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'Presence: Images of Christ for the Third Millennium'

Linked exhibitions in six cathedrals to celebrate 150 years of BibleLand's ministry. Remaining exhibitions: Lincoln, April 27 to June 4; Durham, July 31 to September 5. There is no separate entrance charge for the exhibitions. Further details from: www.biblelands.org.uk

As I write this, the television is full of images of appalling destruction, the aftermath of the terrorist attack on America. I had planned to write at length this month about our family visit to the States this summer, but for obvious reasons that will have to wait for another time.

Let me instead take a few moments to celebrate one small part of American Christianity, which we encountered during our visit: the Mennonite community in the Central Valley of California. We stayed with a Mennonite family near Fresno, whom we had got to know over the years through their visits to L'Abri Fellowship but had never visited ourselves.

Publishing Christian art books today is a hazardous business; most of it is in the hands of small enthusiastic publishers committed to publishing art rather than building a business empire.

So it's been quite a surprise in the last year or two to see one of the most exciting developments in this field coming, originally, from Britain's largest publishing-and-bookshop giant, STL. The first mention in this column came with an enthusiastic review of Hilary Brand and Adrienne Chaplin, Art and Soul (1999), published under STL's Solway imprint and one of the most substantial books on Christian art to have been published in the evangelical market since Hans Rookmaaker's decades ago.