Easter is not about some nasty death cult where a blood sacrifice must be paid to appease an angry God, says Giles Fraser. The crucifixion reveals human death-dealing at its worst and the resurrection offers a new start, refusing the logic of scapegoating.

Today's world "lives with death and resurrection in many ways and in many places", says the president of the Methodist Conference in Britain. The duty of the church is to be with them in this and to point to the hope of the gospel.

The United States and the United Kingdom are being forced this month (March 2008) to reflect on the recent heritage of their military interventions. Who or what are we trusting in when we choose the way of the sword over the way of the Cross, asks Simon Barrow. Where does salvation lie?

The modern temptation is to dismiss resurrection as fantasy or reduce it to spiritualised sophistry, says Simon Barrow. The shape of the core Christian hope is both more substantial and more subtle than that.

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.

Traditional categories of right and left don't always work when applied to faith, says Giles Fraser. Yet there is no comfort for the 'religious right' in the Christmas Gospel, which is about giving not consuming and love not power-mongering.

For years the churches have been unable to fix a common date for Easter. For many it has become a general holiday. Here we provide a guide to the issues, courtesy of the WCC Faith and Order Commission.

Easter is awkward for the church, because its revolutionary message leaves it nowhere to hide religiously, politically or intellectually, argues Simon Barrow.

Both the Easter story and recent political dramas in the Middle East highlight deep questions about power, says Colin Morris. They show that the power of life is about persuasion.

Denouncing the slaughter in Iraq and violence and injustice across the world, Pope Benedict used his Easter 2007 message to call on Christians to take up the vocation of peacemaking.