Often Christians behave as if their central convictions about God has little practical bearing on the world and its problems, says Simon Barrow. On the contrary, being engaged by the Trinitarian mystery of God is central to facing up to the world's lesions with realism and hope.

For Good Friday, a New York church has been circulating the story of the Passion, the biblical narrative leading up to Jesus' crucifixion, on the popular social networking site Twitter.

In a recent lecture given at the Royal Academy of Arts, reports Simon Barrow, the Archbishop of Canterbury explored aspects of how icons are examples of the way in which in which divine energy is present in material reality.

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 an era where a basic understanding of what Christianity is about cannot be taken for granted, Simon Barrow welcomes a new book by philosopher and theologian Keith Ward which clears some ground and opens up issues.