The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has made front page news in the UK with an interview given to The House magazine which covers political affairs. The interview, addressed the forthcoming UK referendum about whether or not the UK should leave or remain a member of the European Union; the refugee crisis, and tackling religious violence.
11 March 2016
Over recent years, churches in the UK have increasingly hosted husting events ahead of local and general elections; but the churches of Wales have now gone one step further, and produced a set of videos in which party representatives are interviewed by church representatives.
04 March 2016
New Zealand’s two archbishops have called for a “more generous” approach to refugees and a “substantial increase” on the quota for the country’s refugee intake. They are also calling for “extra pathways” for refugees to enter New Zealand.
26 February 2016
The Uganda Joint Christian Council has called for discussions on electoral reform to “eliminate the malpractices witnessed in the elections of 2016 in future elections”. It made the call after releasing a preliminary report on last week’s presidential, parliamentary and local elections, which documents a series of failings in the electoral process.
26 February 2016
The Archbishop of Cape Town, Thabo Makgoba, has called for prayers for South Africa as the country’s Parliament debates the state of the nation.
11 February 2016
Churches in Australia are offering sanctuary to refugees after the country’s High Court ruled that it was lawful for the government to return some 270 asylum seekers – including almost 40 children – to off-shore detention camps.
04 February 2016
Nine New Zealand bishops have made a submission to the country’s Parliament urging no change to the law where the “right to die” is concerned. Their intervention follows a similar submission last week from the ecumenical InterChurch Bioethics Council.
02 February 2016
The ecumenical body which advises church members of the “spiritual, ethical and cultural issues connected to biotechnology and related issues” in New Zealand has responded to a government consultation by stressing its opposition to the introduction of “physician-assisted suicide.”
28 January 2016
75 years after Coventry Cathedral was destroyed in an aerial bombing campaign that blitzed the city around it; the Bishop of Coventry has warned against the “unintended consequences” of both physical and ideological collateral damage during a debate over whether or not Britain should expand its anti-Daesh campaign in Iraq to also include targets in Syrian territory.
03 December 2015
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has said that the “Just War” criteria have been met to justify military action against Daesh (IS, ISIL, ISIS) in Syria; but warned that merely bombing Daesh targets would “confirm their dreadful belief that what they are doing is the will of God.” He called for a holistic approach to tackling Daesh, which should include a “global theological component”.
02 December 2015