Imagine that a Hollywood director who knows nothing of Christianity wants to make a film depicting God. Surely it would be a special effects extravaganza, transfixing with its images of glory and power. What is almost inconceivable is that the encounter should be with a helpless newborn baby in a rough stable, far from the centres of civilisation.

      It's hard to envisage a less likely way to encounter God - except perhaps as a man nailed to a cross, tortured and torn, slowly asphyxiating. No wonder this portrayal of the divine was, as the Apostle Paul noted, a scandal to the Greeks and a stumbling block to the Jews - and to many since: God identifies himself with suffering humanity, startlingly weak and vulnerable.

      Yet weakness is at the heart of the Christian message, a paradoxical and liberating truth that Christmas should highlight. Unfortunately it is a truth the church often seems to forget. In Australia, too much of the church is comfortably middle class, complacent and detached from the human misery around and inside it.

     In an article first published in The Age newspaper, BARNEY ZWARTZ argues that in the era of the megachurch, Christians need to be careful not to "sidestep" the paradoxical truth at the heart of Christianity - that of strength in weakness...  | more...|

"The Virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel - which means 'God with us'."
- Matthew 1: 23 (NIV)

MAY YOUR CHRISTMAS BE FILLED WITH THE JOY OF CHRIST!

Image by ANN WOJCZUK for SIGHT magazine

ESSAY: HELP! JESUS IS MISSING!

Possibly every parent's worst nightmare relates to losing a child. Any parent who has ever been unfortunate enough to lose a child, even momentarily, can testify to the intense despair and anguish such an event triggers.

    My wife and I belong to this group; parents who have misplaced their children. Yes, it sounds careless and foolish but it is actually quite easy to achieve. Children can be just downright tricky little items. Believe it or not, we have had the opportunity to enjoy this experience not once, but twice, courtesy of our two sons. By the way, our two daughters have never caused this form of grief, which begs the question, are boys better at becoming lost than girls?

      Our first, and possibly most traumatic, episode occurred in a small country town in south-eastern Victoria, at the local swimming pool. (I can sense a collective shiver). Our then three-year-old son managed to avoid the close and careful scrutiny of his mother - momentarily distracted by his three other under six-year-old siblings, to disappear from sight.

     RUSSELL STUBBINGS relives 'every parent's worst nightmare' as he calls on Christians to 'reclaim' Christmas...  | more...|

20/20: CHRISTMAS

Oh yeah, Christmas - well yes, the children and the old people need to have their festivities. So yes, I'll be there, I'll take the day off and yes, I've got some presents - over there in the corner - I'll be part of it. Church? Well, OK but maybe something'll come up and I might have to miss that but I will be there for lunch.
      Really though, I know it's something that we can't do without, I know, but I'm no longer a child and really my mind is not really on such things - I have to keep my mind on the job. So much to do. So much to arrange. So much to get in order for the new year. A new broom. A new way of doing things. Resolutions. You know. A new year and clean start and all that.
      All this Jesus in the Manger stuff, it's not where I'm at. Not really.

     Read more of BRUCE C WEARNE'S Christmas reflection... | more... |

CHRISTMAS MESSAGES

Read the Christmas messages from some of the leaders of Australia's Christian churches... | more... |

It was just one of the more than 20 typhoons which usually hit the Bicol region of the Philippines every year. But the devastation Typhoon Durian left behind was breath-taking in its scale.

      Striking the region located a few hundred kilometres south of Manila late last month, it brought with it widespread destruction. Landslides originating at the nearby volcano Mayon buried several entire communities and left a death toll expected to reach well beyond 1,000 people in what some have described as the worst natural disaster to hit the country since the eruption of Mt Pinatubo in 1991.

      Edwin Estioko is a communications and education specialist with child-focused Christian agency Compassion.

     “Your eyes cannot rest to see a spot where there are no fallen trees, broken electric posts, destroyed houses, and debris scattered on the streets,” he says, describing the scene left in the wake of the typhoon.

     DAVID ADAMS reports on efforts to alleviate the crisis in the Philippines in the wake of Typhoon Durian...  | more...|

"Everyone is trying to go about their pre-Christmas business and doing their best to ignore the military coup presence on the streets of the capital Suva. Beyond Suva to the remote towns, villages and islands there is virtually no sense of a coup going on. But Suva is a different story; army checkpoints on all routes in and at major intersections. Soldiers foot patrolling the streets with police. Truckolads of soldiers coming and going to various offices and buildings searching for who-knows-what as part of their self-styled 'clean-up' campaign. There is apprehension, distrust and sadness, but, being Fiji, friendliness, hospitality and wary smiles are in there too, it has to be said. We are hanging on to hope."

     Dr Robert Wolfgramm is editor-in-chief of the Fiji Daily Post newspaper. He speaks with DAVID ADAMS about what's happening in the Pacific island nation, almost two weeks after the military - led by Commodore Frank Bainimarama - ousted the government of Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase...  | more...|

It was Mal Garvin’s days as a schoolboy in Sydney’s inner western suburbs that helped to create in him a passion for helping Australia’s youth to know Christ. And it’s a passion that has never gone away.

    “The great yearning in my life (even) back then was for kids like me to have a chance to know Jesus,” he says, describing that yearning as a pivotal factor in determining how his life would subsequently unfold.

