Below are a selection of some of the stories published on Sight 2005. The stories we've selected here cover some of the big issues of 2005, from our response to natural disasters such as the Asian tsunami and the South Asian earthquake to the global campaign to Make Poverty History and the debate over intelligent design, as well as some of the people who made headlines, from Pope John Paul II to Family First Senator Steve Fielding.

Here are some of the stories that we hope helped to inform and stimulate you during the past year - we look forward to bringing you more from Sight in 2006!

THE INTERVIEW: CONNY LENNEBERG
“You just cannot comprehend the scale of what’s happened until you’re standing amongst it. Just the incredible power of nature to come in something like eight kilometres into the city and wipe out everything in its path: whole communities completely obliterated. There is nothing left standing, the only evidence that people were there are the floor slabs and tiles on the houses that were more substantial. The rest is just wreckage and wreckage full of the bodies of people and all sorts of belongings. It just beggars belief - you just can’t believe it until you see it.”

     World Vision’s Conny Lenneberg recently returned from four weeks in Banda Aceh where she was responsible for framing the organisation’s Australian response in both the immediate and long-term future. She spoke with DAVID ADAMS... | more...|

LIDYA'S STORY
"Five-year-old Lidya Sofianda sits thoughtfully on the clean tarpaulin floor of the World Vision ‘Child Friendly Space’ in the tsunami-ravaged city of Banda Aceh. Her eyes drift as if she is distracted, or perhaps looking for someone...

      Is it possible for a five-year-old to comprehend such utter loss? “We have talked with Lidya and told her that her mummy and daddy and baby brother won’t be coming back,” says her aunt, Mutia. “But she doesn’t believe us. She thinks that they are just away on a trip, and will come back again.”

      Mutia looks at Lidya with concern. “Now, Lidya often cries for her mother.”

      All Mutia can do is hold her and comfort her as best she can. 

     Compiled by World Vision staff working in Banda Aceh, Lidya's story is one of tragedy - but also one of hope... | more...|

'BEYOND COMPREHENSION'

"The damage done to families is beyond comprehension. I have before me the statistics for one village. Of the 68 families on the list, 48 heads of families, 48 wives and 64 children aged under 15  were killed, plus a number of children whose ages were not given. Twenty-two of the 68 families were totally wiped out.
      "The survivors have lost most of their families, their homes, their clothing and possessions, fresh water, toilet facilities, power and, in many cases, their means of livelihood.  Yet, amazingly, they are cheerful and they are getting on with reconstruction, doing whatever they can."

    Relief worker DAVID FREEMAN writes of his recent visit to the Indonesia province of Aceh... | more...|

CLICK HERE FOR SIGHT'S FULL COVERAGE OF THE TSUNAMI DISASTER INCLUDING WHAT TO PRAY FOR, WHERE TO DONATE, EYEWITNESS ACCOUNTS, STORIES OF HOPE, REFLECTIONS FROM AROUND THE WORLD AND THE HUMANITARIAN RESPONSE...

It was late November, 1986. It had been a hot day and over Blatherskite Park, just outside Alice Springs Gap, there was a storm brewing with lightning flickering across the sky.

      There was an air of expectancy as the thousands who had gathered at the park heard Pope John Paul II deliver a speech which resonates in the ears of many Christians - and indigenous Australian Christians in particular - to this very day.

      Indigenous issues seemed to have slipped off the national agenda of late. DAVID ADAMS reports on a new move to reignite the debate.... | more...|

"When Dr. Matthews asked us the question of organ donation we could see how hard it was for him too. We knew we had to donate our daughter's organs, not for us but for her. Rachael would have wanted us to. Our Christian belief has taught us to love, trust and have faith in God; that when we die, we are made whole again with no blemishes whatsoever. Rachael could give her organs to help others live. We know she has gone to Heaven absolutely whole and renewed."

