The Anglican bishop of London says in a Christmas letter that the return of religious issues to centre stage in the public sphere is welcome, but he claims it has provoked a dangerous reaction from what he calls "secular fundamentalists".

Theological truth and creative fiction are much closer to each other than might at first be presumed, Alison Goodlad discovers in reviewing Peter C. Hodgson's evocative treatment of the work of George Eliot.

Rupert Murdoch's global media organization News Corporation has announced it has acquired Beliefnet, said to be the largest faith and spirituality information site on the World Wide Web, for an undisclosed sum of money.

A report from United States intelligence agencies has undermined those close to the White House who have been arguing for unilateral military action against Iran by saying that Tehran halted its nuclear weapons programme in 2003.

Europeans who have no religion are growing in number but are becoming increasingly disadvantaged in the political process, claimed the National Secular Society in the UK at a meeting in the European Parliament on religion and politics.

Faith-based campaigners and religious leaders say churches should not relax their efforts to deal with the HIV/AIDS pandemic despite UN figures showing a drop in the number of people worldwide living with the virus, says Desmond Tutu.

Journalists writing stories on religion that are then put into other languages face constant pitfalls of being 'lost in translation', says the editor who has won the John Templeton Award for the European Religion Writer of the Year.

Trying to make workplaces religion free is no solution to human fears about 'the other', says Simon Barrow, reflecting on recent cases of controversy involving religious dress and symbols in schools and companies.

Among secular groups there is puzzlement and annoyance that government continues to 'pander' to weakened churches. This is because, says Jonathan Bartley, they have not grasped the mutual interests involved. These are as much a threat to the churches as an advantage.

A joint campaign to eliminate genocide around the world has been initiated by leading civic, academic and religious figures in a conference room at the Interchurch Center near the campus of Columbia University in New York, USA.