Growing up does not always come with age, says Giles Fraser. Many people are little more than moral babies, well into their 30s and 40s. Real growing up is a moral business, concerned with over­coming infantile self-obsession.

In the grey zone, we are all both victims and perpetrators, says Giles Fraser, who has visited one of the major sites of the slave trade. In the grey zone, morality is no longer simple. We need honesty, wisdom and divine mercy to face the facts hopefully.

If the Obama presidency is going to make good on its promise of hope, says Giles Fraser, it will have to do so in places like the unloved west side of Baltimore.

Debt isn't just a political and economic issue, it's a human tragedy, says Giles Fraser. And it raises the most profound spiritual, ethical and pastoral questions for us all.

These days we are often encouraged to 'get real'. But what does this mean, in the world at large and in the church in particular, asks Giles Fraser. It means returning to practicalities in a new way.

The Christmas message is one of deliveerance from fear, says Giles Fraser. But the approach the Pope has taken to 'human ecology' heads perilously in the other direction.

The Bank of England reports that members of the public now owe £1.457 trillion, £1.219 trillion of which is secured on dwellings, the value of which con­tinues to diminish, says Giles Fraser. So is more shopping the answer?

You cannot defend the church by being defensive and going on the warpath, says Giles Fraser. We can only find freedom from the ego's ever narrowing obsessions by placing our centre of interest outside of ourselves.

James Bond may be fantasy, but according to an army expert our media replicate many of the psychological tech­niques used by the military to over­come our resistance to killing, says Giles Fraser. No wonder the murder rate is rising among the young.

Mao Zedong died in 1976, and since then, two big things have hap­pened to China, says Giles Fraser. The first is the explosion of the economy. The other is the explosion of religion - and, sometimes, its suppression.

Atheists are often criticising the ethics of religious belief, says Giles Fraser. But do they base their own moral practice too much on what they are against?

The struggle between good religion and bad religion is at a crucial juncture on te domestic and global stage, says Giles Fraser. He believes the Quilliam Foundation, a new Muslim think tank, can make a positive contribution.

Fundamentalism is a 20th-century invention, in many ways a response to the rapid social change brought about by modernity and global capitalism, says Giles Fraser. It is a perversion of religion, and in no way the real thing, let alone its 'heartbeat'.

Easter is not about some nasty death cult where a blood sacrifice must be paid to appease an angry God, says Giles Fraser. The crucifixion reveals human death-dealing at its worst and the resurrection offers a new start, refusing the logic of scapegoating.

"Know that you are dust and to dust you shall return", the church says in its liturgy. Where else do we speak of such things in public? asks Giles Fraser, reflecting on our cultural habit of shrinking from the reality of death.