use of diplomacy to replace an armistice signed on the Korean Peninsula in 1953 with a peace agreement. Anglican Bishop Park Kyung-Jo, president of the National Council of Churches in Korea said he had sent his letter on behalf of ...

Feliks Dzerzhinsky, the founder of the Soviet secret police, "loved Christ very much", Argument i Fakty, a Russian weekly newspaper published in Moscow has reported. The words were attributed by the newspaper to Dzerzhinsky’s sister Yadwiga who is believed to have died in 1949. "Christ’s commandments were deeply rooted in his heart," the newspaper quotes her in a 19 July ...

CONTROVERSIAL YOUNG Northern Ireland theologian Pete Rollins will be a keynote speaker at the next National Christian Youth Convention (NCYC 2007). Rollins believes the emerging church presents a singular, unprecedented opportunity to transform the theological and moral architecture of the Christian community. Rollins’ recent book How (Not) to Speak of God is attracting interest world wide. Author Brian McLaren describes ...

The Anglican Communion has its headquarters in London but Anglican Bishop Duleep de Chickera of Sri Lanka says he will not visit Britain unless it lifts the mandatory fingerprinting of visa applicants from his nation, or applies it to citizens of all countries. "This is discriminatory and an insult to the Sri Lankan citizens," said Chickera, as he described his ...

World Methodists have agreed to endorse a 1999 Lutheran-Roman Catholic agreement on the doctrine of justification, a key doctrinal question at the time of the 16th century Protestant Reformation. The endorsement came at an 18-19 July meeting in Seoul of the 500-member governing body of the World Methodist Council (WMC) in advance of the World Methodist Conference, which opened in ...

World Christian leaders, including the Pope and the head of the World Council of Churches, the Rev. Samuel Kobia, have called for an immediate cease-fire in the Middle East while urging their faithful to pray for peace in the region. Pope Benedict XVI called for a day of prayer and penance on 23 July. "In particular, the Pontiff hopes that ...

A global gathering of Methodist churches is set to sign up to a groundbreaking agreement between Lutherans and Roman Catholics on the doctrine of justification, a key doctrinal question at the time of the 16th century Protestant Reformation. "This was one of the issues that created the split that formed the Protestant church," said the Rev. George H. Freeman, general ...

In general, reaction to the 11th Assembly decisions on sexuality and leadership (READ HERE) has not been as swift or as spirited as after the 10th Assembly in 2003, but there is still some continuing dissention from the latest resolution sexuality and leadership. The Reforming Alliance (RA) and Evangelical Members of the Uniting Church (EMU) groups who have consistently asked ...

Some Christian leaders in Zambia are calling for the Church in their country to play a stronger role in fighting moral decay and indecent dressing by women, seen in some quarters as a trigger to sexual promiscuity in a nation ravaged by HIV/AIDS. At the same time other church members have warned that strident calls about female attire can trigger ...