SIR,—Dr Bryan Wilson believes Britain to be a secular society.
But this is true only if 'secular' is
defined in a needlessly narrow way. God may not be as popular as he was, but what are the cults of scientism, Marxism, existentialism, psychoanalysis, protest politics or even witchcraft if not replacements for traditional religion? Men have always needed a faith, and faiths are interchangeable. If Billy Graham did not offer God as one way out, Most of his converts would find another father-figure before which to prostrate themselves in order to escape from the intolerable burden of individual responsibility.
The existence of competing religious ideas could be described as 'confusion.' But if such ideas are to be used to escape from individual responsibility, surely it is better to have a society of confused values, with the possibility of choice and scepticism. than a closed society with no confusion and also no
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