Queensland Synod News

The once friendly islands of Tonga have been shaken by the mass riots and destruction in Nuku’alofa last November. Contributed to by those marginalized within the community particularly deportees from the US, Australia and New Zealand, the Free Wesleyan Church of Tonga has established a program to come alongside these unsettled and marginalised youth with the love of Jesus. The ...

More than 130 Muslim scholars have said in a letter to Christian leaders, including Pope Benedict XVI and the head of the World Council of Churches, the Rev. Samuel Kobia, that world peace depends on cooperation between Christianity and Islam. "Our common future is at stake. The very survival of the world itself is perhaps at stake," the 138 signatories ...

The National Council of Churches in Australia (NCCA) has declared a national day of prayer for Burma on Sunday, 21 October 2007. NCCA General Secretary Rev John Henderson said the images of tens of thousands of Burmese monks, nuns and civilians marching in the cities of Burma has highlighted the tragic situation facing millions of people in Burma today. “The ...

Internationally recognised author, Rebecca Manley-Pippert, founder of Salt Shaker Ministries and author of the book, Out of the Salt Shaker and into the World will be visiting Brisbane next month. Out of the Salt Shaker was recently selected by Christianity Today as one of the books that has most influenced Christian thought in the past 50 years. Ms Manley-Pippert is ...

The tragic effect the rising cost of food is having on some remote Indigenous communities has been highlighted as a major policy concern for action by the Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress (UAICC) of the Uniting Church. National (UAICC) Administrator Rev Shayne Blackman said the health and socio-economic outcomes of some remote Indigenous communities would continue to decline unless ...

Priests and pastors in Britain have been warned not to wear clerical collars when they are not working because of the danger of being attacked. "We’re not alarmists but we’re telling the clergy not to risk attack by motivated offenders by wearing their [clerical] collars when they’re off duty, visiting friends, shopping at the local supermarket, unless they have someone ...

Six of the 11 bishops of the (Lutheran) Church of Norway have supported proposals going before the denomination’s general synod in November to allow people in same-sex registered partnerships to serve as bishops, priests, deacons or catechists. The moderator of the Church of Norway bishops’ conference, Bishop Olav Skjevesland of Agder and Telemark, and four other bishops have said that ...

The Federation of Swiss Protestant Churches has launched an interactive Web site to mark the 500th anniversary of the birth of Protestant reformer Jean Calvin. "We want Calvin to come alive for the people of our time through this Web site," the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, president of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches and chairperson of the Web site’s committee ...

The Western Australian Synod of the Uniting Church has expressed its support for an Australian Bill of Rights, distancing the church from the stance of the Australian Christian Lobby (ACL). While the ACL has praised both the Federal Government and the Opposition for their opposition to an Australian Bill of Rights, the Uniting Church wants it known that not all ...

Uniting Church leaders from the Synod of Victoria and Tasmania today expressed “deep concern and disappointment” at the Government’s decision to prohibit Africans into Australia under the current humanitarian refugee program. The Rev. David Pargeter, Director of the Synod’s Commission for Mission at the Uniting Church said, “When a Government Minister, on the eve of an election, connects violent action ...