Queensland Synod News

A sense of discomfort stirred the hearts of UK based Christian band, Delirious? following their tours of some of the poorest countries on earth. It inspired the band to respond in the best way they knew how – writing from the heart and producing one of their strongest albums, Kingdom of Comfort. The band has just released the highly acclaimed ...

A group of Russian Orthodox entrepreneurs has found a way to ease the continuing post-Soviet shortage of places of worship by devising a plan to provide instant prefabricated churches that can be assembled in 24 hours. A prototype temporary wooden church is already in place at Kemerovo in Siberia, a vast part of the world’s biggest country that constitutes most ...

An Anglican leader in Zimbabwe says members of his church fear persecution, as police in Harare barred worshippers from attending church services at the city’s Anglican cathedral. The action by armed police came after former Anglican bishop Nolbert Kunonga filed a claim in Zimbabwe’s Supreme Court claiming control of church property. Witnesses told Ecumenical News International that police officers barred ...

Bartholomeos I, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, has joined the Dalai Lama as one of two international religious figures named in the “Time 100” list, the people deemed by Time magazine to be the world’s most influential people. In a tribute to the 68-year-old Bartholomeos, appearing in the 12 May issue of the US-based news weekly, Rowan Williams, the Archbishop ...

The Moderator of the Uniting Church , Robert Watson, today said he was appalled by reports the Burmese military junta is planning to move ahead with a constitutional referendum, despite the fact that thousands of Burmese people have been killed, injured and left homeless by a major hurricane disaster over the weekend. “We welcome the news that some humanitarian groups ...

A Hong Kong Christian leader who works in a sports ministry says Chinese authorities should allow foreign Protestant clergy and faithful to serve as volunteer chaplains at the Olympic Village, to ensure the quality of the August games in Beijing. "We have applied to send [Protestant] foreigners to serve as chaplains at the Olympic Village, but until now there has ...

The National Council of Churches in Australia (NCCA) has condemned the use of cluster munitions and called for the development of a treaty to ban cluster munitions; In a letter to the Minister for Defence Joel Fitzgibbon and the Minister for Foreign Affairs Stephen Smith, NCCA General Secretary Revd John Henderson said cluster bombs have killed and wounded innocent people ...

The Moderator of the Queensland Synod Rev Dr David Pitman is distressed and disappointed at the comments by Housing Minister Robert Schwarten suggesting that the Uniting Church is not in touch with social issues and the demand for public housing in Queensland. “The Uniting Church is the largest non-government provider of Community Services in the state and last year we ...

The United Methodist Church, meeting for its once-every-four-years church-wide gathering has approved an agreement with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America for full communion between the two U.S.-based denominations. At the same meeting in Fort Worth, Texas, the 12-million-member United Methodist General Conference, its main governing body meeting from 23 April to 2 May, turned down efforts to change denominational ...

A Japanese study group of Christian educators and doctors has expressed deep concerns about "promiscuous" sexual behaviour among young people, saying that sex education should be promoted from Christian perspectives. "We have a sense of impending crisis about the rapid growth of infectious sexual diseases among teenagers in recent years," said Kunihiko Tominaga, a Christian obstetrician and gynaecologist, who chairs ...