Children of God

Despite the modern taste for overextended fantasy sagas full of sex, violence and po-faced moralising, it seems the nation's youth are turning to the Bible in ever larger numbers. Having been deprived of the Christian education that made atheists out of their forebears, they apparently see the faith as some sort of counter-cultural force: so few of our lords and masters these days are the kind of people who favour eternal torment for their enemies, let alone believe themselves to possess the secrets of the universe and a monopoly of virtue. As always, the Bible's catalogue of arbitrary commandments and blatant inconsistencies, no less than its slavering recitals of punishment and massacre, should make for an admirable schooling in the ways of the world.