A conference in Bern this month will discuss the often thorny concept of the "Promised Land" and related theological issues with a view to helping more churches become advocates for a just peace in the Middle East.

Atheists are often criticising the ethics of religious belief, says Giles Fraser. But do they base their own moral practice too much on what they are against?

If the churches are adequately to face the challenges of the C21st century, theological education rooted in a broad encounter with contemporary life is vital, a congress of global educators meeting in Greece has been told.

Agricultural export subsidies in rich countries which destroy local food production and the income of poor farmers in the global South need to be withdrawn to alleviate the world food crisis, says ethicist and priest Christoph Stückelberger.

The current media-propelled debates about God are mostly hopelessly out of touch with their own intense fallibility, says Simon Barrow. He tries to explain why God-talk will always be helpfully elusive if it is faithful to what it seeks to point to.