A (deliberately) provocative but nevertheless worthwhile article:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...982376,00.html

For me personally, where it goes wrong is the assumption that you can only achieve the values she speaks about with a religious input, but other than that there is food for thought here.

I was also struck by a comemnt from a feriend of mine who married an American and joined an American protestant church. After we had explored some of his beliefs, and after I had made my predictable reactions to them, he obserevd that he didn't really believe anything that wasn't mainstream C of E belief 100 years ago. Which is true. I'll spare you my obvious retort, but the same can be said, more or less, for mainstream observant muslims today (with some changes in the details, naturally).

Am I the mainstream, or are they....?