The Dalai Lama has written to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, congratulating him for the apology to the Stolen Generations.
He has told Mr Rudd that he was very encouraged to hear about the apology, describing it as a timely, appropriate and civilised thing to do.
President of the UCA, Rev. Gregor Henderson, has congratulated the Federal Government on its long-awaited apology to the Stolen Generations. The Uniting Church made an apology to Aboriginal Australians in 1996 along with other churches and organisations and welcomes ‘Sorry Day’. Rev. Henderson urges real action so that the apology truly does make a difference.
video of Rev. Henderson’s speech
The dual stories of Adam and Eve being tempted by the snake in the garden, and Jesus being tempted into the wilderness are archetypal stories of the human condition. The message this week ponders the reality that “life is difficult”, as Scott Peck puts it, and considers where God is during the highs and lows of life.
Sermon Sunday February 10th, 2008 – Lent 1 (pdf)
St. David’s Uniting Church, Oakleigh
Rev. Arnie Wierenga
As mediation to solve the disputed Kenyan presidential election enters a critical phase, top-level figures from the two parties have met an international ecumenical delegation, which asked them to move on from the electoral dispute and seek a compromise solution.
The seven-member group of church representatives sent by the World Council of Churches as part of its “Living Letters” initiative in solidarity with churches facing situations of violence, visited Kenya from 30 January to 3 February.
Plan Australia, in partnership with the Youth Research Centre, at the University of Melbourne, and RMIT University, has been awarded an Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage Project grant, valued at $283,000 over three years, to generate a new model of sustainable partnership across NGOs and learning institutions with the aim to provide youth-led, global education programs for school-aged youth.
Known as the Global Connections Program, the project will facilitate the development of effective processes toward young people’s greater participation in social life and will focus on social connections across racial and religious boundaries.
The following is text that appeared recently in the religion column of the ‘Advocate’ newspaper, a periodical from Tasmania. It is re-printed here with permission.
I have been reading a book called “The Spirituality Revolution†by David Tacey, one of Australia’s leading thinkers on spirituality. David calls on the church to recognise that “if God is alive and active in the world, then God will be creative in the world, beckoning us to new transformationsâ€.
The Rev’d Dr. Lauren Artress, Founder and Creative Director of Veriditas will be in Melbourne next month to run a series of lectures and workshops on the Labyrinth.
She is the author of Walking a Sacred Path: Rediscovering the Labyrinth as a Spiritual Tool (Putnam/Riverhead Books, New York), The Sand Labyrinth Kit, (Tuttle Publishers) and The Sacred Path Companion: A Guide to Walking the Labyrinth to Heal and Transform (Riverhead, 2006).
he President of the Uniting Church in Australia, Reverend Gregor Henderson, has today expressed shock at the latest in a series of murders of protestant pastors from the United Church of Christ (UCCP) in the Philippines.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says it is unacceptable that after 16 years of economic growth, up to 100,000 Australians can be sleeping in shelters or on the streets on any given night.
Mr Rudd wants a new approach to get people off the streets and back on their feet and has formed a committee to improve crisis services and help people get long-term housing.
Experts cite drug and alcohol abuse as well as mental illness as the main reasons people end up homeless. Homeless people give their own, varied accounts.
Earthly Reflections of Heavenly Things, an exceptionally beautiful exhibition celebrating the transcendent and ineffable in art, opened at the University of Melbourne’s Ian Potter Museum of Art recently for a season to 17 February 2008.
The exhibition, curated by the Potter’s Joanna Bosse, brings together 21 works from three senior Australian artists who engage with mystical and immaterial subjects.
The artists, Asher Bilu, Leonard Brown and Emily Kngwarreye, are noted for their ethereal and contemplative works. Although from different cultural, religious and artistic traditions, all three have developed a language of refined abstraction that is non-dogmatic, evocative and thoroughly immersive.