      The 65-year-old - who many people know for his 35 years of radio work and in particular his Sunday night show Conversation of the Nation - has recently stepped down as the international director of Fusion, a youth and community organisation he founded that now works not only throughout Australia but in a growing number of countries around the world.

     DAVID ADAMS speaks to Mal Garvin about international youth and community mission organisation Fusion's humble beginnings in inner urban Sydney and its growth into a global ministry...  | more...|

Lucas Parry: "My wife and I love Christmastime! It begins after Thanksgiving when we put up the tree and decorate the house inside and out. We spend hours putting up our Christmas village under the tree and hanging the lights. This year will be extra exciting as it will be our first Christmas with my son Liam who was born in October and our first Christmas as a family. I can’t wait!"

Annie Wolaver (Annie Moses Band): "Christmas for me has changed very gradually. Even when I was little, Jesus was the centre of the season, not a sideline. That reality has grown more and more present as the years have rolled by. Recently, we exchanged our Christmas tree for the nativity scene as the destination for our presents. The change was small, but in our minds, it was another re-enforcement of Jesus as the centre of our celebration."

North American-based correspondent JOE MONTAGUE speaks to a number of US-based Christian artists about their Christmas experiences - their traditions and how they will be spending Christmas this year...  | more...|

Christians of all denominations have spelt out their commitment to addressing climate change in a new report published by the Climate Institute.

    Common Belief: Australia’s Faith Communities On Climate Change, which was launched in Sydney this week, contains a series of statements from representatives of a range of religious faiths - including those from numerous Christian denominations through to Hinduism and Judaism, to the Baha’i Faith, Buddhism, the Islamic faith and that of the Aboriginal people - who provided statements on why they see climate change as a “moral issue”.

      Sky Laris, acting chief executive of the institute - which was formed in late 2005 with the five year goal of raising public awareness about climate change in Australia, says the document was developed after it became clear that religious leaders the group had been in contact with - including Anglican Bishop George Browning, a member of the institute’s advisory board - expressed a “willingness and: even a desire to make a statement about this”.

     DAVID ADAMS reports...  | more...|

UPDATE: HUMAN LIFE "GREATLY DEVALUED" SAYS CHRISTIAN LOBBY AFTER CLONING BILL PASSES

Human life was "greatly devalued" following the passing of a controversial bill legalising the cloning of human embryos for stem cell research, according to the Australian Christian Lobby.

       Jim Wallace, managing director of the ACL, said the vote reflected the fact that Australia had “somehow decided that something so unanimously condemned as morally wrong only three years ago, can suddenly be right today”.

      He said Prime Minister John Howard had been right to comment that “we have entered a very relativist era” and added that “mankind will be all the poorer for it”.

     “If there was one good point to come of the passage of this atrocious piece of legislation, it is that we have men and women of principle on both sides who have done themselves proud in speaking against it...” he said. 

      Mr Wallace added: “One thing is certain, last night human life was greatly devalued in Australia.”

ESSAY: CLONING RAISES COMPLEX SCIENTIFIC AND MORAL ISSUES

The House of Representatives is debating a controversial bill to allow the cloning of human embryos for research purposes.

      The bill, proposed by Senator Kay Patterson, seeks to implement the recommendations of the Lockhart Review. This sought to maintain the ban on ‘reproductive cloning’ but allow so-called ‘therapeutic’ cloning so that scientists could research into the potential cures hoped for through embryonic stem cell research. These cloned embryos would be allowed to develop for up to 14 days, when they would be destroyed as their stem cells were harvested. It would remain illegal to implant a cloned embryo into a woman’s uterus.

      Cloning raises complex scientific and moral issues. Is cloning morally right? Many politicians have struggled with this. For some, it can never be right because it involves the creation and deliberate destruction of a human embryo. Others believe that the potential to cure debilitating diseases provides a moral imperative that overrides any rights of the cloned embryo.

     With the debate over human cloning back before Federal Parliament, BETH MICKLETHWAITE, of the Australian Christian Lobby, provides an overview of the issue and some of the questions it raises...  | more...|

Around six years ago, singer and musician Jess Hammond spent several weeks of a northern hemisphere summer at a drug rehabilitation centre in a small Siberian village.

      Part of a Youth With A Mission (YWAM) team, she was helping with some building work at the centre but says it was the stories of the people there who ended up inspiring her music.

     “We’d all sit around the fire in the evening and just sing worship songs together,” the 26-year-old recalls. “That was really inspiring for me just seeing these guys who really had nothing and still just being able to worship God. We felt really humbled being there - we kind of felt like we were being ministered to more than we were ministering.”

      That was just one of countless experiences Hammond had during the five years she spent volunteering with YWAM and one of the many that she subsequently drew upon when writing songs.

     DAVID ADAMS speaks to Jess Hammond about the inspiration behind her debut album There Is Hope...  | more...|

The Australian Christian Lobby is urging Christians in Victoria to consider their vote carefully in this weekend’s state election.

     Dr Railton Hill, state director of the ACL in Victoria, says people should be careful to take an in-depth look at party policies.

     “They should be look at the actual policies and not just general philosophical statements that candidates are giving,” he says.

