Manga Bible fever is hitting the shops this month. New Testament professor Deirdre Good explores the cultural and interpretative values involved, particularly in relation to the presentation of 'family'.

Football, money and morals make odd bedfellows, concludes Giles Fraser after his experience of preaching to an uncertain congregation at a service marking the 150th anniversary of the world’s oldest club - Sheffield FC.

Jo Rathbone assesses a new book which is an excavation of the foundations of the modern global economy, a case for environmental sustainability, and a theological and biblical case for a different way of living.

Though the god Richard Dawkins seeks to demolish is a caricature and often based on ill-informed analysis, says Richard Skinner, it is uncomfortably close to the idol some Christians have chosen to worship.

The Harry Potter books, says Steve Fouch, are full of values that Christian and atheist and agnostic alike would recognise – because friends matter, truth is vital, and evil is always weaker than good.

In an era where a basic understanding of what Christianity is about cannot be taken for granted, Simon Barrow welcomes a new book by philosopher and theologian Keith Ward which clears some ground and opens up issues.

Religiously constructed rows over sorcery, metaphor and meaning in Harry Potter are hardly new, as Simon Barrow has personal reason to know. He suggests we all chill out and finding meaning not menace in the narrative.

Alison Goodlad re-reads George Eliot’s classic ‘Middlemarch’ – and discovers that its provincial narrative has some powerful things to tell us about loving purpose in life, atonement and even Eucharistic living.

What is really at stake in the row between Sony and Manchester Cathedral over a violent video game? Simon Barrow looks at it in terms of Christendom, 'redemptive violence', image as commodity and the onset of the hyperreal.

Simon Barrow suggests that how the churches see their engagement with culture, including spaces like the BBC's Thought for The Day, is shaped by the question about how God has been turned into an artefact under Christendom.

For years the churches have been unable to fix a common date for Easter. For many it has become a general holiday. Here we provide a guide to the issues, courtesy of the WCC Faith and Order Commission.

Maggi Dawn reflects on actors caught up in the Gospel and the church caught up in acting