Christianity news

• A Win for Free Speech in NSW 

  13-08-2026 03:28 via acl.org.au
  
  The NSW Government has rejected a key recommendation of the Sackar Review to expand criminal hate speech laws beyond race. The decision means the existing offence of inciting racial hatred will not be extended to cover additional protected attributes. This is an important decision for freedom of speech and religious freedom in NSW. Critically…
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• Some Common Sense in South Australia 

  14-08-2026 06:33 via acl.org.au
  
  Last week, reporting claimed that ‘hundreds’ of South Australians have been waiting for gender-affirming surgeries at Flinders Medical Centre and are now lobbying the Government over unfulfilled commitments for timely access to these procedures. SA Health has since confirmed that while a model for delivering these surgeries has been developed, the health system does not currently have the capacity…
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• Protected: Some Common Sense in South Australia 

  14-08-2026 06:33 via acl.org.au
  
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• The Real Cost – Online Gambling’s $27 Billion Toll

  14-08-2026 04:04 via acl.org.au
  
  Australia’s gambling industry would like you to think it is like Robin Hood – taking from the wealthy and giving back to the community. It takes money from high rollers and gives it back to community groups and grassroots sport – right? Right and wrong. Unlike Robin Hood, Australia’s gambling industry doesn’t discriminate. It takes from both the rich and the poor.
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• Protected: The Real Cost – Online Gambling’s $27 Billion Toll

  14-08-2026 04:04 via acl.org.au
  
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• Protected: Curtin, midwifery, and the abortion pill: where things stand

  13-08-2026 10:17 via acl.org.au
  
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• Curtin, midwifery, and the abortion pill: where things stand

  13-08-2026 10:17 via acl.org.au
  
  Last week we shared what we’d learned about Curtin University’s Midwifery Clinic offering the abortion pill to the public, delivered by trainee midwifery students under supervision. That post has been seen by over 160,000 people, and the response, for and against, has been significant. Since then, we’ve heard from current and former students, and from university staff…
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• Protected: Cult Inquiry Report Risks Undermining Religious Freedom

  13-08-2026 10:11 via acl.org.au
  
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• Cult Inquiry Report Risks Undermining Religious Freedom

  13-08-2026 10:11 via acl.org.au
  
  The Victorian Parliament’s Inquiry into the recruitment methods and impacts of cults and coercive high-control groups has tabled its final report, with 39 recommendations. We want to start by acknowledging the courage of the victim-survivors who gave evidence. ACL supports protecting vulnerable people from coercive and controlling conduct, raising community awareness…
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• Protected: South Australians deserve evidence-based healthcare  

  13-08-2026 04:18 via acl.org.au
  
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• Protected: A Win for Free Speech in NSW 

  13-08-2026 03:28 via acl.org.au
  
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• Protected: Last Chance to Defend Parental and Religious Freedom in Tasmania

  12-08-2026 05:19 via acl.org.au
  
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• Last Chance to Defend Parental and Religious Freedom in Tasmania

  12-08-2026 05:19 via acl.org.au
  
  Submissions opposing the Greens’ draft Conversion Practices Prohibition Bill 2026 close today Friday, 14 August. If you haven’t yet lodged yours, details are at Draft Conversion Practices Prohibition Bill 2026. This is one of the most significant pieces of legislation affecting religious and parental freedoms Tasmania has seen. The Bill criminalises important parental…
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• Queensland’s Anti-Discrimination Review  

  30-07-2026 09:33 via acl.org.au
  
  In September 2024, the Miles Labor Government passed its Respect at Work and Other Matters Amendment Act into law. Its most contentious anti-discrimination provisions were due to commence in July 2025, but the incoming LNP Government paused full implementation after the ACL raised serious concerns with the Attorney-General’s office regarding the impact on churches, Christian schools…
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• Seize the Opportunity. Ask the Hard Questions. Make a Difference. 

  30-07-2026 08:28 via acl.org.au
  
  The Victorian Legislative Council is more than just the Upper House—it’s the House of Review. It scrutinises legislation, holds the Government to account, and often determines whether controversial laws pass or fail. This term, no party has held a majority in the Legislative Council. As a result, the Government has relied on crossbench parties—including the Victorian Greens…
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• Abortion training on campus: What’s happening at Curtin’s Midwifery Clinic 

  30-07-2026 08:02 via acl.org.au
  
  A university health clinic in Perth is now offering chemical abortions to the public and training its student midwives to provide them. That should stop us in our tracks. Curtin University’s Midwifery Clinic, run out of its health sciences faculty, has begun offering medical abortion using the MS-2 Step regimen. The service is delivered by trainee midwifery students under the…
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• A Man Is Fighting to Enter a Women’s Prison. Self-ID Made It Possible.