      As part of its bid to inform people about party policies, the lobby has been running a series of 10 “know your candidates forums” in marginal seats such as Box Hill, Cranbourne, Mulgrave and Bendigo East.

      Dr Hill, an academic at a Victorian university and a member of the Salvation Army, says that candidates who had taken part in the forums have been positive in their feedback.

     DAVID ADAMS reports...  | more...|

OPINION: PREFERENCES WILL PLAY A CRITICAL ROLE

The state election looms large. And yet, for many voters, the decision regarding who to vote is historical rather than based on policy.

     “My family is blue collar, we have always voted for Labor” is a common basis for casting the all important vote on election day. Others vote according to personality, the “he seems like a reasonable sort of person” approach. Others simply follow the how to vote card handed out on the day which seems to work for them at the time.

      Is this the way we should approach an election? Can we afford to base our voting decisions on anything less than policy, and previous track record? The coming state election needs to be taken seriously, and a deliberate, informed response is called for. The future of the state of Victoria, at least in the short term, is in the balance, and voters must make sure they are informed regarding party policy and the implications of balance of power issues.

     RUSSELL STUBBINGS argues that understanding the preference system is critical for an informed vote...  | more...|

Asked why he decided to do a Christmas album at this time in his career, Todd Agnew’s answer is surprising.

    “The weird thing is I didn’t,” says the American singer/ songwriter. “A Christmas album (Do You See What I See) was not on the list of my career to do things. It wasn’t something that I ever really wanted to do. Last October I was studying the story of the wisemen and felt God was challenging me by saying, ‘Are you willing to prepare like they did to encounter Christ at Christmas? They (the wisemen) studied really hard. They journeyed and brought special gifts.’

     “It was like He was saying, ‘You shop at the last minute, and run up to see your family and say Oh, and Jesus, thank you for coming. That is your encounter at Christmas.’ I (thought) we prepare every other side but we don’t take a lot of time to prepare spiritually for Christmas. We work much more on our Christmas music at church then we do on preparing our hearts. That was an indictment on me so I told the Lord I was going to spend every morning from October to Christmas studying the Christmas story.”

     JOE MONTAGUE speaks to Todd Agnew about his new Christmas album...  | more...|

UPDATE: G20 "MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING"

The Make Poverty History campaign have declared the G20 a missed opportunity to show international leadership on the issue of global poverty, with co-chair Tim Costello describing the meeting as “much ado about nothing”...  | more...|

HAVE YOUR SAY: Did you go to the concert or the rallies? How effective do you think they were in raising the issue of global poverty? What about the violence that happened outside the G20 meeting? Plus SightPoll: Is Australia generous enough when it comes to overseas aid? Have your say in our forums here...

Australia is the least generous of all the eight G20 donor countries when it comes to overseas aid, according to a report released this week.

      Written by Simon Feeny and Matthew Clarke for the Make Poverty History campaign, the report Are the G-20 Helping to Make Poverty History? examines each of the G20 nation’s performance with regard to a range of foreign aid indicators.
      These included the amount of aid they provide relative to the size of their economies, being committed to increasing the amount of official development assistance to 0.7 per cent of gross national income and providing large shares of their aid to the least developed countries.

     DAVID ADAMS reports on a new report - released ahead of this weekend's G20 meeting - which suggests Australia needs to lift its game if we are to 'make poverty history'...  | more...|

ESSAY: WHAT WE WOULD LIKE TO SEE THE G20 ACHIEVE

Since the world community made the concerted decision to end extreme poverty - influenced by the likes of Bono, Bill Gates and other global leaders who implored us to act - millions of lives have been saved.

      In Ghana, 1.5 million people have been lifted out of poverty thanks to the annual $500 million in aid the country received in the 1990s alone. In Mozambique, debt relief enabled $18.5 million to be spent on health, which saw free life-saving immunizations for 500,000 children. In eastern, southern and south-eastern Asia, there are more than 200 million fewer people living in sub-human conditions since 1990 because of policies designed to reduce poverty.

      And all this because the global community and its leaders decided to combat poverty by implementing such policies as debt relief, trade justice and aid effectiveness.

    In an article first published in The Age newspaper, Make Poverty History co-chairs TIM COSTELLO and ANDREW HEWETT talk about what results they would like to see coming out of this weekend's G20 meeting...  | more...|

One only has to hear part of Wess Stafford’s life story to see why he’s such a powerful advocate for children.

      These days the president of global child advocacy ministry, Compassion International, Dr Stafford’s childhood was essentially split between two worlds: one, a poor village in West Africa where he saw firsthand the devastating effect poverty would have on the lives of his young friends; the other, a boarding school where he faced physical, sexual and mental abuse.

     “I maintain I was probably Compassion’s president-in-training when I was like five-years-old,” the 57-year-old reflects.

      “God knew what He ultimately had for my life and He allowed me to be raised in a little African village in the Ivory Coast as the son of missionaries...I tell people now that everything I needed to know to lead this thing, I learned from the poor in a little African village around the campfires and out in the fields and in the swamps...

     DAVID ADAMS speaks with Wess Stafford, president of Compassion International, about his work to bring hope to children across the globe...  | more...|

Can we make poverty history?

