America can either tolerate constant and crippling conflict, or recognise that the yearning for peace is universal, and strengthen its resolve to end conflicts around the world, say US Christian leaders, echoing President Obama's words back to him. They are calling for a new approach to Afghanistan based on "a humanitarian and development surge".

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, twenty years ago, many critics have been quick to sign liberation theology's death certificate, says Walter Altmann. But its biblical concern with justice still continues to resonate.

The Charter for Compassion seeks to bring people together across the varieties of global faith and belief, in recognition of the fact that "in separateness lies the world’s great misery, in compassion lies the world’s true strength."

The churches contributed to the peaceful revolution in central and eastern Europe as well as to the ending of the apartheid regime in southern Africa, says Konrad Raider. Now the ecumenical movement has accepted the challenge to overcome violence as its special vocation.

Simplicity is perhaps best understood as appropriate living, says Jill Segger. It is about owning and using only what is necessary and not being seduced by that which is dangled before us by advertisers and arbiters of style.

The United States faces mounting problems in the three leading conflict zones of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq, says Paul Rogers. The escape-route lies not in military escalation but in a change of thinking.

The political and social shock waves caused by weeks of pro-democracy protests in East Germany followed by the fall of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989, were felt around the world, says Stephen Brown. They still resonate today, and have important theological implications.

The Anglican Communion must oppose legislation which dehumanises, fails to protect, and makes pastoral care impossible for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, says Colin Coward. This is a moment of truth.

The BNP Question Time saga has raised important issues about negative 'mainstream' views on immigration and damaging ideas about 'Christian Britiain', says Vaughan Jones. Christians are challenged to expose these lies by living and speaking differently.

The formal democracy of the Philippines disguises a welter of corruption, human rights abuse and extrajudicial killings, says Shay Cullen. The world needs to recognise and respond to what is happening.

To follow in the way of Jesus should make rank and status irrelevant, says Jill Segger, in the second of a series on Quaker values. Our equal value and dignity before God can re-shape our relationships with each other.

Discrimination, segregation, stereotyping – all factor in to women’s lives, says Fran Porter. By its words and actions, the church is part of the conversation. The question is, what is it saying?

Peace in its deepest, thickest, most holistic and most biblical form always challenges the status quo which maintains the structures of violence that benefit the powerful and privileged, says Timothy Seidel.

Is there real potential for visible unity among today's churches, or are cultural and dogmatic differences too great to be overcome? Theodore Gill takes the temperature at a major global gathering looking at these concerns.

It has been well said that peace is not the absence of noise, trouble or hard work – rather it is to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart, says Jill Segger in the first of a series on the Quaker Testimonies.