  30-07-2026 07:47 via acl.org.au
  
  A man convicted of violent offending is fighting in the courts right now for the right to be housed inside a Western Australian women’s prison. Two years ago, this would have sounded like a hypothetical. Today it is a live legal case, and it is a preview of what Labor’s Gender Self-ID legislation makes far easier from here on. Correction: An earlier version of this article stated the…
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• Kirralie Smith loses appeal – ordered to pay $95,000

  30-07-2026 07:34 via acl.org.au
  
  Last week, Kirralie Smith lost her appeal in the NSW Supreme Court. Her offence? Criticising males playing in women’s soccer. I can’t overstate how outrageous this decision is. Not only is it yet another denial of reality, but the sum involved is extraordinary. According to John Steenhof from the Human Rights Law Alliance, successful vilification claims have traditionally attracted…
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• Religious Freedom on the Line: NSW’s Anti-Discrimination Review

  30-07-2026 05:56 via acl.org.au
  
  This week, the NSW Law Reform Commission released its second major consultation paper as part of its review of the Anti-Discrimination Act 1977. How this Act is written matters because it impacts protections for religious freedom in our state for both Christian organisations and individuals. This is especially true for our Christian schools, churches, and charities…
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• Canberra’s Funding Thousands of Abortions 

  30-07-2026 05:35 via acl.org.au
  
  On 23 April 2023, the ACT Government proudly announced it would be the first jurisdiction to fund abortion. Canberran women would be able to access free medical abortion up to nine weeks and surgical abortion up to sixteen weeks. The Government committed more than $4.6 million to taking innocent lives. Since that day, my conservative estimate is that approximately 4,400…
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• She was right. It took three years to say so. 

  17-07-2026 04:15 via acl.org.au
  
  Early this morning, Queensland Health discontinued every disciplinary proceeding against Dr Jillian Spencer. The Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency dropped its investigation into her social media posts. After three years, her name is clear. ‘I’ve been exonerated,’ she said. ‘My name has been cleared, and I can hold my head high.’ Many of you have followed her story…
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• ACT Taxpayers Now Funding Free Sex Descriptor Changes  

  17-07-2026 01:30 via acl.org.au
  
  While Canberrans struggle with soaring housing costs, grocery bills and power prices, the ACT Government has found another priority for taxpayer dollars. From 1 July, it is now free to change the sex recorded on ACT birth certificates and other identity documents. Applicants can also choose from a wide range of gender descriptors, provided they meet a handful of basic requirements.
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• Queensland’s Broken Adoption System 

  17-07-2026 01:08 via acl.org.au
  
  In 2023-24, Queensland recorded fewer than 10 domestic adoptions, despite more than 12,700 children living in out-of-home care. This is not because there are no children needing permanent homes, nor because there are no families willing to provide them. It is because the current system is burdened by delay, duplication, and unnecessary red tape. ACL is advocating for reforms that put…
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• Died: Bill Pannell, Black Evangelical Who Raised the Issue of Racism

  15-10-2024 20:17
  
  Bill Pannell, a Black evangelical who pushed white evangelicals to recognize their captivity to the culture of American racism, died on October 11 at age 95. The evangelist and seminary professor argued that the Good News is all about reconciliation—between God and humanity, but also horizontally, between people—and Christians are called to the ministry of reconciliation. But white Christians who claimed the name evangel, he said, could only seem to muster occasional interest in
  
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• How Messianic Jews Are Serving Israelis Displaced by Hamas and Hezbollah

  15-10-2024 12:00
  
  As the sirens wailed on October 1, Nirit Bar-David took refuge in her familiar safe room. Iran had just launched another 180 missiles at Israel, and she had about a minute to take cover. So did the other 350 residents of Israel’s only Messianic Jewish moshav.Sitting on a pine-covered ridge about ten miles west of Jerusalem, the Yad HaShmona community has lived in steady tension over the past year of war with Hamas in Gaza—now extended against Hezbollah in Lebanon. Thirty members of t
  
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• My Friend, Bill Pannell

  14-10-2024 18:32
  
  I first met the late William Pannell in 1993 in a hallway of Christianity Today. I was in my early 20s, just a year removed from graduating college. Dr. Pannell was visiting his old friend, former CT president Paul Robbins, and the pair was on a leisurely tour around the office. I remember being enthralled by this dashing Black man in a tailored suit, his throaty laugh echoing around the building. Excited to see a young Black editor on CT’s payroll, Pannell greeted me with that winsom
  
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• When the Elder Calls—From Outer Space

  14-10-2024 12:00
  
  Billy Adkison, 91, spent his life farming in East Texas; he never wanted to go to outer space.“I don’t want to be higher than pulling corn and lower than digging taters,” he told CT.All the same, he has watched the skies from his yard to catch a glimpse of the International Space Station passing by—“like a big old star,” he said.Adkison wanted to keep an eye on one of his church elders, astronaut Barry “Butch” Wilmore, whose weeklong trip to space
  
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• What Are Parents For?

  14-10-2024 12:00
  
  In his 1990 essay collection, Wendell Berry considered the question “What are people for?” The answer, in true Berry fashion, is a beautifully intricate web of answers that add up to human flourishing. That flourishing is connected to the flourishing of the environment around us, and this answer also has deep theological roots. God’s promises in the Old Testament repeatedly revolved around blessing the land and the people together, not separately. We flourish when pla
  
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• Died: Jack Iker, Anglican Who Drew the Line at Women’s Ordination

  11-10-2024 18:53
  
  Jack Iker, a Texas bishop who took 48 congregations and 15,000 parishioners out of the Episcopal Church USA and helped start the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), died on October 5. He was 75.Iker was a conservative Anglo-Catholic who made common cause with evangelicals—whom he called “strange bedfellows”—in order to fight against liberal theological revisionism. He was especially opposed to the ordination of women. He would not accept women as priests in his dioce
  
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• Why Can’t We Talk to Each Other Anymore?

  11-10-2024 12:00
  Years ago, I taught a Bible study that I knew would be controversial. I was a couple years into seminary, and my church asked me to join a team of teachers for the weekly women’s Bible study. We were going through Genesis, and I received the sign-up sheet after everyone else had already selected their texts, leaving me with one option: Genesis 18–20. Next to the chapters listed on the sheet, it simply read, “Sodom and Gomorrah.”Though I was mildly horrified by my assignme
  
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