      The Micah Challenge and Make Poverty History (MPH) campaigns are gaining momentum in the lead up to the G20 summit this month, where representatives from 20 nations, World Bank and International Monetary Fund, will meet in Melbourne to discuss a range of global economic issues.

      Since last year we have seen very encouraging support for Micah Challenge. The MPH bumper sticker can be found in many church car parks. There is no doubt that Christians are compassionate people. They see charity as an important part of their Christian life. Indeed many give generously to the poor.

      But is generous giving to charity enough? Can we make poverty history through almsgiving alone?

     SIU FUNG WU, of World Vision Australia, explains why giving financially is just one part of redressing economic imbalance in the world....  | more...|

Thousands of people across Australia are joining in prayer as the nation experiences its worst drought in 100 years.
      Amid reports of desperation on the land - including that a farmer is committing suicide every four days and rising instances of depression among those living in rural areas, in what is believed to be an unprecedented move in Australia the Australian Prayer Network is calling for people all across the country to pray for the nation with a focus not on rain but on seeking God about the reason behind the current drought.

      Brian Pickering, national co-ordinator of the Australian Prayer Network, says that while previous prayer initiatives had been focused on praying for rain - including in 2003 when up to 100,000 people had taken part in a Year of Prayer for Church and Nation, and in the middle of last year - the current 40 day prayer period, which started on 22nd October and will run until 30th November, was instead aimed at “seeking the face of God”.

     DAVID ADAMS reports on a new effort to find answers to the drought...  | more...|

I was one of the few non-Amish welcomed into the very private Amish mourning rituals for five slain school girls in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Few from the outside world will ever see up close these extraordinarily private and pacifistic people as they deal with the enormous suffering of losing their children to a brutal act of violence.

      While they live differently, the Amish are the first to dispel any notion they are better than us. One "preacher" told me, "You English (their term for the non-Amish) sometimes think we're perfect; we're not. We've got all the problems you have, and we have bad people, too. It could have been an Amish that did this." Still, it is at times of great suffering and loss that the best of what the Amish are truly shines.

      As I visited in the victims' homes, sat on the mourning benches, talked with the families about the details of that terrible day, and watched one mother tenderly care for her daughter's damaged body, I was struck by how prepared they were for this. Not simply in a technical sense, but in a deeply spiritual, philosophical and moral sense. The Amish were well rehearsed for this tragedy.

   Rev ROB SCHENCK, president of the National Clergy Council in the US and founder of Faith and Action in the Nation's Capital, reflects upon what we can learn from the way the Amish responded to the recent shootings in the US...  | more...|

Ghulam Din has been living in a camp since an earthquake hit northern Pakistan last year and destroyed his whole village.  He owns nothing now apart from the items humanitarian organisations like Oxfam have donated and the few things his family have been able to afford. Today, his only source of income is the small amounts of money he earns when he can get casual labouring work. After a year, even these humble possessions, his tent and the blankets, are looking tired and old and need replacing. “This is no life,” he says.

      What he really misses is his land, where he and his family can grow crops. When asked what he would say to the government he responds: “I would plead with them, I would beseech them, I would request them to give me alternative land so that I can rebuild.” At this point there are no plans in place for people like Ghulam. 

       It’s been a year since a devastating earthquake killed over 70,000 people and left three million homeless in the Pakistan-administered Kashmir and the North-West Frontier Province. For those left behind it’s been a long, slow road to recovery.

    In an article first published in The Sunday Herald Sun, Oxfam worker KATE SIMPSON writes about what's happened in the aftermath of last year's devastating earthquake...  | more...|

The words to John Cooper’s song Those Nights aren’t mere rhetoric. Cooper, from American rock band Skillet, drew on his personal experience when penning the song for the group’s latest album, Comatose.

  “While I was growing up my mom died when I was 14,” he says. “I got into this terrible home life situation with my dad and (for a period) of four years it was either me yelling at him or him yelling at me...My dad got remarried two months after my mother died and my step mother’s husband had died about two months before my mom so both of them were dealing with very recent deaths of their spouses. They had three kids and we had three kids. It was a bad situation. I hated living there and I hated life.”

      There were a few things that provided hope for the young Cooper. One was his faith in Christ - “I was a Christian and I knew that God loved me.” The second was looking forward to spending weekend sleepovers with a close friend.

    JOE MONTAGUE talks to Skillet's John Cooper about the group's latest album, Comatose...  | more...|

Emily Price had never met someone who was HIV positive before she met Sopal, a Cambodian woman aged in her late 20s who was taking part in a program called Women of Hope in which HIV sufferers are helping to educate others about the disease.

    “It was just an amazing experience and we sat down and had this amazing interview with these women and they told us everything about their lives and they us about the discrimination that they‘d suffered as HIV sufferers...” says the 21-year-old from New South Wales.

     “All of the women were married and most of their husbands had died...but they were just so passionate and so empowering and so strong. I’ve never met such strong women.”

      In July this year, Price was among seven young people, aged 18 to 23, who went on a three week trip with the organisation to Thailand and Cambodia as part of what Australian youth-run aid and development agency Oaktree are calling 'Our Generation’s Challenge'.

