A Christian band brought me joy recently. Probably without intending to do so.

They are kind of a big deal in China. They're Chinese, you see - a Chinese Christian band who have made it onto China's equivalent of X-Factor. A few Christian sites had picked up their story as...

Why Greenbelt and the Graham Greene International Festival exemplify what is best about Britain.

Some of my best friends are Nazis. Actually, that's not true. One of my Facebook friends is. Although he prefers the terms 'ethno-nationalist' and 'race-realist'.

I discovered his profoundly...

Peterson Toscano is an American gay Christian activist and performer. That's an awful lot of labels. He's also an actor, a Quaker, a survivor of the 'Ex-Gay Movement', a comedian, a playwright and an actor, to add a few more. Personally, I just found him charming, smart and funny. And...

Anti-terror laws, government-sponsored arms-dealers and testing the limits of free speech and protest: Mark Thomas has tackled them all.

His comedy manages to be full of conscience and political righteousness without descending into buzzkill. That's particularly impressive when dealing with material based on walking the length of Israel's...

I am a winner. Not in terms of the important stuff like being handsome or sporty or dressing well, but in terms of the 2012 Budget. A quick spin on the BBC News Budget Calculator revealed that my wife and I will be about £300 better off thanks to Chancellor...

I recently shared on a Christian comment and culture site why I thought that the continued mutterings about Iran's nuclear program were not just unfounded, but hypocritical. I identified three reasons why Iran's nuclear ambitions are not a...

Why Kony2012 should make us happy, and why it should make us sad.

"I hated Joseph Kony before he was cool." That's the thought I had to keep stifling on Wednesday, like some sort of humanitarian crisis hipster struggling with the fact his favourite band has 'gone...

Whether it's Iran, the world's poor, or any other enemy, Christians must reject the idea that 'they' are less important than 'us'.

War with Iran has been the subject of whispers for weeks. The most likely candidates for attacker of the Islamic republic are of course Israel...

Hating Clarkson for the right reasons and loving free speech because it's good for us: Christians need to wake up.

It is so important to hate Jeremy Clarkson for the right reasons. Doing so on ridiculous grounds just spoils it for the rest of us. I say this assuming...

Christians and the rest of us need to realise that there is a choice to be made between corporate power and real democracy.

The Corporation has much to answer for. Not one corporation in particular (and not the excellent documentary of the same name), but the institution...

Christians need to side with the poor, and they need to find meaningful ways of doing it -- soon.

Class war is like triumphing over a sin. The only people talking about it are the ones who are already doing it. A quick glance at the news...

Poppy-burning may become for Britain what flag-burning is for the US: a hot-button issue that divides the country along what might seem artificial lines. What it currently is, is a rather un-nuanced and generalising demonstration of dissatisfaction with a few aspects of a society by desecrating a largely cherished symbol...

Some Evangelical Christians freak out every year over the possibility that their children might get involved in potentially evil Halloween antics, but have no problem with Bonfire Night. "Light Parties" may not be the same kind of torture Mr Fawkes faced, but their lameness is at least a...

If they don't want to be identified with extremists, why do they reveal they are religious? The paraphrased question, asked on Radio 4 a while back, related to the Ennahda party, winners of last week's Tunisian election. But the sentiment will be familiar to Christians. Religious people should ignore or...

The policeman preventing our exit from the protest said to me: "Your t-shirt is a bit of a giveaway." It wasn't a fashion criticism. My shirt had 'poverty is political' printed on it. And that was enough of a reason to keep me and my friends within a police-cordoned area...

Kalle Lasn, founder of Adbusters, the magazine that sparked off the Occupy Wall Street movement, talks consumerism, advertising and spirituality -- and why he thinks another world is possible.

It started as an idea at an activist magazine. To take a cue from the grassroots protests across the Middle...

'Humblebrag' alternative for Obama, Iran, David Cameron and Christians.

The 'humblebrag' was a concept to which many were introduced by an amusing article in last week's Independent. Primarily used in a social media context like Twitter or Facebook, it's a label applied to a boast cloaked in false...

We can mourn for Steve Jobs, but we shouldn't ignore the moral problems posed by the high-priest of tech-cool.

The high-priest of the church of stylish technology has died. And Steve Jobs, the man who gave the middle-class population of planet earth a

If the NHS is like a soup-kitchen, it's in the best possible way.

'The NHS isn't some sort of soup kitchen where everyone can just pile in.' That, disturbingly, is the view of Dr Michael Dixon, the head of the NHS Alliance, a big fan of the...

Last week, a man called Sean Duffy was sentenced to several months' imprisonment for making offensive jokes about dead teenagers online. He did it knowing that their families would be hurt and upset. I think what he did was disgusting. I find it hard to have any sympathy...