Successful evangelists know what conditions produce most converts.

Psychologists who study crowd behaviour have documented that if you assemble a large group of people and keep them standing close together for 20 minutes while they sing rousing songs, with simple, repetitive lyrics, and get them to clap and sway, they begin to lose their inhibitions and start to identify with the crowd.

During long blocks of repetitious music, people hyperventilate, causing respiratory alkalosis. The result is euphoria and a narrowing of consciousness. The effect can be enhanced by careful use of lighting. The reasoning part of the brain becomes desensitised and the emotional part assumes dominance.

At a meeting on Christian community action, a leading Methodist began his talk with "Faith without works is dead," and then added, "But, of course, good works without faith are meaningless."

Recently we have had several sermons on the distinction between "random acts of kindness" by non-Christians and good deeds by Christians which have "eternal significance" because they are part of God's plan for the world before life began.

Apart from the breathtaking arrogance in proclaiming that what non-Christians do has no real significance, none of these preachers seem to have considered what happens at the interface between these "random acts of kindness" and the "planned" lives of Christians.

How much real thought has gone into this campaign? The more I think about it, the more I want to cringe.

At this moment, the retail sector in Britain is facing a huge cash flow problem. Many stores are having to discount heavily, and many will go to the wall.

Presumably Methodists are being asked to add to this.

Gordon Brown provoked plenty of response this week when he suggested that the UK should consider an 'opting out' system for organ donation.

In an opt-out system, consent of the deceased person would be presumed unless they had registered during their life that they did not want to donate their organs. The Prime Minister's remarks have prompted responses about coercion and conscripts.

This sounds like over-the-top scaremongering to me.

Is cooking at least one meal a week with most of the dish consisting of leftovers from a previous meal an essential sign of good stewardship of the earth's resources?

The traditional Christmas turkey reappeared in at least four guises in most households during the 1960s and 70s....

Over the last twenty years, binge drinking has become much more of a problem in the UK.

During the recent New Year celebrations the mayhem caused by binge drinkers and reported both in the press and on TV seems to indicate that the problem is now getting out of control.

It has been reported that one in four adults in Britain are binge drinkers and the UK has topped a recent poll as Europe's heaviest consumer of alcohol.

On a good day the Bishop of Rochester can be very entertaining. As he showed in a lecture in Bradford last year he can be helpful in offering an Asian perspective on Christianity.

His remarks this week are neither helpful nor amusing.

For some of us at the coal-face of interfaith work his pre-occupation with the dominance of Christianity within a national culture and the establishment of the Church of England are downright undermining.

I played Father Christmas the other week for the young children of some of the poorest families in our area.

As the children talked to me, it became clear just how much faith they have in Santa Claus. They expected Santa to know whether they have been good or bad, to be able to get round the whole earth in a night (the next best thing to being omnipresent) and to be able to do the almost impossible as regards providing gifts for so many children.

This kind old man with miraculous powers, who lives in a far off special place where everyone is always happy, has a God-like status for children.

In a recent survey it was stated that one third of British adults did not know that Jesus was born in Bethlehem and that figure was larger for young adults.

Church leaders are partially blaming modern advent calendars for this...

Call me Scrooge, but I have issues with Christmas cards.

It's the words that worry me most: "Happy Christmas", "Seasons Greetings" and - my pet hate - "Merry Christmas". Is this really the best we can do? Is this the sum of what we aspire to as Christians? Santa and stockings I love. Christmas dinner is a luxury I anticipate with relish. The thoughtfulness of gift-givers is often a wonderful thing. And yet...