The following letter was published in the Church of England Newspaper, 30 May 2008:

Sir, In a time of fear and polarisation, Christians must avoid both the political right’s shrill paranoia and the liberal left’s naive secular arrogance.

Sadly, your leader (“Religious trends and our religious future“, May 23) falls into the former trap, with predictions of the UK as “an Islamic nation” and talk of concessions to Muslim “demands”.

Ironically, the supporting anecdotes, seemingly culled from the front pages of the Mail and Express, undermine the overall claim of a Muslim “advance”. The hospital bed story you cite, for example, was slammed as “entirely inaccurate” by the hospital in question.

We would not accept the same deluge of sensationalistic smears, generalisations and hate speech about any other race or religion. There is a humble yet honest conversation to be had between Christians and Muslims in Britain, but comments like these do not help.

Ben White