Queensland Synod News

The highest court of the Presbyterian Church (USA) has issued a ruling that bars the ordination of non-celibate homosexual clergy in the US denomination. Opponents of the decision pledged to take the issue to the denomination’s 2008 general assembly, scheduled for 21-28 June in San Jose, California, after the court stated that ordination rules can only be changed by alterations ...

Church leaders and journalists often have little idea of the pressures that each other face, according to German Lutheran Bishop Margot Kässmann, who has pleaded with the media and the Church to show mutual respect. "The fact that a newspaper needs a short sentence, or that radio stations have only a few minutes in which to report, often does not ...

Conservative columnist Andrew Bolt reported in his Herald Sun blog on Wednesday that the Eureka Street online magazine had “cleansed” its pages of an article written by Uniting Church Forest Lake minister and Journey columnist Mr Scott Stephens.  Bolt said Eureka Street claims to be a magazine offering “a distinctly Australian forum for conversation”. www.eurekastreet.com.au   “What conversation?,” he asks. ...

As a direct response to the 2006 National Assembly’s request for a working group to consider the diversity of views across the Church regarding sexuality and leadership, the Uniting Church’s National Working Group on Doctrine facilitated a two day consultation in Sydney earlier this month. Six theologians from across Australia, representing a variety of viewpoints, were invited to write papers ...

Hundreds of US churches and many thousands of religious believers defied the stereotype that American Christianity is a cipher for anti-science creationism last week, as they marked Evolution Weekend with sermons and seminars on the consonance of spiritual and scientific exploration. Pastors, theological educators, scientists and lay people also joined together to mark the 199th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth ...

A disturbing report from the US based National Labor Committee (NLC) claims that religious goods sold in Christian bookshops are manufactured in a Chinese sweatshop by workers labouring under abysmal conditions. Workers are reportedly paid just 26½ cents an hour, less than half China’s legal minimum wage of 55 cents, which is itself set at below subsistence levels. The report ...

The general secretary of the World Council of Churches, the Rev. Samuel Kobia, says he was shocked and surprised to discover that the institution that gave him a doctorate in 2004 lacked accreditation to award degrees. "The revelation of the status of Fairfax University came as a shock to me," Kobia told journalists at a media conference on 14 February ...

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has defended comments he made about the role of Sharia, which is part of Islamic law, in the British legal system, saying he was not advocating "parallel jurisdictions". Addressing the general synod of the Church of England on 11 February, the Anglican leader stressed he was not proposing that Sharia had equal standing in ...

Lambeth Palace was last night bracing itself for harsh morning headlines, after Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams was widely interpreted as having called for the incorporation of Muslim Sharia law in or alongside the English legal system.  The Archbishop’s defenders, who seem few in number, point out that this is not what he has asked for in any general ...

Uniting Church President, Rev Gregor Henderson, visited South India in January, together with Rev John Barr, Asia Executive Secretary, Uniting International Mission (UIM). The two met with new leadership in the Church of South India and attended the biennial CSI national synod meeting, held in the city of Vishnakapatnam, a large coastal port city. Mr Henderson and Mr Barr visited ...