    With this week declared Australian Organ Donor Awareness Week, South Australian mother JAN THORN writes of her family's decision to donate the organs of her 11-year-old daughter Rachael... | more...|

"I grew up in the northern suburbs of Melbourne and went to school around the Thomastown area and so I know what it’s like in struggling families. I grew up in an area like that and so I’m keen to help those people. I’ve got a passion for those social issues from there so it’s not just the moral issues that I’m focusing on - I’m certainly very keen to look after those that are struggling. Not only that, it’s to look at the issues of why they’re struggling...”

     Steve Fielding, a 44-year-old Victorian, is the first Senator-elect for federal political party, Family First. He spoke with DAVID ADAMS... | more...|

 VIEW FROM THE STANDS:  "'You're not coming to Franklin Graham - I can't save you, but Jesus Christ can.'

      I shut my eyes for a moment as Graham prayed, then looked up and wondered: would anyone respond?

      Then they came. Eleven hundred people, streaming forward from the 17,000-strong ocean of people like, as Jesus said, a great catch."

     GAVIN BOX was among the more than 90,000 people who attended one of the Franklin Graham rallies in Melbourne last weekend... | more...|

The Gospel and nothing but the Gospel. That, according to Franklin Graham - the son of renowned US evangelist Billy Graham - is the entirety of the message he has brought to Australia.

     “That’s what the churches want - they don’t want some specific message, they want God’s message and they want God’s message for today,” says the 52-year-old evangelist.

      That message, says Graham, is the same as that his father delivered when he was in Melbourne preaching to record grounds at the MCG in 1959. “The Gospel message is the same and the power of the Gospel is the same.”

     DAVID ADAMS reports on Franklin Graham's latest trip to Australia... | more...|

RECALLING BILLY GRAHAM'S AUSTRALIAN VISITS
"Billy Graham’s achievements have been, to say the least, quite extraordinary...

      One of the most outstanding rallies took place in New York in 1957, where it was said a third of the city heard the Gospel, with 60,000 people responding to his message.

      In 1959 Graham visited Australia and New Zealand drawing record crowds. About 130,000 people attended Graham’s rally at the MCG in Melbourne - a crowd record that still holds at the stadium today. He returned to Melbourne again ten years later."

     Ahead of US evangelist Franklin Graham's visit to Australia this month, TONY TOWNSEND takes a look at the extraordinary life of his father... | more...|

Recalling Melbourne: share your memories of the Billy Graham Crusades... | more...|

When Hugh Evans surveyed the debris of a tsunami-devastated school in Banda Aceh recently, it somehow reminded him of his own school. It seems like an incongruous comparison.

      Carey Grammar, where Evans spent his secondary school years, is tucked securely in the leafy Melbourne suburb of Kew - it’s a solid, safe, and somewhat privileged place of education.

      In contrast, the Aceh school was literally torn to shreds. Buses and trucks had been hurled into classrooms; books were strewn across the road, and in a stench-filled playground lay a pile of bodies.

      While there was nothing safe or solid about this school, it reminded Hugh Evans - once again - of where he’d come from and how fortunate his life had been.

     SALLY HOLT speaks with a young man determined to make a difference... | more...|

THE PASSING OF POPE JOHN PAUL II

"Young people of Australia: I ask you - does God have a part in your hopes and ambitions for the Australia of tomorrow? Do you dream of an Australia in which the poor and the downtrodden, the disadvantaged and the lonely, the spiritually blind and those struggling to make sense out of their lives will be sustained by the hands of a loving God? And do you realise that God has no other hands but yours to stretch out to those in need?"

- Pope John Paul II Mass at Flemington Racecourse, Melbourne, 1986. For more of Pope John Paul II's comments during his Australian visits in 1986 and 1995, click here...

JOHN PAUL II: AN EXTRAORDINARY LIFE

No previous pope travelled as widely or as frequently as John Paul II. The world was literally his parish. He visited 129 countries, although not Russia or China. Nor did any previous pope understand the nature and power of mass media, or exploit it to such advantage. Where earlier popes had merely dabbled in secular politics - or had standing armies - this pope walked the world stage as an eminent statesman as well as a spiritual leader.

