The Church of Scotland is planning substantial financial investment in new forms of church life. At its upcoming General Assembly, the Kirk's Ministries Council will outline plans to devote £1.5 million over five years to 'emerging ministries'.

The number of churches committed to socially responsible and sustainable investment has increased substantially over the last couple of years, says the Conference of European Churches and partners - citing Oikocredit as an example.

With the area conferences of the United Methodist Church preparing to meet in July, South Central Jurisdiction is expected to address the controversial 2007 decision to lease property for a George W. Bush institute.

Churches throughout the world are preparing to respond to six decades of conflict in Israel-Palestine with a week of actions for justice and peace, reports the World Council of Churches, which is helping to coordinate the event.

The Kochhar Humanist Education Center (KHEC), which was launched yesterday by the American Humanist Association, is to develop a curriculum for the humanist equivalent of Sunday schools. This will include programs in ethics geared to serve the children of atheists, agnostics and freethinkers.

The British Humanist Association (BHA) has called on the government to support the new report from Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights which calls for children to be given the right to withdraw from worship in schools.

Chinese churches and Christian agencies, as well as the government and army, have begun responding to the recent earthquake. The quake, measuring 7.9 on the Richter scale, has devastated a region west of the provincial capital Chengdu.

Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams and the Anglican Bishop of London, Richard Chartres, welcomed leaders from business, government and civil society to Lambeth Palace yesterday for a Climate Change round table.

The National Council of Churches in India has joined the battle to turn green by calling for Christians to mobilise in the world's second most populous nation, and to join in the fight against global warming.

In a move which belies the anger of some Christian groups complaining at the downgrading of religious imagery on British stamps, the Royal mail yesterday issued a set of ten stamps celebrating ten of Britain's historic cathedrals.

The Zimbabwean presidential election run-off is not credible without an immediate end to intimidation, violence and torture and deployment of reliable international election observers, the Catholic Church in the region says.

The most powerful earthquake to hit China in 30 years, registered at a magnitude of 7.9, has killed at least 10,000 people in the south-western Sichuan province, with thousands more trapped and injured, says the BBC and news agencies.

Methodists in Britain have been told by their president that the future holds a mixed prospects for both renewal and demise for. The Rev Dr Martyn Atkins was speaking at a large Pentecost rally in the heart of the capital.

President Vladimir Putin's successor, Dmitry Medvedev, has been inaugurated in the Kremlin with pomp, circumstance, and prayers from Patriarch Alexei II of the Russian Orthodox Church - which has paid tribute to the new national leader.