Mal Fletcher comments

The MORI poll also revealed that in Muslim-majority countries, 94 percent of those with a religion agreed that their faith was important in their lives, compared to 66 percent in Christian-majority countries.

Muslims were also more likely to claim that their religion was a key primer in their giving time and money to people in need - 61 percent compared to 24 percent in so-called Christian societies.

A cursory reading of the results might suggest that Christianity is losing ground overall, especially in the light of other studies which indicate more rapid numerical growth for Islam than Christianity worldwide.

We must remember, though, that this poll samples the widest cross-section of various populations. We can assume that many of the respondents were religious but in quite a nominal way. That is, their feelings of religious affiliation were based in large part on their cultural history or on the fact that they're living in notionally Christian or Muslim nations, for example.

It's worth noting that most branches of Islam probably tend to be more proscriptive in terms of details of personal behaviour than do Christian traditions.

From the time of the Apostles, Christianity has allowed wide latitude for the expressions of different cultures. The New Testament gives only very light restrictions on cultural expressions, though of course it is very strong on core moral issues.

Nominal Christians are, then, less likely to treat their religion as a key reference point in their daily decision-making. That aspect of the study should not surprise us.

The findings of this poll may well cause disquiet, though, if read alongside other studies dealing with the comparative growth in world religions. Some seem to indicate that Christianity is losing ground to other faiths, especially in its former strongholds such in the West.

Much of the time, though, people read these statistics without making any allowance for differences in birth rates among religious groups.

It is no secret that birth rates are generally much higher, for example, in Muslim communities than in Christian communities. This is certainly true in much of the developed world, where Muslim families still tend on average to be larger than non-Muslim. It is especially true in the Third World.

My point is that not all of the growth represented in global studies is coming through proselytising or evangelism. Some of it - I'd suggest a healthy part of it - is coming through simple natural reproduction.

If you're a Christian, this might still be seen as cause for concern. Yet it can also be seen an opportunity - if the Church is willing to lift its game in terms of genuine, culture-friendly mission (as opposed to cultural colonialism) and evangelism generally.

Therein lies the biggest lesson for the Church in this MORI poll.

Those of us who profess a Christian faith must perhaps do more to demonstrate how faith impacts every part of our lives. Christianity may not be as tightly proscriptive as some other religious systems, but we must ensure that we don't treat our faith as an optional add-on to western lifestyle and values.