The history of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity is not just about church cosiness, says Kersten Storch. It is about the quest for healing in a divided church and an unjust and unequal world.

Whether we love or hate Christmas, we know all about it. But the same may not be true of the coming of Jesus, says Simon Barrow. In Christ, God radically disrupts religious 'business as usual'.

Theological truth and creative fiction are much closer to each other than might at first be presumed, Alison Goodlad discovers in reviewing Peter C. Hodgson's evocative treatment of the work of George Eliot.

As well as preparing worship resources for World Aids Day the Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance. has this year put together an excellent Advent calendar of daily readings, pictures and meditations. Many of the meditations are written by people living with Aids.

Mexican director Carlos Reygadas’ latest film, Silent Light, which won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in May, will be released in London this Friday 7th of December.

Salaam Bethlehem is touring in the UK throughout the season of Advent with performances until 22 December 2007. This is the story of a production which highlights the situation of a famous city and today's Palestinian Christians and Muslims.

The debate about religion in public life is often cantankerous, says Simon Barrow. But a constructive new pamphlet on secularism from the Humanist Philosophers' Group shows us that a better standard of discussion is possible.

Christian faith is about sustaining faith in face of the knowledge and reality of death, says Simon Barrow. The feasts of All Saints and All Souls put us in solidarity with a host of people who have struggled to see right prevail.

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.

Those hoping that when George W. Bush departs the Oval Office, religion will accompany him are likely to be disappointed, says Jonathan Bartley, if a book by the former Guardian religious affairs correspondent is right.

The outing of Vatican high-flier Monsignor Tommaso Stenico in a secretly filmed TV sting offers a real insight into the struggle the Roman Catholic Church is having in its home country over homosexuality.

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.

Alison Goodlad revisits a book which is fast becoming a Christian classic and discovers that the most famous trial in history is as much about the incapacity of a world like the one we have constructed to comprehend the love of God, as it is about why Jesus stands before Pilate.