Understanding more about human sexuality and relationships can be helpful to heterosexual as well as LGBT people, says Savi Hensman. Prayerful reflection, study and discussion will not create instant consensus, but can at least help those with different perspectives to understand one another better, and the church to move forward in its mission and ministry.

The core to Archbishop Desmond Tutu's appeal, and to the opposition he has also elcited, lies in his sheer humanity as well as his fidelity to the core of the Christian message, says Simon Barrow. This is a pattern which holds out hope for the future of Christianity in dark times.

This week, I spoke about the arms trade at a fringe meeting at the Labour Party annual conference. I urged the Labour Party to move away from the enthusiasm for the arms trade that it has shown in the past and take a stand against the influence of arms companies within government.

Especially in areas where affordable housing is scarce, many of us – even if not about to be displaced ourselves – have friends or relatives who are about to lose their homes, with all that this involves, says Savi Hensman, explaining why the government’s programme of draconian cuts to housing benefit are so harmful.

The debate on Scottish independence in advance of a mooted 2016 referendum is only just beginning, but Simon Barrow suggests that the contours of a fresh agenda on both sides is already emerging in surprising comments from representatives of the Westminster parties north of the border.

Britain may be broke, but the government's desperation to cut the deficit seems to have its limits. This morning, Eric Pickles has ruled out an increase in council tax for houses valued at more than £1million. He is portraying measures that would affect only the richest as an attack on the "middle class". In reality, the government is consistent in pursuing the interests of the very wealthy at the expense of the rest of us.

Theology is ‘wrestling with the unfathomable mystery of God’, but to enlighten rather than to obscure, says Simon Barrow, paying tribute to two Mennonite scholars and pastors, Alan and Eleanor Kreider, as part of a festschrift entitled 'Forming Christian Habits in Post-Christendom'.