Your columnist Lynn Daly admits she would be hard-pushed to describe Britain as a Christian nation (December 14).

That is not surprising. Religiously, we have a collection of churches competing in the superstition marketplace.

All are convinced theirs is the true faith. All believe they are right.

Maybe they are all wrong.

Legally, the claim that Britain is a Christian country fell by the wayside in 1917 when Secular Society Ltd won what became known as the Bowman Case.

Lord Justice Sumner said "the phrase a Christian country...is really not law, it is rhetoric."

And the Church Times admitted the case established that Britain "is no longer in law, what it has ceased to be in fact, a Christian country."

Observing events in countries such as the United States and Northern Ireland where Christians have real power, we are fortunate to be living in the land of Thomas Paine and Charles Darwin.

-W J McIlroy, Hove