What was it about Christianity in modern Britain, wondered the writer, that caused this desertion of the pews?
Among the answers I suggested was Christianity's unfashionable image.
It was a common soap opera plot, for instance, for a character to suddenly become religious, much to the bemusement of their friends and family.
Then some trivial mishap would occur - the character would fall off a ladder or back their car into a swimming pool - and their faith would be lost.

This would be portrayed as a reassuring return to sanity. The character would be welcomed back into the fold of God-less conformity.
Christianity was embarrassing and ridiculous in those days.

There was a sketch in The Fast Show, in which a guest silenced a dinner party by talking in bright, breezy terms about Our Lord Jesus Christ dying for our sins.
Other examples occur: A girlfriend of mine, about 10 years ago, was appalled when she heard her favourite uncle had announced he'd become a Christian.
"But he was always such a good laugh!" she said - as if Christianity were incompatible with a sense of humour.

In some ways nothing changes. Last week the head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales urged Catholics to prevent the country from becoming a "world devoid of religious faith".

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor said there was "considerable spiritual homelessness".
The forces of secularism were posing a threat to spiritual life and stopping people from believing.

But one thing that has changed is that Christians are far more defensive than they were 10 years ago.
It's a long time since I watched a soap opera, but I'd be surprised if they still featured the plot about a character having a comical flirtation with belief.
The writers wouldn't dare now.

Christianity, partly in response to the, erm, assertiveness of radical Islam, has become more aggressively defensive.

Yes, writers like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens have produced best-selling polemics attacking religion from a rationalist perspective. But no-one's trying to stop you from going to church.

I can't help feeling that the defensiveness of the religious is a symptom of religion's intellectual weakness. Believers feel far more threatened by the Godlessness of infidels than vice versa.

As an atheist (even that phrase lends atheism a pompous 'identity' which it rarely claims for itself) I don't feel threatened by anyone else's belief, so long as they're not trying to impose it on me by violent means, or curtail my right to express my doubt.

But to listen to the Cardinal, you'd think atheism was aggressively evangelical.

It's by Muslims too that this idea is being bandied about.

Martin Amis, in a generally positive review of Ed Hussain's book, The Islamist, says Hussein visits a false dichotomy on us.
He wants to be "free from the fanaticism of secularism or religion", as if the two are equivalents on opposing sides of a spectrum.
Amis is typically striking in his demolition of Hussein's argument: Richard Dawkins and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi have little in common, he says, adding: "One can afford to be crude about this.
"When Islamists crash passenger planes into buildings, or hack off the heads of hostages, they shout, "God is great!" When secularists do that kind of thing, what do they shout?"
awolstenholme@ywng.co.uk