Cross words in the Australian outback
Australian landscape photographer Ken Duncan is trying to raise A$1 million to build a 22-metre illuminated cross on a hill in the outback, about 140 miles west of Alice Springs.

Duncan’s Christian organisation, Walk a While Foundation, is offering items to donors signed by the actor and producer Mel Gibson from his film, The Passion of Christ. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) said the two were schoolfriends and that Gibson had toured the site at Haasts Bluff (left), known also by its indigenous name, Ikuntji.

The website says: “God showed that he would face opposition to building the Cross. If this is as important as we believe it to be, and indeed part of the coming revival, then there will be spiritual warfare”.

Indeed, it seems there will – in the form of a Lutheran pastor, who has told the ABC of his opposition to the project.

Pastor Paul Traeger, a field officer with the Finke River Mission, who worked locally for 16 years, said: “Because of the huge amount of money involved [the cross is] more like a medieval cathedral, which takes money away from the poor or the needy.”

The ABC has reported that the Northern Territory Government has ruled out contributing to the project, although it has not been formally approached to do so.