Though taking artefacts from antiquities site constitutes a severe criminal offence, the Israel Antiquities Authority says it will not prosecute a repentant New Yorker who returned a fragment he had taken from an ancient palace.

Conformity and concern about image are the enemies of truth, says Jill Segger. Yet they are everywhere in our testosterone-driven culture. Purity of heart enables us to respond to the unconventional or unexpected with integrity, as well as feeding clear-sighted conscience.

In his Christmas sermon at Llandaff Cathedral, the Anglican Archbishop of Wales has said that the pressure of modern life towards perfection can be humanly oppressive.

The political instinct is to react, and sometimes to overreact to cultural blips as well as big issues. Simon Barrow suggests that we might all need to lighten up to regain a deeper sense of perspective.

The World Association for Christian Communication (WACC) has called for a concerted international campaign to protect linguistic diversity and to promote multilingualism, as local cultures are threatened by narrow globalism.

A narrator in Japanese traditional puppet theatre, a composite art form known as Bunraku, has performed a special piece called 'The Gospel in Bunraku at a church in Sapporo, on Japan's northernmost main island of Hokkaido.