      As a young man John Paul watched his country overrun first by the German armies and then by Stalin’s Red Army. More than three decades later, in June 1979, as newly inaugurated pontiff, he preached to more than a million people in Victory Square, Warsaw, in the heart of communist Poland. "Come, Holy Spirit," he called, "fill the hearts of the faithful and renew the face of the earth."

     Rev ROD BENSON recalls the life of John Paul II... | more...|

WORLD MOURNS PASSING OF THE POPE

“Our Holy Father John Paul has returned to the house of the Father.”

       With those words, the death of one of the towering figures of the 20th century - Pope John Paul II - was announced to the world at the Vatican early on Sunday morning (Australian time).

      The death of the Pope brings to an end a 26-year pontificate which transformed the office of the papacy and saw him play a key role in such world-shaping events as the fall of communism in eastern Europe.

      The 84-year-old gave his final message to the world on Saturday morning when he mouthed the words - “I have looked for you, now you have come, and I thank you”, a statement interpreted as referring to the thousands who had kept vigil in St Peter’s Square.

    DAVID ADAMS reports... | more...|

THE VATICAN'S NEW ERA: CARDINAL RATZINGER ELECTED POPE BENEDICT XVI

ESSAY: POPE BENEDICT XVI - A 'UNIQUELY GIFTED' MAN

"The previous Benedict XV (1914-1922) was a Pope who sought to be a figure of unity and reconciliation drawing people together. His choice of the name Benedict also suggests that he seeks to embrace the whole Catholic tradition of prayer, study and two thousand years of theological reflection and teaching. He can be expected to emphasise the dignity of the human person and the principles, which underpin our understanding of humanity, of the nature of marriage, and of the sense of God, which is essential to the faith."

    Catholic Archibishop of Melbourne, DENIS J. HART, reflects on the election of Pope Benedict XVI... | more...|

VATICAN ELECTION: BENEDICT XVI GREETS WORLD

“After the great Pope John Paul II, the Cardinals have elected me, a simple and humble labourer in the vineyard of the Lord.

      "The fact that the Lord knows how to work and to act even with inadequate instruments comforts me, and above all I entrust myself to your prayers.

      "Let us move forward in the joy of the Risen Lord, confident of his unfailing help. The Lord will help us and Mary, his Most Holy Mother, will be on our side. Thank you.”

      Such were the first words addressed to the world’s 1.1 billion Catholics by German Joseph Ratzinger following his election as Pope Benedict XVI early Wednesday morning Australian time.

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

In Sydney, the multicultural Christian community held a night to express their thanks to their adopted country of Australia while elsewhere in the city a church held a thankyou service to honor the volunteer and professional firefighters who worked in their area.

      In Mackay, Queensland, a festival was held at the showgrounds with activities stopped each hour so doctors, teachers and nurses could be publicly thanked.

      In Perth a church put on a morning tea for traffic wardens who help schoolchildren cross the road. Even as far away as Norfolk Island, government officials were honored in a public ceremony of thanks.

      Such was how this year’s National Day of Thanksgiving was celebrated in communities across Australia. Only the second time it has been held, the National Day of Thanksgiving is aimed at encouraging all Australians to take time out to give thanks, both to God and to each other.

    DAVID ADAMS reports on the second National Day of Thanksgiving... | more...|

Queensland clinical psychologist Dr Robi Sonderegger thought he was well-prepared to work in a warzone when he left for Uganda more than a month ago. After all, his work in Australia regularly brought him into contact with people who had experienced trauma and tragedy in their lives.

      Speaking after his recent return to his Sunshine Coast home, however, he says he now realises that nothing could have prepared him for what he found in the central African nation.