    DAVID ADAMS reports on how youth run agency Oaktree are encouraging young people to actively work towards ending global poverty...  | more...|

The separation of church and state preserves the notion of freedom for religion and liberates the church from the “baggage” of unpopular and difficult decision making while at the same time ensuring the state remains free of religious dogma, according to Federal Treasurer Peter Costello.

      In a speech given to the Australian Christian Lobby’s conference held at the National Press Club in Canberra last weekend, Costello said the separation of church and state “derives from the teaching of Christ himself”.

     “The separation of the State from religion liberates both,” he said. “It preserves freedom for religion. It liberates the church from the baggage of unpopular and difficult political decision-making. It liberates the State from the religious dogma which at times, has held back scientific process.”

    DAVID ADAMS reports...  | more...|

It was just a few hours after the horror of September 11, 2001.

      Standing amid the devastation on the
dust covered streets of New York, a leading TV journalist stooped to pick up a piece of paper, one of the many business documents fluttering in the murky air.

     "Yesterday," she said, "this piece of paper was probably the most important thing in the world to somebody. Today it is totally meaningless."

      I’m sure today that all of our hearts go out to the families of those who died on that tragic day. For them, this is not an international event, but a time of intensely personal loss and mourning.

      Even for those of us who were not touched directly by the horror of is event, there is something to be learned from it.

      For me, these events were a stark reminder of the power of passion.

    MAL FLETCHER takes a look at how the world should have changed for Christians since September 11...  | more...|

The churches were the voice of the voiceless people of Southern Sudan through the long years of war.

      Now Southern Sudanese leaders are calling on the Australian churches to take part in the development of their country - and to make sure the peace agreement is not broken.

      A high level delegation from Southern Sudan has visited Australia, to thank Australians for their past support and to invite them to take part in the development of Southern Sudan.

      The delegation was led by Lieutenant General James Wani Igga, Speaker of the Legislative Assembly of the Government of Southern Sudan.

     "The churches have been the voices of the people of Southern Sudan during the years of war," he says. "They spoke out for us to the international community at a time the world didn’t want to listen.

      "We now want the churches to become once again the voice of the peace- loving people of Sudan. We want them to urge the international community to see that the peace agreement that has been negotiated is fully implemented and that the National Congress Party in Khartoum does not renege from the agreement. This will happen only if both parties are pushed into action."

    NICHOLAS KERR, of Christian World Service, reports...  | more...|

Women play a leading role in development...  | more...|

FORMER SLAVE WORKS TO END A MODERN SCOURGE

As a nine-year-old boy tending his family’s goats he witnessed his village burned by the Sudanese Army and many killed. Abducted and enslaved in northern Sudan less than a year later, he endured nightmarish treatment by his captors that made him feel like an animal.

     “I had a lovely family,” says Simon Deng, founder of Sudan Freedom Walk and a speaker for the American Anti-Slavery Group (iAbolish.com). His father, a farmer in the village of Tonga, sent his children to Christian school. “We witnessed houses burned down constantly by government troops from northern Sudan,” he recalls.

      Growing up, Deng received an explicit warning from his parents. “We were told if you see the Arab troops coming you have to run for your life." Once while he tended his family’s goats he heard the unmistakable rumble of German-made troop transports. When they rolled to a stop, soldiers poured out and began to burn most of the huts, kill the men, and steal any livestock they could grab.

    MARK ELLIS, of Assist News Service, talks to Simon Deng about his time as a slave in Sudan and his work since to end it...  | more...|

Gospel has always been part of The Idea of North’s repertoire - both in live shows and on their recordings - and there’s never been a shortage of requests for the group to do an entirely Gospel album. But, says Trish Delaney-Brown - the group’s soprano, the timing just never felt right for a solely Gospel work. Until now.

      The group have just produced The Gospel Project, a mix of some classic and some not-so-classic Gospel tunes including a number of original tracks.

     “We wanted it to be really representative of us...” says Delaney- Brown. “We are a jazz-based group but part of what we do is keep our material extremely varied and the Gospel album's no different really. It’s got everything from traditional songs or songs people would be very familiar with through to crossover material, like the Van Morrison song, Whenever God Shines His Light On Me, and original material as well. So it certainly doesn’t stay true to what some people think of as Gospel music...it does the gamut, like all of our albums.”

    DAVID ADAMS speaks with the Idea of North's Trish Delaney-Brown about their latest album, The Gospel Project...  | more...|

"(T)he Good Samaritan goes down the road, he picks up the guy that was left there on the side of the road, half dead. But if he goes down the next day and he sees it again and he sees somebody else gets mugged and it happens the day after that and the day after that, there comes a point where the Good Samaritan says ‘I’m going to keep on picking up the people that are battered and beaten and left on the wayside, but I think I’m going to have to do something about this road. It’s an unsafe road - we better get some light in here, we better get some police patrolling the road because this keeps happening. So it’s a matter of starting with mercy, starting with the kind of heart that Christ can create within us and then saying ‘Wait a minute, it’s not enough for me to behave on an individualistic level. I must, in fact, do something socially so as to change the system and create a society where there aren’t so many casualties, so many hurt people, so many destroyed people’.”

