Queensland Synod News

Every year, at the end of September, many Churches around Australia celebrate Social Justice Sunday.  This year the theme is Australia as a Global Citizen. “Christians have a responsibility to be useful and productive members of society,” said the General Secretary of the National Council of Churches in Australia, the Revd John Henderson, commenting on the theme for 2007. “In ...

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomeos I, seen by many of the world’s Orthodox Christians as their spiritual leader, has issued a warning saying climate change, which threatens the survival of humanity, needs to be dealt with immediately. "There is no time for waiting or delay. Otherwise, we are willingly and irresponsibly, even dangerously, shutting our eyes," Bartholomeos said on 5 September at ...

Germany’s top Protestant bishop has urged a stepping up of efforts to allow Christians of all denominations to share in the Eucharist together. "We should not slacken in our efforts to find a solution to this issue," Bishop Wolfgang Huber of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) said at the Third European Ecumenical Assembly in Sibiu on 5 September. Gathered ...

Delegates taking the plane to the Third European Ecumenical Assembly in Sibiu in Romania are being asked to pay 15 euros (about US$20) towards the cost of offsetting the ecological burden of their flight. "This amount doesn’t claim to be a full compensation of the environmental impact of the EEA3, but it allows us to regenerate a forest for the ...

The US Commission on International Religious Freedom and the Tibetan People’s Movement are condemning China’s new laws aimed at controlling the selection of the next Dalai Lama and ordaining its own Roman Catholic priests. The laws, which went into effect on 1 September, state, in part, "No outside organisation or individual will influence or control the reincarnation of living Buddhas ...

Christian groups have offered support to Patriarch Bartholomeos I, seen by many of the world’s Orthodox Christians as their spiritual leader, after he was called to testify in a Turkish court for allegedly violating an order barring him from using his traditional title of "Ecumenical Patriarch". "Please know that amid these troubles you have our firm support in the fulfilment ...

An openly lesbian priest, who lives with a female partner, is among the five nominees for bishop of the US (Anglican) Episcopal diocese of Chicago to replace William Persell, the outgoing bishop who plans to retire. The Rev. Tracey Lind, dean of Trinity Cathedral in Cleveland will be on the 10 November ballot. Lind, who has served at Trinity since ...

Anglican churches will soon return to their mission to alleviate poverty, disease and injustice and abandon a "fixation" with homosexuality, says Anglican Bishop Trevor Mwamba, the recently-appointed dean of the Anglican Church of the Province of Central Africa. "Very few of us take the homosexual debate as a top priority issue because there are more pressing issues facing the African ...

UNITING CHURCH President Rev Gregor Henderson, and Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress National Administrator Rev Shayne Blackman have jointly expressed concern about legislation relating to the Northern Territory Indigenous intervention. “The Uniting Church stands with its Indigenous leaders in expressing our alarm at the way this legislation has evolved,” said Mr Henderson. “This is some of the most significant ...

A newly-released survey by The Associated Press and MTV, the music channel aimed at young people, has found that religion and family are two of the strongest components contributing to the happiness of people aged 13 to 24 in the United States. "It’s easier for kids who are happy and have things going well in their life to find the ...