     “I thought I was well-prepared to work in the war zone with children who had been raped, forced to become child soldiers, sold into slavery in exchange for arms, and forced to commit horrendous atrocities themselves. But nothing could have prepared me to hear the stories of what these kids have been through.”

     JO HOPPING reports on a Queensland psychologist's bid to help children exposed to the horrors of war in Uganda... | more...|

Since war broke out in northern Uganda 18 years ago, thousands of children have been abducted and forced to work as soldiers or sex slaves. Here Dr ROBI SONDEREGGER relates the story of one of them... | more...|

Known affectionately among his colleagues as the “cave man”, much of Dr Emil Silvestru’s life has been devoted to exploring and understanding the very depths of the earth.

      These days, however, his life is just as much about telling others what the subterranean world can tell us about the creation of life - and its Creator.

      In Australia for the past few weeks, Dr Silvestru has been giving seminars and presentations on his views about the origins of creation, caves and the “fundamental” importance of the Biblical book of Genesis on behalf of the Christian creationist group Answers in Genesis.
      Caves have fascinated Romanian-born Dr Emil Silvestru since his childhood. Here Dr Silvestru - a world authority on the geology of caves - tells DAVID ADAMS how God to lead him to work for Answers in Genesis... | more...|

“Inspirational” is the word jazz musician James Morrison chooses to use to describe Gospel music, the subject of his latest album.

     “There’s a great energy to it and it’s uplifting and inspirational and I think we could use a bit more of that no matter who we are or where we are...” says the 42-year-old Sydney-sider.

     “I can think of some examples of even musicians I have worked with that have been drawn in unsuspecting to playing some Gospel music when we’re doing some secular music - doing another sort of concert or project - and I’ll pull out one of these songs and they’ll end up playing it."
      For the past 25 years jazz virtuoso James Morrison has been entertaining crowds around the world. DAVID ADAMS reports on his first Gospel album, Gospel Collection... | more...|

Billions tuned in to Live8, thousands joined in rallies around the world and in Scotland, the leaders of the G8 spoke of “a moment of opportunity for Africa”. Then came the London bombings and the world’s eyes focused once more on the ugly spectre of terrorism.

      Yet progress was made.

      While British Prime Minister Tony Blair told the House of Commons earlier this week that an agreement among G8 nations to double aid for Africa to $US50 billion by 2010 was a “mighty achievement”, in Australia there seems to be some level of consensus among aid agencies and related organisations that while the G8 meeting at Gleneagles was a welcome step forward, much more still remains to be done to truly address the issue of global poverty.

    It was an unprecedented push for global action on the issue of poverty. But what did it really achieve? DAVID ADAMS reports on the outcomes from the G8 meeting held in Scotland earlier this month... | more...|

YOUR SAY

We're inviting you to comment on this latest push to tackle global poverty. Let others know what you think here...

SPOTLIGHT SPECIAL

During July, Sight is asking a series of prominent Australian Christians the question - how can we end global poverty?

Rev Dr Doru Costache, St Mary's Romanian Orthodox Church in Sydney, a lecturer in Patristic theology (St Andrew's Greek Orthodox Theological College) and Romanian Orthodox Church representative on the National Council of Churches in Australia:

"In the Orthodox tradition, things are simple. Our liturgy or public service represents the opportunity to become aware of others: rich and poor, educated and not, men and women, young and old. Our liturgy is the epiphany of, and an invitation in, sharing otherness around the Lord’s table. It is an invitation to mutual compassion. We have to daily experiment this wonderful paradigm. We have to prolong this spirit and to embody it into a way of living. It’s not that difficult after all. All we have to do is open our hearts, acknowledge the otherness and the needs of the others - just as our Lord opens his heart and arms in an absolute desire to embrace us all. As it's described in the liturgy, even a stone can learn the way towards human compassion. Think for a minute: what would be the world if everyone will try to live in the spirit of the liturgy?"

