Queensland Synod News

The number of people in Britain going to church is falling rapidly and only one in 10 adults attends church weekly even though 53 percent of adults or 26.2 million people in the United Kingdom identify themselves as Christian. A survey, "Churchgoing in the UK Today", by Christian relief and development agency Tearfund, said this reflects a drop of 20 ...

A foundry in the central Russian city of Voronezh has completed the casting of a 14-tonne bell for Harvard University, the latest chapter in an 80 year odyssey that has linked the US seat of learning with one of Russia’s most famous monasteries. The bell is the largest of a set to be sent to Harvard to replace 18 bells ...

A Code of Ethics, that will guide Lay Preachers in the exercise of their ministry, was adopted at the March meeting of the Uniting Church’s National Assembly Standing Committee. The Code of Ethics for Ministers of the Word, Deacons, Youth Workers, Community Ministers and Lay Pastors, established at the 9th Assembly in 2000, did not address the specific responsibilities of Lay ...

Dear Friends in Christ, You may have heard the story about the minister who went on a tour of the Holy Land at Easter time. On Maundy Thursday evening he packed a basket with food and a thermos of hot coffee, and went to the Garden of Gethsemane. There he settled into a comfortable reclining chair, rugged himself up in ...

Crusading pro-evolution scientist Richard Dawkins has had his anti-religious claims ridiculed during an Oxford debate with a theologian who once was an atheist like the evolutionist, who is devout in his public denunciations of religion. "Having been an atheist, I discovered religion was in fact an enormously powerful, transformative power for good," said Alister McGrath, Oxford University’s professor of Historical ...

If there is not peace among religions, there will be no peace in the world, Swiss-born theologian Hans Kueng has noted during an address during a week of ethics and world peace in the capital city of Colombia. "The great religions have the conditions necessary to mobilise people to support a planetary ethic: defining moral objectives, proposing instructions and criteria ...

Churches in southern Africa are calling on their governments to place direct pressure on the government of President Robert Mugabe, as leaders from the region gather in Tanzania for an emergency summit to discuss the crisis in Zimbabwe. "As the church, we are convinced that Zimbabwe is under the clutches of oppressive rule, and those who are committed to democratic ...

Observance of Great Lent, the period of fasting and spiritual reflection that precedes Holy Week and Easter, has become a staple of post-Soviet Russian life, sometimes manifest in ways that might seem out of sync with traditional views of the 40-day period. Several years ago a new Lenten cookie, free of animal products, appeared on the market. Its wrapper had ...

The government of Kosovo has approved plans for a Roman Catholic cathedral in the territory’s provincial capital, dedicated to the ethnic Albanian charity worker, Mother Teresa of Calcutta. "Mother Teresa is like a family member to us – she’s a very good symbol for everyone living here," said Catholic Bishop Dode Gjergji of Prizren in southern Kosovo. "Her parents were ...

Zimbabwean church groups are praying to God to bring an end to mounting political and economic woes in the southern African nation that has been ruled by 83-year-old President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party for 27 years. "We call upon Zimbabweans to get into prayer for the nation as only God can save Zimbabwe," the Christian Alliance, a grouping of churches, ...