Traditional Australian values of mateship, good neighbourliness and offering a helping hand to those in need could be seriously tested by the economic downturn, the Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, Peter Jensen, has warned.

The Anglican Church should expect its congregations to experience more anxiety than has been seen for many years because of the economic crisis facing Australia and the world, the Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, Peter Jensen, is expected to tell the Sydney Anglican synod today.

An initiative of the Sydney diocese of the Anglican Church to spread the word, called Connect09, will involve more than 600,000 Bibles being printed, as well as CD and DVD resources.

Paying children to model naked for photographs is strictly prohibited in NSW, and there are robust protocols for school principals to follow if requests are made to "scout" playgrounds.

Hymns were sidelined for the music of Nick Cave and a choral cover of the heavy metal band Metallica, and candles lit the church of St Luke's Anglican, casting the Enmore church in long shadow.

Schools run by the secretive Exclusive Brethren religious sect receive more than $18 million a year in government funding, including $2 million from NSW taxpayers, new figures show.

Taxpayers will for the first time be forced to fund the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras after the State Government last night came to the financial aid of the debt-plagued event.

Morris Iemma will join the board of the Catholic Church's health care arm as he pursues a career outside politics, breaking with the tradition of former premiers who go on to earn millions as corporate high-flyers.

A LARGE Islamic school proposed for a rural area in south-west Sydney is facing fierce opposition from residents just months after Camden residents waged a racially charged battle against a similar development in their area.

An Islamic cemetery will be built in the grounds of a historic Anglican graveyard near Camden where plans for an Islamic school were rejected this year following fierce community opposition.

Imagine if Bob Hawke, our only openly atheist prime minister, had allocated $165 million for religious schools to have an atheist, agnostic or humanist counsellor, philosopher or ethicist to help them teach values and improve their pastoral care.

Daniel Hales says talking to his neighbours would help dispel negative perceptions about the Exclusive Brethren straight away.

As an exchange student in Italy last year, St Andrew's Cathedral School student Lily Dambelli found herself embarrassed by her lack of language skills -- not her Italian, but her English.

St Clair Anglican Church has come a long way since its first service was held in the lounge room of its minister's home on September 25, 1983.

Sydney scientists have been given the go-ahead to try to achieve a controversial world first in medical research - obtaining stem cells from cloned human embryos.

A woman has pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of her toddler son after she denied him medical treatment due to religious beliefs.

His reputation among many secular Australians -- those who have heard of him at all -- is of a stuffy, hidebound old churchman. Among self-styled progressives, including some from our more liberal churches, his name is synonymous with reactionary religious cant.

Fewer and fewer people know the Bible, even among those with religious commitment. The latest National Church Life Survey of 500,000 people across 22 denominations, reported in yesterday's Herald, shows a whopping 59 per cent of respondents read the Bible only occasionally, rarely or never at all, writes Greg Clarke.

The Press Council has dismissed a complaint from Benjamin Isaac against the Herald regarding a series of articles about Mercy Ministries' work with women in crisis, its links with Hillsong Church, and related matters.

It is the tale of two schools. The Camden residents' group that fought a Muslim society's proposal for a school in rural Camden has welcomed a Catholic organisation's plans to build a school nearby because "Catholics are part of our community".

It has been heralded as a monumental creation that will reveal the fundamental nature of the universe, but also as a doomsday machine that could destroy the planet.

A network of Christian youth ministries with links to the Hillsong Church is attempting to recruit members in public schools through free lunchtime concerts and barbecues called "Exo days", church manuals reveal.

What started as a Kellyville minister's interest in taking his faith further has turned into a life of helping to develop young leaders.

State Parliament's most famous Christian is a paranoid, friendless old man who eats fast food on his lonesome in a western suburbs motel, says the man who should be his closest ally.

In a sign of rising election fever, a City of Sydney councillor is considering suing a fellow councillor following accusations he took part in secret "multimillion-dollar wheeling and dealings" with Hillsong Church.