FOR MORE OF THE SPOTLIGHT SPECIAL, click here......

Previous respondants include Dr Keith Suter, of Sydney's Wesley Mission, Hugh Evans, founder of the Oaktree Foundation, Steve Bradbury, national director of TEAR Australia, Tim Costello, chief executive of World Vision Australia, and Paul Peters, chief executive of Opportunity International.

It was 1985 and a wet day in the town of Kunming, in south-eastern China, when Australian John Jones arrived with a bag stuffed with up to 60 “illegal” Bibles. He had only seen a photograph of the local church contact he was supposed to meet in a nearby park and was unsure how he was going to find him without drawing too much attention to himself.

     While he would only face the loss of the Bibles if discovered by Chinese officials, Jones was very aware that his contact, if exposed, could face imprisonment and torture.

     Trying not to look too conspicuous - not only were Westerners rare at that time in Kunming, Jones recalls that he was the only person in the street not wearing the then ubiquitous grey “Mau suit” - he started to walk down the street wondering how he would find this “one Chinese in a billion”.

     Then came a series of events which convinced him God’s hand was at work. First the rain eased off and then, as he crossed a road, Jones spotted a man on the other side.

     “I just knew - and it was the Holy Spirit - I just knew this was my contact,” he recalls.

    For 50 years, Open Doors has been supporting the persecuted church, smuggling Bibles and giving support to Christians living in communities normally hidden from Western eyes. DAVID ADAMS reports on a ministry that continues to bring hope to those Christians living in some of world's most isolated nations... | more...|

INTERVIEW: Brother Andrew was recently interviewed by Open Doors staff to commemorate 50 years of ministry... | more...|

Ever since J.K. Rowling came to fame with her cleverly written books about Harry Potter, some Christians have not let up on a relentless campaign against her and her books. Sometimes people ask me for an opinion on the books. Have I read them? Yes. Have I seen the movies? Yes. Shouldn’t Christians avoid them? Read on...
      What do we actually have in these books? A story about an orphaned boy being raised by unloving relatives. An evil magician killed his parents when he was a baby, and had tried to kill him too. Harry somehow, miraculously, survived. He carries a scar on his forehead from that encounter.
     At the age of 12 Harry discovers that he is a wizard and has innate magical powers. He is sent to a special private school - one for wizards - and there he begins seven years of study to develop his skills and knowledge about magic.
    J.K. Rowling's series of books have caused hysteria in bookshops around the world and broken sales records everywhere. But what's a Christian to do with Harry Potter? JIM REIHER gives his view... | more...|

Aborigines have been supplementing their diet with the seeds of the acacia tree in central and north-western Australia for generations. Now there are hopes that the same tree will prove a gift from God in the west African nation of Niger, one of the poorest nations on earth, and currently in the grip of a devastating famine.

      In a country where three in every 10,000 children are now dying each day from malnutrition and as many as 3.6 million people are facing food shortages, the planting of acacia trees is one of longer term solutions being implemented to help prevent future famines.

     World Vision's Tony Rinaudo worked as a missionary in Niger for 17 years. He spoke with DAVID ADAMS about how the acacia tree may help prevent the sort of famine that is now devastating the land... | more...|

It’s the idea that the certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained as the work of a designer rather than a series of random processes.

    Known as the theory of “intelligent design” (or ID to the initiated), for more than a decade it’s made headlines in the United States and even last week had the president, George W. Bush, giving his support to teaching it in US schools alongside evolution "so people can understand what the debate is about." .

    Now it seems ID has hit the national agenda in Australia, making front-page newspaper headlines earlier this month and attracting public comments from a senior government minister.

    DAVID ADAMS reports on how the theory of intelligent design has come to be on Australia's national agenda... | more...|

ESSAY: TIME FOR A PROPER SCIENTIFIC DEBATE
Opponents of intelligent design theories fear the evolution debate has been hijacked by the fundamentalists. I fear they are right, but it's scientistic (blind faith in science) fundamentalists, not religious.

