For the first time in Germany, a Protestant church has been turned into a synagogue. The Rev Alfred Buss of the Evangelical Church of Westphalia, where it is located, said the new place of worship is a "house of hope".

A former secret police commander and three agents who served in former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet's regime have been sentenced to seven years in prison for the 1974 disappearance of a Spanish priest.

People in Britain, whether religious or not, have been used to negotiating their directions by churches, pubs and other landmarks. But in the age of web maps that will have to change, because traditional sites are disappearing.

'A love genuinely lived by a people joined to Christ for the sake of the world' is how Simon Barrow defines the mission of the church. It is about something more transformatory than projects or agencies alone, he says.

The president of the Uniting Church in Australia has said his country should spend as much on reconstructing Iraq as its did on its military operations there - given the desperate need for healing and hope in the war-torn country.

The Seven Deadly Sins have been given a makeover. Yet before the makeover artists get to work maybe all Christians should pause and consider the sin business, says Glynn Cardy.

In a reflection on faith and human rights for Easter, Savi Hensman argues that issues of life and death and the question about whether Christians are on the side of the powerful or the powerless go to the heart of the Gospel story.

Recent religious conflict in the Indian state of Orissa has been aided by the aggressive evangelising of missionaries from outside the region, says an official with the largest traditional Protestant denomination in northern India.

The Japanese government and Christians should support the rights of the Ainu indigenous people in Japan's northern island of Hokkaido, a United Church of Christ leader in Japan has said.