A S Byatt's passion for language and literature is borne out in all of her novels. Her best-known work, the Booker prize winner Possession, is a sort of literary detective story in which modern scholars delve into the love lives of two Victorian poets. The poets were Byatt's invention as were the reams of 19th Century style poetry layered throughout the novel. The technique of creating new worlds of literature within a novel has become something of a trademark for Antonia Byatt. But in A Whistling Woman she eschews the practice proffering instead only a slice of her fiction within fiction. A teaser.

It is not right to set the New Testament against archaeology; or vice versa. The New Testament itself is archaeology.

Last month, ABC TV's Compass screened a controversial new documentary questioning the history of the Old Testament. But PAUL WILLIAMSON says It Ain't Necessarily So was a case of more style than substance.

Ministry plans are paralysed when church leaders ignore the mindset of their congregation

TIM HAWKINS says youth leaders must invest time in other leaders, not just kids, to multiply their ministry.

A new evangelistic course aimed at post-moderns has grown out of a ministry for media workers.

No rational person could ever desire war, given the horror and heartbreak it brings. Australians have left to fight overseas on a number of occasions and many families have heart-rending memories as a result.