      Intelligent design theorists say evolution is largely demonstrable but is not the result of mere chance. The traditional account of a steady but gradual development, they say, is at odds with the incredible complexity of even the simplest cell, whose structures are interdependent and could not develop without each other.

      Intelligent design theorists also point to the "anthropic principle", the recognition in the past 30 years that all the seemingly arbitrary constants in physics have one strange thing in common — they are precisely the values needed for the universe to produce life.

    In an article which first appeared in The Age newspaper in Melbourne, BARNEY ZWARTZ says it's time to take the heat out of the debate over the theory of intelligent design... | more...|

ESSAY: INTELLIGENT DESIGN AND THE 'NOT-SO-INTELLIGENT DESIGN' OF SCIENCE COURSES

The possibility that our existence might be the product of some purposeful intelligent intervention, rather than of random processes, is certainly not a new consideration and has not always been pushed solely by Biblical creationists. Current debate over this possibility has, in Australia, been ignited by the openness of the Federal Minister for Education, Brendan Nelson, to the introduction of 'intelligent design' in Australian science classes, albeit with parental consent.

      This theory suggests that many natural features of our world are the result of an intelligent cause, rather than undirected chance, as in natural selection. While it is adopted by many who would profess a religious faith, it is also supported many who would not. If it offers one unifying principle amongst its adherents, then it is perhaps that the seemingly universal and uncritical acceptance of traditional Darwinian evolution is not warranted by an examination of the scientific evidence for our origins.
     School teacher ROB NYHUIS argues that to ignore the possibility of 'intelligent design' is just bad science...  | more...|

Kang Cheol Hwan says he was just nine-years-old when North Korean authorities arrested him along with other members of his family because of his grandfather’s alleged political crimes.

      He says he spent the next 10 years in a prison camp where he witnessed some children being kicked and worked to death, others being publicly executed and yet others dying of malnourishment.

     “In order to survive, I ate rats, cockroaches and snakes,” he says. “Children simply disappeared from the camp. I can’t understand how it’s still there and it’s a great shame on all mankind that these camps are still tolerated.”
      Kang Cheol Hwan’s story is one of numerous accounts human rights group Christian Solidarity Worldwide have recorded coming out of North Korea.

      Human rights group Christian Solidarity Worldwide has called for Christians around the world to join in praying for the future of isolationist North Korea as its people face famine, persecution and torture. DAVID ADAMS reports...  | more...|

INSIDE THE PRISON CAMPS

"In a political prison camp in North Korea, one must forget that he or she is a human being. I had to do many things to survive. I carefully watched a dog so that I could steal its food. I ate snakes, frogs, rats, and anything that could be a source of nutrition.

      I met many people in the prison camp. There were people who cut off their own finger or pretended to be insane, because the brutality of forced labour was unbearable. Someone was beaten with a shovel and later had to have one of his arms cut off because it had grown rotten with toxin due to tetanus. There were numerous people who spent 20 to 30 years in the prison camp simply because of some ludicrous crime their grandfather allegedly committed."

     Two North Korean Christians recently spoke to the United Nation's Commission on Human Rights about their experiences inside one of the country's prison camps for political prisoners. Here 49-year-old KIM TAE JIN tells his story... | more...|

She was an international role model for the modern woman long before there was a ZOEgirl, BarlowGirl or Superchic[k].

      That is not to take anything away from the aforementioned groups but rather to give credit to this rock dynamo that first set the world on its ear as a teenager with stunning vocals and even more spectacular stage presence. Rebecca St James was taking a stance for sexual purity before marriage when others were still talking about more traditional themes during their concerts.

      St James, who has just completed an Australian tour with US evangelist Greg Laurie, has worked tirelessly as a singer, songwriter, narrator, author, editor, spokesperson for Compassion Ministries and worn more additional hats than I have toes and fingers to count. She would be the first to tell you that God created the missive concerning sexual purity that she delivers to young women all around the world but she has carried the torch for the past twelve years of her life.

