The Internet is a revolutionary new communications space of fascinating diversity. It reflects the richness of real life, with some of its truths but many of its half-truths (and untruths!) too.

A spear buried on the common border of two nomadic-pastoralist communities in the North Rift region of Kenya marked the end of bloody clashes a couple of decades ago. Today, the two rivals need the churches to help them arrest a fast-growing gun culture.

They had literally groped in the dark for ages. But for the past three years, more than a thousand upland folk in a remote village in northern Philippines have felt blessed because they are finally seeing the light of fluorescent bulbs.

People going to Brazilian churches these days have the opportunity not only to free themselves of the weight of their sins but also of their weapons and the risks entailed in their possession.