The tolerance of which we boast in today's multi-ethnic Western nations, is in fact a by-product of Christian faith. We should be proud of the good Christianity has done. We should, as Queen Elisabeth suggests, celebrate the strength in it.

T. S. Eliott, the celebrated poet, noted the close historical link between the Christian faith and worldview and European civilisation generally.

'The dominant feature in creating a common culture between peoples, each of which has its own distinctive culture, is religion. I am talking about the common tradition of Christianity which has made Europe what it is, and about the common cultural elements which this common Christianity has brought with it. It is in Christianity that our arts have developed; it is in Christianity that the laws of Europe -- until recently -- have been rooted. It is against a background of Christianity that all our thought has significance.(1)

'Most [scholars of Medieval history] would agree that the unifying feature of the mediaeval world is to be found in organised Christianity,' says celebrated historian Norman Davies. Most Europeans up to the Medieval period, he writes, would have seen themselves as Christians living in a Christian part of the world. (2)

Even during the Enlightenment, Christianity, then under attack, continued to play a central role. Voltaire, who launched vicious attacks on established religion and what he saw as its empty superstition, nevertheless sprang to defend the existence of God.

Reflecting on sky at night, he said, 'One would have to be blind not to be dazzled by this site; one would have to be stupid not to recognise its author; one would have to be mad not to worship him.' He went on to say, wittily, 'If God did not exist, he would have to be invented.'

Many of the Enlightenment's greatest philosophers, still revered as giants of European thought, could never have emerged had there been no Christian faith. The roots of their philosophies -- and the passion of their commitment to them -- sprang from a desire to denounce dead, institutional religion which had so infected the Christian church.

Eliott puts it succinctly: 'Only a Christian culture could have produced a Voltaire or a Nietzsche. '

What is the future of Europe? One thing, at least, is sure. There can be no European culture without reference to its 'cult': the underlying religious belief which in one way or another has driven its development for so long.

'An individual European may not believe that the Christian faith is true,' writes Eliott, 'and yet what he says, and makes, and does, will all depend on [the Christian heritage] for its meaning.'(3)

'I do not believe that the culture of Europe could survive the complete disappearance of the Christian faith.'

We should be proud of the good Christianity has done. We should, as Queen Elisabeth suggests, celebrate the strength we have found in its message of faith, hope and love.

We can and should welcome people of other faiths while remaining, at root, a Christian culture - or, at least, a Christianised one.

(1) Quoted in 'Europe: A History', by Norman Davies, Pimlico, 1996, p. 9
(2) ibid, p. 292
(3) op cit, p. 9