It is a sign of the times that the only feature of the British prime minister's visit to Northern Ireland last week that registered on the UK news was when he took a few moments to answer the criticisms of Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury.
It was a case of the biter bit. David Cameron has made a big deal of involving Christian organisations in delivering social services and in contributing to political life, and then the archbishop accuses him of forcing through policies on health, education and welfare "for which no one voted". The prime minister said he felt the archbishop was free to express political views, though of course he disagreed with them.
Perhaps Cameron should have taken a look at Northern Ireland, where religion and politics often go hand-inglove, before encouraging religious leaders into the political arena.
He also ignored a wake-up call when he, and Williams for that matter, sat nodding through Pope Benedict's reactionary assault on Britain's cherished secular values last year in Westminster Hall. The pontiff blamed secularism for everything from the slave trade to Nazism. He demanded that religion – his religion that is – should be used to "help purify and shed light upon the application of reason to the discovery of objective moral principles".
Such extravagant language and his claim that he could offer a corrective to reason should have sounded a warning bell. Instead Cameron complimented the pontiff, saying "you made us think".
The prime minister has bought into the complaint of Christian groups that faith is being marginalised, even persecuted. We get a lot of this here in Northern Ireland, and in the republic the view is also articulated by the likes of David Quinn and the Iona Institute.
The latest example was the inauguration speech of Rev Dr Ivan Patterson, who was installed as the Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland last week.
Patterson, a conservative evangelical, talked a good deal of sense about the need for tolerance. He also took a brave step in welcoming Niall Ó Donnghaile, the newly elected Sinn Féin mayor of Belfast, to the assembly and inviting him to tea.
Unfortunately, his tolerant attitude seemed to evaporate when he turned to non-Christians and non-believers. The moderator showed his age, 62, when he drew on The Kinks' 1969 hit Plastic Man to describe non-Christians.
The lines he quoted were: "He's got a plastic wife who wears a plastic mac/And his children wanna be plastic like their dad/He's got a phony smile that makes you think he understands/But no one ever gets the truth from Plastic Man."
Patterson interpreted them to say that "without that God dimension, then life at best is artificial" leading to "inauthentic, cheap sameness".
If Patterson thinks back to his twenties when the song came out, he would recall that the Kinks were not a Christian band. Dave Davies was noted for his bisexual antics. Ray Davies took a drug overdose. All in all, they were a pretty wild bunch. The plastic man for whom the Kinks had such contempt was someone whose "neighbours think he's helpful and he's sweet, 'cause he never swears and he always shakes you by the hand". Plastic man conforms to conservative norms.
Now if some secularist started sending out press releases calling evangelical Christians plastic men and lampooning their beliefs as inauthentic and their lives as empty, there would quite rightly be an outcry. Yet these are the insulting words that Patterson applies to those who do not share his beliefs. Perhaps he sees it as spreading the good news, which is the mission of evangelicals.
Whatever it is – and it sounded to me like insults – he was allowed to stand up in a public place and do it. Not only that, but his views were even reported by newspapers and he was invited in radio interviews to enlarge on them. Yet he complained that "in our society, Christians have had their wings clipped in our politically correct world. It would seem that any philosophy is tolerated except that centred on Jesus Christ".
He quotes the example of Richard Scott, the Kent doctor who faces a General Medical Council hearing after complaints that he discussed his Christian faith with a patient. Patterson wants others to do the same, to use their jobs to preach the gospel.
Yet what would be the reaction if doctors, teachers, shop assistants and police officers (the professions he mentions) used their privileged positions to propagate atheism or belief in reincarnation? It is one thing accepting a speaking engagement to expound on your beliefs, or to accept an invitation to write an article on them. But it is generally accepted that a professional attitude, free of proselytism, is the best approach to people who have to deal with you at work.
It is difficult for some Christians to accept their beliefs are not more valued than others. For instance, David Mc-Ilveen, a newly elected DUP MLA, used the opportunity of a debate on educational under-achievement to pin some of the blame on a fall-off in religious observance and lack of "moral fibre" in working-class areas.
There is no doubt that many people of faith have done good work in education and in helping the needy. Religion often inspires selflessness and dedication.
But so do other beliefs, and nonbelievers should not automatically be associated with a lack of morality. It can't be forgotten that, on the debit side, religion has often been coupled with sexual and physical abuse in education and care systems. Callous murders have been carried out by believers with an active prayer life. Take Colin Howell, the born-again Christian dentist from Coleraine who killed his wife and his lover's husband, and sexually abused his patients when they were under anaesthetic.
That is why religious faith shouldn't be privileged above other beliefs and shouldn't be allowed to be the arbiter for society. Tolerating all religions and beliefs is one thing. Allowing one belief system a special position to preach in the workplace is another.
Yet some Christians regard themselves as marginalised if they are not allowed to do so. Lord Carey, Williams's predecessor as Archbishop of Canterbury, is a case in point.
"Flowing from a combination of wellmeaning political correctness, multiculturalism and overt opposition to Christianity, a new climate, hostile to our country's tradition and history, is developing," he complained before Christmas.
This was in a pamphlet he wrote entitled I'm Not Ashamed.
Anyone would think people were being thrown to the lions for professing Christianity, and that Carey was defending some persecuted sect. In fact, he sits in the House of Lords and has his views endorsed by another bastion of the British establishment, The Daily Telegraph.