    World renowned American evangelist, pastor and author, Tony Campolo, was in Australia last week conducting a series of breakfast discussions with World Vision’s Tim Costello on the issues of justice and mercy. He spoke with DAVID ADAMS about global poverty, the recent Middle East crisis and that famous quote...  | more...|

He’s the pastor of Saddleback Church, one of America’s largest churches, and the author of the runaway best-seller The Purpose Driven Life, but now Rick Warren his turned his purpose to waking up the church to become more involved in helping with the AIDS pandemic.

      During an interview at the recent 16th International World AIDS Conference in Toronto, Canada, Dr Warren criticises those in the church who had pointed fingers at those with HIV/AIDS and said that they deserved to have the deadly virus because of their behavior.
But he begins by explaining why he and his wife, Kay, were at the conference.

     “We’re here for two different reasons,” he says . “First we think the church should be at the table for the greatest health crisis in history. The number one killer of people 60 years and younger of age is now AIDS, and I believe that the church should not just be at the table but taking the lead in it.
      DAN WOODING, founder of Assist Ministries, speaks with Dr Rick Warren about how Christians should respond to the AIDS pandemic... | more...|


FOR MORE:
WORLDVIEW: A 'TOTAL COMMITMENT' TO ELIMINATING HIV
Reverend Canon Gideon Byamugisha, an Anglican priest from Uganda who is HIV positive, and American pastor and best-selling author, Rick Warren, offered much the same core challenge in the closing session of an event for faith-based organizations, Faith in Action: Keeping the Promise, held prior to the International AIDS Conference in Toronto earlier this month. Both say churches can and must play a more vital role in the global response to HIV and AIDS.
      MARLA PIERSON LESTER, of the Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance, reports... | more...|

Could the Make Poverty History campaign actually make poverty history? It’s ambitious, but then so was William Wilberforce and the anti-slavery campaign...and Martin Luther King Jr and the civil rights campaign...and Desmond Tutu and the anti-apartheid campaign.
      One year ago, global poverty was the focus of the G8 summit at Gleneagles. Thirty six million people, led by people like Nelson Mandela, Bono and Bob Geldof called world leaders to act to overcome the injustice of global poverty. Two billion people tuned in to watch the Live 8 concerts, and in the UK, 250,000 people marched across Edinburgh. In Australia, some 50,000 postcards were sent to Canberra calling on the Australian government to be more generous with our overseas aid. The world seemed united to actually do something of significance.

      Has reality matched the rhetoric? One year on, what has been achieved?

    World Vision's ROD YULE assesses what progress has been made in the past year in the fight to eliminate global poverty...  | more...|

LIFE'S TOUGH QUESTIONS SPECIAL: WAR AND THE MIDDLE EAST, PROPHECY AND END TIMES - SHOULD WE BE GLAD ABOUT THE WARS AND TENSIONS IN THE WORLD?

A recent enquirer asked the following questions: "Please help me understand how prophecy fits in with bringing peace in the Middle East? There is such a lot of thought going around- that it is inevitable that war will escalate before the return of Christ and therefore there is a reluctance to pray for peace if this awful conflict heralds Christ’s return. What should be the Christians stance, seeing we should pray according to the Holy Spirit?"
      The short answer is: work for peace, pray for peace, and do all you can in this world to further the cause of peace and alleviate suffering.

     JIM REIHER takes a look at how Christians should respond to the world's crises... | more...|

"We are praying that this conflict will come to a quick resolve. Many people in these times ask life's most important questions: What am I here for? Where I am going after I die? Why do we suffer all of this? God has answers for all these questions. He is waiting to answer, they only need to turn their face to him. We have seen after conflicts like this that people are more open than ever before to a personal relationship with God. I pray that as believers we can introduce them to the one who is the answer...The most important role is prayer. Our fight is not against flesh and blood. The only one who can bring peace to the land is the Prince of Peace himself. Another important role for Christians outside the Middle East is to get involved in long-term partnerships with evangelical groups here. We need to be supported and encouraged so that we can support and encourage. We cannot give what we have not received ourselves."

     DAVID ADAMS speaks to Harry Tees, general secretary of the United Christian Council in Israel about the current crisis in the Middle East...  | more...|

If Protestants had saints, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, martyred under Hitler in 1945 just days before the Allies reached his concentration camp, would be one of the first canonised. Not just his unsought martyr’s death, "hung naked with a piano wire", but his life’s movement from privilege to growing identification with those who suffer, his courageous return from the safety of the US to Germany, his work with the underground church and, more controversially, the underground resistance in the plot to assassinate Hitler, all argue his case for canonisation.
      Bonhoeffer’s books - The Cost of Discipleship, Life Together, Letters and Papers from Prison and Ethics the best known - have nurtured many through a dark night of the soul. His writings have been my companion since teenage years. The congruence between his life and thought, his ‘walking the talk’, "sets him apart from most public figures in his time and our own" as Stephen Haynes says in The Bonhoeffer Phenomenon: Portraits of a Protestant Saint, written to coincide with the centenary of Bonhoeffer’s birth on February 4th, 1906.

       In an article first published in Alive Magazine, Dr GORDON PREECE takes a look at the influence and impact of the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer...  | more...|

The Democrats are asking for the opinions of Australians on the issue of church and state in an online poll.

     The God and Government poll canvases people's thoughts on a wide range of issues, from whether intelligent design should be taught in schools as an alternative to evolution to whether hospitals which receive government funding should be obliged to provide abortion services, and whether political leaders in Australia have used religion for their own political purposes.