      Australia's Rebecca St James has making a stand for Christ with her music for years. She tells JOE MONTAGUE about her latest bid to reach teenage girls - this time using the written word...  | more...|

For our latest report on the Asian earthquake, see the WorldView column... | more...|

THE INTERVIEW: GOSPEL FOR ASIA'S K.P. YOHANNAN

"The latest report says that maybe over 100,000 people lost their lives in this earthquake. This is horribly sickening. We can only pray effectively if we can feel the pain of those who are suffering just as Nehemiah felt the pain for his people back in Jerusalem. God always honors sincere, broken hearts who are willing to stand in the gap for a lost world."

      A team from Christian mission organisation Gospel for Asia was among the first missionaries and relief workers to respond to the devastating 8th October earthquake. DAVID ADAMS spoke via email with founder and president K.P. Yohannan...  | more...|

The destruction is total. In some areas whole villages have disappeared while others show towns like the once thriving Himalayan community of Balakot flattened as though a giant had trodden through them, crushing all in its path.

      Once again the world watched in horror, this time as news arrived of a devastating earthquake measuring 7.6 on the Richter scale which shook parts of northern Pakistan, India and the disputed Kashmir region as well as Afghanistan.

      Initial estimates from the 8th October earthquake put the death toll from the catastrophe at around 30,000 but that experts are now saying as many as 54,000 may have died in the region. Up to four million have been affected by the disaster with at least 500,000 people left homeless.

      Australian Greg Campbell was among a global rapid response team of experts sent in by World Vision in the immediate aftermath of the quake.

      Speaking to Sight from Islamabad in Pakistan earlier this week where there was only minimal damage, the IT specialist told of his recent visit to the town of Mansehra, close to the epicentre of the quake.

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

How to help:

A list of some of the organisations running appeals... | more...|

The arrest and imprisonment of Christian leaders. The burning of houses where they meet. The confiscation of Bibles and other books. Beatings, fines and secrecy.

      Such is the life of underground church members in Vietnam today, a country of more than 83 million people which has been under Communist rule since the end of the Vietnam War 30 years ago.

      Kim Anh and her husband Anthony* are missionaries working undercover for mission organisation Asian Outreach in Vietnam.

      Anh says that while the re-election of US president George Bush last year made a positive impact on religious freedoms with the subsequent release earlier this year of all people imprisoned for their belief - including Christian leaders and Buddhist monks - the situation for Christians in Vietnam remains tough.

     Persecution remains common for Christians in Vietnam. DAVID ADAMS spoke with a missionary who has spent the past 10 years helping to spread God's Word in the south-east Asian nation...  | more...|

"(Within the church) I don’t think there’s an apathy in trying to work hard or build something or make something work but I think that when it comes to really trusting Jesus, for some reason we have just kind of subtly fallen into the belief that Christ alone is not sufficient; that we need Christ plus other things to help us or we’re not going to get it done; that God alone is not going to be enough to reach this culture. I’m in my forties but I’m finding guys younger than me are really trying to find some kind of method or program or strategy that will help them become the next Hillsong or something like that. God’s not always trying to build a Hillsong or a Times Square church, sometimes He wants the church to be 200 people that are really serving the community faithfully and reaching prisoners or homeless kids. God is very creative and has different callings on different lives."

    Gary Wilkerson, 47, is the son of renowned evangelist David Wilkerson (co-author of The Cross and the Switchblade, founder of Teen Challenge, pastor of New York's Times Square Church - the list goes on). In Australia to preach at a series of conferences with his father, Gary spoke with DAVID ADAMS...  | more...|

Springing from the imagination of Sydney-born creator Chris Waters, Angel Wars Guardian Force is quickly becoming regarded as one of the best and most ambitious animation projects to ever bear a Christian message.

