Article from the Archbishop of York The Most Revd David Hope...Sometimes the world seems so full of violence and horror, of lives wickedly and pointlessly destroyed, that we despair. Faced with such fragility of life and the apparent randomness of evil, can we make any sense of it at all?
20 March 1996
The Council of Churches for Britain and Ireland has launched a dialogue programme for local churches to raise the moral issues of the arms trade with local Members of Parliament. The programme, entitled, Countering the Arms Trade - Churches Count the Cost - will run from Ash Wednesday (21 February) until Pentecost (26 May).
04 March 1996
The Revd Leslie Griffiths, a past president of the Methodist conference, believes that the Porvoo Agreement, between Anglican and Lutheran Churches in northern Europe, may solve one of the thorniest problems between the Church of England and the Methodist Church.
04 March 1996
Some well known Church leaders, including Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu of Southern Africa, Presiding Bishop Edmond L Browning, head of the Episcopal Church in the United States, and Archbishop Michael Peers, the Primate of the Canadian Anglican Church and Richard Holloway, Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church, gave support to a public message congratulating a British gay Christian group on its 20th anniversary.
04 March 1996
A high profile international delegation visited Britain in February to join in a campaign to end international debt. The Debt Crisis Network is an alliance of 45 non-Governmental organisations, 12 of which are groups with Church connections.
04 March 1996
The meeting of the General Synod of the Church of England took place in February in London. The meeting was called to allow the Synod to consider in particular draft legislation designed to enable the introduction of new arrangements for funding clergy pensions.
04 March 1996
In January the Bishop of Bradford, the Rt Revd David Smith, and the Bishop of Salisbury, the Rt Revd David Stancliffe, went to Sudan to observe the effects of the prolonged civil war on the country. On their return to Britain in February they reported their findings.
04 March 1996
Church concern over Britain's treatment of refugees was voiced at the highest level on 25 January when the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Revd Dr George Carey, and Cardinal Basil Hume of the Roman Catholic Church, held a joint meeting with a senior government minister.
03 February 1996
The Decade of Evangelism is alive in well according to a new report published by the Church of England's Board of Mission. The report entitled, Signs of Life: How goes the Decade of Evangelism? has been written by the Revd Robert Warren, of the Board of Mission.
03 February 1996
In January a report by the Church of England's Doctrine Commission entitled The Mystery of Salvation was published. The report maintains that hell still exists although not many people are worried about going there. Heaven is a reality, and open to people of other faiths.
03 February 1996