      Leader of the Democrats, Victorian Senator Lyn Allison, says the poll reflects the recent increase of the involvement of religion in politics.

      Senator Allison says it's her view that the Prime Minister, John Howard, has "exploited religion" and introduced some very significant changes in the relationship between church and state through actions such as funding religious organisations to conduct Government services, allowing the growth of church schools under more generous funding arrangements, and courting "conservative religious groups" such as Hillsong.

     DAVID ADAMS reports...  | more...|

ESSAY: CHURCH'S INTEGRITY MUST BE SAVED, NOT DESTROYED

The recent upsurge of violence within the Middle East is widely attributed to conflicting religious beliefs and aspirations. If religion was kept out of politics, so the conventional thinking goes, the world would be a safer and more orderly place. Although parallels between the conduct of political life and the quality of democracy in Lebanon and Australia are few, there is a growing unease in this country that religion is playing too prominent a part in national affairs.
      Amanda Lohrey's Voting for Jesus: Christianity and Politics in Australia (Quarterly Essay, Issue 22) is the latest in a series of laments that an increasingly politicised Christian community is refusing to respect a clear separation of Church and State. This essay is notable, however, for the author's strange view of what constitutes democracy, lack of acquaintance with the subject matter and a thinly veiled ideological bias. Let me begin with Lohrey's take on democracy.

     In an article first published in The Canberra Times, Dr TOM FRAME, provides a critical examination of Amanda Lohrey's Voting for Jesus...  | more...|

"Christian values” have played a key role in Australia’s economic development and must continue to “counterweigh the seductive appeal of materialism”, according to Professor Ian Harper.

      In a paper presented at the first Christian Heritage National Forum held in Canberra last weekend, Professor Harper - chairman of the Howard Government’s Fair Pay Commission and executive director of the Centre for Business and Public Policy at the Melbourne Business School - said Christian principles - including the insistence on the rule of law, equality , the need for transparency in administration and government, and the binding nature of contracts - lay at the heart of Australia’s “inherited” political and economic culture and remained relevant for Australia’s economic development.

     “No human economy can succeed without a substrate of ethical and cultural values. Christians believe that their faith is in the Truth, which will set them free, beginning but not ending with the life in this world."

     DAVID ADAMS reports on the first national Christian Heritage Forum...  | more...|

ESSAY: AN APPEAL TO THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY

A major tragedy continues to unfold in the troubled region of the Middle East. A war of ominous dimension and of far-reaching consequences is causing unimaginable and untold suffering to the people in Lebanon. In a period of three weeks, over six hundred people have lost their lives and over a million have been displaced. The television images of corpses of little children and old women struggling to find their way through the debris and rubble of their homes and a nation held in fear are heart-wrenching. Much needed aid and assistance that could be of help in these dire circumstances has been hampered and is unable to reach those in need.

     Rev Dr SAMUEL KOBIA, general secretary of the World Council of Churches, appeals to the international community to help bring an end to the war in the Middle East...  | more...|

THE ART OF PEACEMAKING IN A LAND TORN APART BY WAR

Dr Salim J. Munayer is a peacemaker in a region riven by war.

      In 1990, he founded Musalaha - a non-profit organisation that promotes reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians - and since then has been leading groups of up to 40 Messianic Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arab Christians into the “neutral territory” of the desert - a place that reminds participants they “cannot make it without him”.

      There they spend time together enjoying the natural beauty around them as they hike and ride camels across the rugged terrain, spending time reading the Scriptures, worshipping God and sharing their life experiences in what is often a life-changing experience.

     “As relationships develop, we hear each others stories sitting around the fire at night or walking the rocky terrain together,” wrote one participant. “Those who are supposed to be our enemies have a name and a background and the issues become personal. It is more difficult to ignore each others’ grievances or neglect one another’s pain, even though the stories may be difficult to hear.”

     DAVID ADAMS reports on an effort to help bring peace to the Middle East ...  | more...|

LEBANON - CONFLICT BRINGS BACK CIVIL WAR MEMORIES

For Australian Douglas Anderson, the recent outbreak of violence brings back memories he might rather forget.

     “It’s tragic...” says the Victorian missionary who spent 30 years living in Lebanon. “We were in and out of Lebanon during the Civil War - we were there during the ‘82 invasion and the destruction was terrible. There’s been the rebuilding (since) - the economy was shot to pieces and it’s been slowly getting better - but they’ve done a marvellous job of reconstruction and so on but now it’s just been shattered again.”

     DAVID ADAMS speaks to former the former international director of the Middle East Christian Outreach... | more...|

It’s a fact: we’re standing on the threshold of a whole new era in science. The discoveries that lay just around the next corner will probably dwarf all the great developments of the last century. The big technologies of this age could change forever the very makeup of the human being.

    Last week, US President George W. Bush declared that he will use his right of presidential veto to knock down any legislation allowing human stem cell research. Is he overreacting?

      In the last 10 years, scientists have been doing a lot of work with germline genetic engineering. Working with animal embryos, researchers add or subtract sections of their DNA to produce particular outcomes.

      The goal, of course, is to do the same with people, to shape human characteristics that are affected by our genes, such as intelligence, sporting ability and even emotional stability.

