Since 9/11 there has been a huge growth in the number of books that seek to explain and analyse the phenomenon of high-profile violent attacks by extremist Islamist groups. Ben White examines a contribution by high-profile Christian writer Patrick Sookhdeo.

For most of Indian history, those Hindus who have perpetrated violence against women have got away with it, says Wendy Doniger. It's time for this to stop.

The natural presumption of Establishment insulates the Church of England, says Simon Barrow. Even worse, it takes the opposite direction to Jesus, who rejected worldly power in the Temptation that Christians recall during Lent.

As well as preparing worship resources for World Aids Day the Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance. has this year put together an excellent Advent calendar of daily readings, pictures and meditations. Many of the meditations are written by people living with Aids.

Salaam Bethlehem is touring in the UK throughout the season of Advent with performances until 22 December 2007. This is the story of a production which highlights the situation of a famous city and today's Palestinian Christians and Muslims.

The debate about religion in public life is often cantankerous, says Simon Barrow. But a constructive new pamphlet on secularism from the Humanist Philosophers' Group shows us that a better standard of discussion is possible.

Those hoping that when George W. Bush departs the Oval Office, religion will accompany him are likely to be disappointed, says Jonathan Bartley, if a book by the former Guardian religious affairs correspondent is right.

The outing of Vatican high-flier Monsignor Tommaso Stenico in a secretly filmed TV sting offers a real insight into the struggle the Roman Catholic Church is having in its home country over homosexuality.

Alison Goodlad revisits a book which is fast becoming a Christian classic and discovers that the most famous trial in history is as much about the incapacity of a world like the one we have constructed to comprehend the love of God, as it is about why Jesus stands before Pilate.

An easy assumption that religion is less dangerous when it is 'less religious' is wrong, says Simon Barrow. As an article in the International Herald Tribune points out, the path from death to life is found within as well as beyond each tradition.

What is really at stake in the row between Sony and Manchester Cathedral over a violent video game? Simon Barrow looks at it in terms of Christendom, 'redemptive violence', image as commodity and the onset of the hyperreal.

Far from being a crusader, St George of Lydda was a defender of the powerless, says Garth Hewitt. He is a figure for Muslims, Jews, Christians - and for the church in Palestine.

The real problem of Islamism as a violent mutation within the Muslim faith is not well addressed by feeding ourselves paranoid fantasies

Norman Kember’s experience as a hostage in Iraq is part of a journey of dissent from the supposed logic of violence