Fundamentalism is a 20th-century invention, in many ways a response to the rapid social change brought about by modernity and global capitalism, says Giles Fraser. It is a perversion of religion, and in no way the real thing, let alone its 'heartbeat'.

Humanism is a philosophy and approach to life that has Christian, atheist, deist and theist roots, says Mark Vernon. So when it is taught in schools, what kind of approach will be adopted?

Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, from the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, has said religions should be prepared to ask tough questions. He says it is unrealistic to pretend there is only one global faith.

Migration is a fact of life, an instinct to survive and an inevitable consequence of globalization - something we can neither turn our backs on it nor control, declared a statement of participants at a faith-led public hearing in Beirut.

Everyone is talking about the 'credit crunch'. Patrick Hynes, from Oikocredit, reflects on how access to fair finance continues to be a problem for people who are poor, and proposes a simple solution.

A Canadian church magazine has become the first North American sponsor of a travelling exhibit of the life and work of natural scientist Charles Darwin, which opened at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto on 8 March and will come to Britain.

"Know that you are dust and to dust you shall return", the church says in its liturgy. Where else do we speak of such things in public? asks Giles Fraser, reflecting on our cultural habit of shrinking from the reality of death.