This week (20 January 2013) the thinktank Demos (“ideas and action to promote the common good”) has published its report Faithful Providers, which argues that faith-based organisations should be used more as public service providers. Simon Barrow offers an initial response, highlighting some of the problematic assumptions and stances within the report, setting out the background to successive government's interest in co-opting faith providers, and pointing towards a more radical Christian stance which roots service in a tradition of modelling and advocating a different social order based on justice and equality.

Bernadette Meaden reviews the book that many radical Christians have been waiting for. It shows, she says, how spirituality can be a unifying, liberating force, and how looking at the world from a Jesus perspective can be joyful and life-enhancing.

UK-based global development agency Christian Aid has launched a new movement to encourage young people to come together to tackle injustice.

Father Michael Rodrigo’s life and witness in Sri Lanka reflect the importance of perseverance, hope and faith in a better future, says Savi Hensman. This remarkable man still has something to say today, when all too many people live precariously in a divided and often violent world.