Madam, - A recent homily in our local church posed this arresting question: If Christianity were a crime, would there be evidence in your life that would secure a conviction?
I must not conceal my own answer: only a veritable kangaroo court would sentence me to anything more than a week or two of community service - perhaps standing on a corner selling The Irish Times or some more direct organ of unchristian conversion. However, the really arresting feature of the question is that its basic hypothesis is by no means outlandish.
Is there anything other than the lethargy of our legislature that is keeping Christianity from being a crime? Is there not a dominant thrust in public discourse to denigrate many things that Christianity used to stand for? Are parapets not being erected all over the place below which any budding Christian would do well to keep his head? Wouldn't an avowal of Christianity bring about howls of name-calling, even that shameful tag of fundamentalism?
Surely all those things that Christians held to be wrong must now be permitted by law, since otherwise we would "criminalise" those who do them? So it is smart indeed to be careful about the evidence we leave. - Yours, etc,
FRANK FARRELL, Lakelands Close, Stillorgan.