At the root of death-dealing religion and ideology is fear, says Simon Barrow. The biggest challenge we face today is how to challenge cultures of death from within, replacing the logic of the sword with an invitation to life.

The determination of some religious and anti-religious people to blame each other for the world's evils is part of a damaging drift to fanaticism, argues Simon Barrow. What we all need is self-critique and hopefulness.

A project helping young offenders in West London to re-connect with their belief background as a way of improving their behaviour has won a national Youth Justice award. It raises challenging questions about the role of faith in public life.

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.

The church looking for ‘God slots’ in relation to culture is like religion seeking a ‘God of the gaps’ in relation to science: a huge mistake. The Gospel points us elsewhere.

BBC Radio 4's Thought for the Day reflection spot could be opened up to the non-religious as well as the religious, argues one of its Christian contributors. Jonathan Bartley says it can help people to listen to one another better.

Simon Barrow gives an overview of three scholarly contributions by Kenneth Cragg, perhaps the world's leading interpreter of the relations between the Semitic faiths and their encounters with Western culture.