Rebecca Paveley

5 days ago | churchtimes.co.uk | Rebecca Paveley

ALMOST half of the world’s banana-growing regions could be lost to climate change in the next five decades, a new report has warned. Bananas are the world’s most popular fruit — and the fourth most important food crop globally — but rising temperatures, droughts, and fungal infections are threatening the areas where most of the world’s crops grow, in Latin America and the Caribbean (News, 10 March 2023).

1 week ago | churchtimes.co.uk | Rebecca Paveley

A MINISTRY that buys back guns in return for grocery-store vouchers in the state of Michigan, in the United States, has safely disposed of hundreds of weapons. The scheme, Disarmory Ministries, now set up as a charity, is run from a parking lot outside a Presbyterian church on Fridays and Saturdays. It offers vouchers up to the value of $200 for an assault weapon, with a $300 limit on any donation.

1 week ago | churchtimes.co.uk | Rebecca Paveley

THE diocese of Montreal has elected its first black diocesan Bishop. He is a former Roman Catholic priest, the Ven. Dr Victor-David Mbuyi Bipungu, who was received in 2014, in Kinshasa, into the Anglican Church of the Congo. Dr Mbuyi Bipungu is the Archdeacon of St Andrews, in the diocese of Fredericton, with responsibility for the northern churches, and Priest-in-Charge of the Francophone Église de la Nativité, Rosemère, and the English-speaking parish of St Simon and St Bartholomew, Laval.

1 week ago | churchtimes.co.uk | Rebecca Paveley

INTER FAITH WEEK must continue in recognition of all that the diversity of faith and belief contributes to public life in the UK, but needs to move “beyond the bubble” of those already involved, a report says. The Inter Faith Network (IFN) launched the week, held every November, in 2009, but was closed last spring after the last government withdrew its funding — a “matter of great regret”, the Archbishop of York said.

1 week ago | churchtimes.co.uk | Rebecca Paveley

ONE hundred days into Donald Trump’s presidency, white Evangelicals remain among his staunchest supporters, a new poll by the Pew Research Center has found. Of a survey of 3589 US adults, 72 per cent approved of the way in which he was leading the country as President, and almost as many, 69 per cent, said that they approved of the ethics of his administration. Some 57 per cent said that they trusted what President Trump said more than they trusted the words of his predecessors.