     MAL FLETCHER urges caution when approaching the issue of genetics...  | more...|

Reinhard Bonnke says he wants to “shake awake” the church. But he’s not talking about just one church or a single denomination. Nor is he talking about all the churches in a country or even an entire continent. He’s talking every church on the face of the globe.

     “My prayer is to get the church out of the sanctuaries and back onto the streets,” he says. “Our churches are the most evangelised real estate in the whole world but if you want to catch fish you shouldn’t cast your net into the bathtub - there is no fish. We have to take it out and cast it into the sea and into the rivers, that’s where the fish is. I feel the church as a whole - in general - is too much concerned about itself. We need to rediscover the...vast majority of people that are utterly lost and on their way to hell who need to hear the Gospel in order to be saved.”

      In Australia earlier this month, the world-renowned evangelist launched a new series of eight films he’s developed over the past nine years at the annual Hillsong Conference in Sydney.

     DAVID ADAMS and JUSTIN MICHAEL report on Reinhard Bonnke's new film venture...  | more...|

Wide-Eyed and Mystified is the title of Canadian band Downhere’s latest album. It also refers to how Marc Martel says he felt the first time he was “confronted” with the Gospel.

     "It is a line that comes from the first song on the album,” says Martel, the band’s vocallist and one of their primary songwriters since the members met at a small prairie college in western Canada several years ago (the other being Jason Germain).

     “The name of the track is called The More. The song talks about the Gospel and how it struck us the first time we were confronted with it. The sentiment being (that) we were in awe and in wonder."

     JOE MONTAGUE talks to US-based Canadian band Downhere about their latest album...  | more...|

The Otash camp lies just outside Nyala, the capital of southern Darfur and epicentre of the world's single largest humanitarian crisis today.

      Otash is small by Darfurian standards. It provides food, primitive shelter and basic sanitation to 40,000 people, who fled there after their villages were looted and burned by the Arab armed militia, the Janjaweed.

      The Government in Khartoum disputes that it has any role in arming the Janjaweed.
       The village people of Darfur have little doubt, and point to the sophistication of weaponry, the Toyota LandCruisers and the combat fatigues suddenly sported by these nomadic Arab tribesmen, whose traditional form of transport is the camel.

      I spoke to refugees who had come from different parts of Darfur in the Sudan. Some had fled two years ago, others two months ago, one family three weeks ago.

     KEVIN RUDD, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs, Trade and International Security, writes about his recent visit to Darfur in Sudan...  | more...|

Johan Benitez knows what it’s like to live by the law of the gun. But he also knows that there is hope.

      Benitez, who lives in the city of Medellin, Colombia, was addicted to cocaine and carrying a gun by the age of 11.

      When one of his brothers, a gang member, was tortured and murdered, it was expected that Benitez would seek vengence for his death. Instead, Benitez was introduced by a friend to Club Deportivo, a Christian sports club based in the city targeting children and youth at risk which, for the past five years, which has been working in partnership with the UK-based Christian relief and development agency Tearfund.

      It was a move which transformed his life and led Benitez, now aged in his 20s and a Christian, to want to offer the same hope to others.

      Benitez is now a coach at Club Deportivo which, for the past couple of years, has run a soccer competition called the Peace Negotiators’ Cup.

     DAVID ADAMS reports...  | more...|

The first thing that struck Matthew Hope, a 33-year-old builder from Sydney, when he arrived in Rwanda last year was the positive spirit of the people.

     “I’d thought I would have seen a lot more more intense poverty and pain but we really found a bunch of people that were quite upbeat about life - incredible people, really, for what they’ve been through,” he says. “It was not that long ago.”

     ‘It’ is a reference to the genocide that tore the country apart in 1994 when, during a 100 day period, more than 800,000 people were killed in ethnic violence.

      Hope first went to Rwanda on a scouting mission about 12 months ago after Mark and Darlene Zschech asked him whether he’d like to be involved in Hope: Rwanda - an Australian-led global effort to replace the 100 days of horror that the country experienced during in 1994 with 100 days of hope.

   DAVID ADAMS reports on how Australian builders have been teaching the tricks of the trade in Rwanda...  | more...|

PREVIOUS STORIES ON HOPE: RWANDA

Teaching new skills to sow into the next generation... | more...|

Overcoming the darkness of the past to build a future... | more...|

Australian Peter Bradbury was, up until last week, among the thousands who had gone to Germany for the World Cup. But unlike those who had gone as soccer spectators, he was in Germany for another purpose altogether.

    Bradbury, who spent close to three weeks in Germany, is among 25 Australians who travelled there as part of a Fusion team with the aim of linking up with local churches to run a series of the organisation’s signatory “open crowd” festivals as a way of reaching out in communities all around the country.

     “What amazes me is the way that (the open crowd festivals) can hit a common chord in every culture,” he says.

     “No matter where we are, people have a hunger inside for connection and for purpose and for community. We know where that hunger comes from and it’s just a matter of really finding a way for people to give it expression, if you like...There’s that sense of connection and community that many people just don’t feel these days.”

   DAVID ADAMS reports on how Christians, including Australians, are using the opportunity of the World Cup in Germany to reach out ...  | more...|