Oliver Kamm says the Church is entitled to religious liberty and freedom of speech, but it is not entitled to a privileged hearing, nor is faith a source of strength.

If this election has told politicians one thing, it should be that they should listen to the voters and not to the religious lobbyists who are trying to write their doctrines into law.

Terry Sanderson calls on the Church to relieve the struggling NHS of the financial burden of chaplaincy services, and for them to set up chaplaincy trusts to provide the necessary funding.

Terry Sanderson on the undesirability of handing out public money to religious groups without strong controls in place.

After coming under fire for nominating Cardinal Keith O'Brien as "Bigot of the Year", Terry Sanderson defends Stonewall and agrees the Cardinal is a bigot, and that the award was appropriate and well-deserved.

The Tories plan to use the upcoming Corby by-election to "road test" an appeal to the "faith vote". Terry Sanderson questions whether a religious voting bloc even exists in the town – or anywhere in Britain for that matter.

Rebecca Sharkey argues that a popular shoebox gift scheme run by evangelicals highlights the dangers of mixing humanitarian work with the promotion of a religious agenda.

Terry Sanderson argues that all this talk of Britain being a Christian nation is a fantasy employed by Baroness Warsi and other pious politicians to push forward their own religious agendas.

The perception that Americans are an overwhelmingly church-going, evangelically conservative people took another knock this week with the release of a poll from the Pew Research Centre.

It's official – raping children is wrong. Sometimes. It depends on the colour (sorry "culture") of the child being raped. Welcome to post-racism Europe.

As head teachers put the Church's plan to intensify the religious input into lessons into action, Stephen Evans asks: isn't it time to rethink the role of religion in our public education system?

While many will write it off as red meat being thrown to the raving fundamentalists on the back bench of the Tory Party, Terry Sanderson says the appointment of Baroness Warsi as "Minister for Faith and Communities" is potentially threatening for secularism.

In an important new book, Ted Cantle argues that multiculturalism, while seeking to protect minority communities and cultures, has led to a society of plural mono-cultures living alongside each other, where groups different than oneself are identified solely by their most visible characteristics.

It is estimated that throughout the Muslim world something like just ten to twenty thousand people have taken part in the rampages that have dominated the headlines for a week. Terry Sanderson says these few Islamist extremists must not lead us to to compromise our commitment to the values of democracy and freedom.

Terry Sanderson's speech to the Secular Europe rally: "It is time now for politicians to lose their fear of religious leaders, to accept that they can't corral their followers into a voting bloc, and to give the people what they want - a peaceful, tolerant and progressive society."

As our precious health services are falling one after another in the face of the recession, the Church must be very happy that the NHS is prepared to pick up the substantial wage bill for the clerics it should be paying for itself.

At the current session of the United Nations Human Rights Council, Russia has tabled a resolution seeking to promote "traditional values" as a basis for human rights. If this resolution is passed, there is no doubt that governments in future will use "traditional values" to restrict human rights.

A new book attempts to answer intriguing question about why 72% of English people identified themselves as Christian in the 2001 census when less than 10 per cent regularly attends a place of worship.

Has the recent reshuffle appeased the religious lobby and are parliament's theocrats about to have their day?

Freedom of thought, conscience and religion is an important right, but a qualified right, which means that an interference with the right can be justified in certain circumstances. Stephen Evans argues that ensuring the welfare of animals provides such a justification.

In this response to Joshua Rozenberg's piece on conscience exemptions from anti-discrimination legislation, Human rights barrister Dr Ronan McCrea argues that discriminatory acts have a moral significance beyond the deprivation of the relevant service.

Anne Marie Waters argues that when it comes to freedom, prosperity and liberty, the men-who-live-in-palaces have got some serious questions to answer.

In providing one of the few "dissenting voices" in the media discussion of the cases of supposed religious discrimination being heard in the European Court of Human Rights, the most astonishing thing has been the success of the propaganda campaign conducted by Christian activists and the Daily Mailand Daily Telegraph.

Legal expert Joshua Rozenberg on the employment cases due to be heard at the European Court of Human Rights next week, after all four applicants ailed to convince UK courts that they had suffered religious discrimination.

As the UK economy stagnates, church-run food banks are booming. But as local authorities draw up plans to refer people in need to food banks, Stephen Evans asks: should the welfare state force citizens to turn to the church in their hour of need?