While it might be said that the present state of repair of the majority of the churches in use in England is better than it has ever been before, the congregations of England, whether they be Anglican, Roman Catholic, Methodist or Baptist, face the day by day challenge of maintaining a substantial section of the nation's built heritage. The 2006 Lyndwood Lecture, delivered at St Paul's Cathedral, London, on 15 November 2006, examines possible avenues for the funding of this work, looking at the models of state aid offered by other European countries. It also considers the tension that exists between the legal imperative to view our churches not only as historic monuments but also as local centres of mission and worship. Moving on from this theme of funding, the lecture then examines the problems faced by all denominations in disposing of buildings no longer required for divine worship. It questions why the Church should continue to pay for the upkeep of buildings it no longer needs, and concludes, in the words of T S Eliot, that the Church must be forever building.

In the teaching of the Catholic Church, the institution of marriage derives directly from God, for common good and for the good of spouses and children. Human authorities are called upon not to transform its characteristics and to avoid any attempts to distort them. However, the Church is today confronted with a changing understanding of the notion of ‘gender’ and with new considerations about the meaning of ‘marriage’ on behalf of parts of society and of political institutions. Based on an overview of the recent legislative and political proposals concerning family issues at the European level, this article aims to assess what model of family the Member States of the European Union are developing, and how the traditional concept of marriage could be influenced by this evolution.

This paper aims to offer some remarks on the relationship between Ottoman reforms and Atatürk's revolutionary laws – a relationship that is generally minimised or misperceived. The first part focuses upon the Ottoman system of relations between state and religious denominations. It challenges the theory of the theocratic character of the Ottoman Empire, which constitutes one of the traditional arguments strengthening the case against the importance of the Ottoman secularising reforms. The second part of the paper deals with the Ottoman reforms concerning dress, education and administration of justice. It stresses the secular character of such measures, and maintains that there is no historically grounding to the view that the secularisation of institutions is always accompanied by the secularisation of society. The third part takes into account the two elements that most distinguish Mustafa Kemal's reforms from the Ottoman ones: that is, the ideological nature of the principle of secularism, and the method of preparation and implementation of the revolutionary laws.

Legislators have normally exercised one of two options when enacting hate crime legislation. They either provide for punishment of ordinary criminal acts to be enhanced when the offence has been committed by reason of prejudice or hatred towards the victim, or they pass an Act which establishes an entirely new substantive offence. The United Kingdom Parliament adopted the first approach under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, initially with regard to racially aggravated crimes and later in respect of religiously aggravated offences. In passing the Race and Religious Hatred Acts 2006, Parliament has taken the second approach and created a new substantive law. This paper considers the specific requirements that will need to be satisfied in order to establish the offence and some issues that arise in relation to proof of intention, relevance of motive and the nature of the language required to constitute hatred, in the light of the concession to freedom of speech contained in the statute.

ERIC KEMP Continuum, London, 2006, 285 pp (hardback £25.00) ISBN: 978-0-8264-8073-6

PHILIPPA HOSKIN, CHRISTOPHER BROOKE AND BARRIE DOBSON Studies in the History of Medieval Religion, Vol 27, Boydell Press, Woodbridge, 2005, 248 pp (hardback £50.00) ISBN: 978-1-84383-169-3

NORMAN DOE Peeters, Leuven, 2004, vi+316 pp (€45.00) ISBN: 978-90-429-14988

RICHARD POTZ AND WOLFGANG WIESHAIDER Peeters, Leuven, 2004, xi+263 pp (€45.00) ISBN: 978-90-429-1445-2

MICHAEL BRIERLEY Ashgate Publishing Ltd, Aldershot, 2006, xv+236 pp (Hardback £50.00) ISBN: 978-0-7546-5300-4; (Paperback £15.99) ISBN 978-0-7546-5301-1