Captured Chinese lawyer now ‘safe at home’

THE human-rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng, who was reported to have been kidnapped last month by the authorities in China, is back at home and safe, Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) said on Thursday of last week. CSW reported that he was subject to restrictions on his travel and access to medical care. On 24 September, the China Aid Association said that Mr Zhisheng had been kidnapped. In 2011 he had been reported missing (News, 26 April 2011), and was then imprisoned until 2014, after which he was kept under house arrest. In two interviews with China Aid and AP after his release from prison on 7 August last year, Mr Zhisheng said that he had been tortured by the authorities.

The theologian Phyllis Tickle dies, aged 81

THE American Christian author Dr Phyllis Tickle has died. As a poet, publisher, and journalist, she wrote 40 books, and was perhaps best known for her work The Great Emergence: How Christianity is changing and why, and her popular collection of prayers, The Divine Hours. The Religion and Ethics News Weekly website said that she “prayed every few hours” and that her “love of life brought her many friends”. Dr Tickle was an Episcopalian, and licensed as a lector and a lay eucharistic minister. Obituary to follow.

Bishops urge government action on Pikangikum

THE Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, the Most Revd Fred Hiltz, and the National Indigenous Anglican Bishop, the Rt Revd Mark MacDonald, have signed an open letter urging Christians to lobby their government to help the struggling Ojibwe community of Pikangikum, in northern Ontario. The Bishops are calling on Anglicans and Lutherans to follow the example of young people in “lifting up” the 2400 residents who are living with inadequate or absent indoor plumbing and limited access to clean drinking water. They say that “little work” has been done to address the lack of basic infrastructure.