      Although he now resides in California, Waters' ties to Australia remain strong. The 29-year-old still refers to Melbourne - where his parents live - with a certain fondness: "The most beautiful city in the world. It is the most liveable city. It is gorgeous."

     Angel Wars Guardian Force is heavily influenced by both J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis - as a child Waters realised at a young age that much could be learned from these fantasy writers.

      Drawing a similarity between his work and C. S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia, he says that both have hidden Christian meanings in them yet remain “one step removed so that someone who isn't a Christian can still appreciate the struggle and not feel like they are being preached to or being smacked over their head”.
      Chris Waters, Australian-born creator of Angel Wars Guardian Force, tells JOE MONTAGUE the animated series is all about talking to kids in language they can understand...  | more...|

"Economic stewardship involves careful administration of all that is, including all who are entrusted to us. It implies social safety-nets, conservation and the avoidance of waste. Industry - companies and unions - must find co-operative ways to help protect the creation for the future. We need a new restrained sense of urgency. We need to learn how to rein in our material desires, to take steps backwards in order to be truly economic, in order to reduce our wastefulness...

     "(T)he judicial norm for economic development is addressed to all: both the powerful and the weak, the rich and poor. It is a living norm: 'Let justice roll down like waters as an overflowing stream', said Amos the prophet. He knew how to look after his herds and his sycamore trees in that parched land. Justice has to permeate the whole of society, and somehow those who are rich and those who are poor have to find their responsibilities for each other.”

   In part one of an interview first published in the Fiji Daily Post, Dr BRUCE C. WEARNE talks with Dutch Christian economist, Professor Bob Goudzwaard, about alternative approaches to world economics...  | more...|

   In part two of an interview first published in the Fiji Daily Post, Dr BRUCE C. WEARNE talks with Dutch Christian economist, Professor Bob Goudzwaard, about alternative approaches to world economics...  | more...|

When it comes to the issue of the death penalty, in the church there is clearly divided opinion on the issue.

      On the one hand, some Christians say that we should support a government’s right to use capital punishment. After all, the Bible allows for it. The Old Testament has a number of places that show they used capital punishment. It is even mandated in the law (for example, Exodus 21:12-14; Deuteronomy 22:25, and so on). Some laws were so important that offenders were put to death. And doesn’t the Bible teach “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth”?

      But, on the other hand, other Christians say that it is not God’s ideal way for humans to treat each other by taking any life. They argue that the Old Testament was fulfilled in Christ (Matthew 5:17-48) and we are not Hebrews living under the Old Covenant but Christians living under the New! Jesus repudiated “an eye for an eye” in the Sermon on the Mount when he said, “You have heard that it was said ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth’, but I say to you, do not resist an evil person. If someone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also…Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…” (Matthew 5:38-44).
     On the eve of the controversial hanging of Australian drug trafficker Nguyen Tuong Van in Singapore, JIM REIHER provides a Christian perspective on the issue of the death penalty...  | more...|

The man inspired to make the new film End of the Spear - about five missionaries slain in Ecuador in the Fifties - never set foot in a movie theater until a few years ago.

      Eight years ago, Green witnessed something that changed the course of his life. On a trip to Guatemala he watched a man receive a Bible for the first time from Wycliffe Bible Translators. “This guy waited 40 years to get his Bible and he wept and wept,” Green recalls. The man’s tears left an indelible mark.

     “I was raised not to go to movies,” says Mart Green, founder of Every Tribe Entertainment. His parents and grandparents never set foot in a movie theater either, and he maintained that standard with his own children.

      Yet on January 20th, he’s set to release a $US20 million film (in the US) about five American missionaries who dared to make contact with one of the most violent tribes ever documented by anthropologists. In End of the Spear Green explores the story that’s never been told before - from the tribe’s perspective, demonstrating the remarkable way God altered the tribe’s brutal behavior.

      MARK ELLIS of Assist News Service reports...  | more...|