In the ten days since the terror attacks in Norway, pastors and church workers have played a major role in caring for survivors and the victims' families.
The recent horrific terror attacks in Norway seem to have been occasioned in part by the rise of fearful far-right movements which use Christian language as part of their guise. The answer to these should not be accommodation, says Simon Barrow, but an attempt to build robust civic alliances for social justice and against racism and xenophobia.
At least 92 people were reported dead in Norway, after a bomb blast and shooting spree on 22 July. There has been an outpouring of sympathy across the world for the victims, many of them young, and their families, and horror at this atrocity.
Last week few people had heard the name of Anders Behring Breivik. Today he is trending on twitter for all the wrong reasons, along with 'Freemasonry' and 'Christianity'.
A top Christian monthly magazine has published an interview with Khalid Mish'al, widely regarded as the most senior figure in Hamas, the Islamist resistance group elected in Palestine and described as 'terrorists' by the USA.