FORMER Australian of the Year and CEO of Child Wise Bernadette McMenamin has rejected calls for a ban on smacking and said it would leave parents thinking they lived in a nanny state.

A Chinese Christian leader sentenced to two years of “reeducation through labour” has been released early from detention, the China Aid Association (CAA) reports.

ALMOST anybody can get help for anything from psychotherapists in this country except apparently gays who do not want to be gay.

A divorce can never be good for children no matter how amicable it is, a study has revealed.

The dispute in the Church of England over welfare reform intensified last night as the former Archbishop of Canterbury was dismissed as a “Thatcherite yesterday’s man” by a prominent cleric.

A couple from Texas who moved to a violence-plagued area of northern Mexico to run a Baptist church were found slain at their ransacked home, their children said.

Tim Tebow has canceled an appearance at a revival organized by a controversial Ohio preacher, a spokesman for the star athlete said Wednesday.

The pastor stood before more than 300 young Burmese refugees gathered for morning prayers in a weathered, jungle church.

A NINE-YEAR-OLD girl has killed herself in South Australia's remote Aboriginal lands, 10 months after the state Labor government ignored pleas from 40 community members to retain a child protection worker at her school.

Today, the man deemed by many as "America's Beloved Gospel Singer," George Beverly Shea, turns 103.

Every devout Roman Catholic in the country is to be given a credit card-sized reminder to share their faith with others.

Kashmir's small Christian community is in a state of panic. A fortnight ago, a self-styled sharia court issued a fatwa calling for the expulsion of three Christian priests from Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) for "luring the Valley's Muslims to Christianity".

A Pakistani Christian woman convicted of blasphemy and sentenced to death has successfully appealed a court's ruling, just as a petition demanding her release has reached over 500,000 signatures.

Federal independent MP Andrew Wilkie says he wasn't told about advice received last year by the Labor government warning his timeframe for poker machine reform could not be achieved.

AUSTRALIA'S broadcasting watchdog is investigating the ABC for allegedly vilifying Christians in a satirical sketch.