The Church opposed the early hypotheses of science with fire, rather than argument. And when that was no longer permitted, it avoided trying to understand how science has changed the mental outlook of the modern world. For instance: we have had Darwin’s massive evidence in favour of the idea that Nature has evolved, with us for 150 years now. But there is still no word in Church services, nor so far as I am aware in official doctrine, attempting to describe how Jesus fits into, or played a part in, an evolving Universe. The sad truth is that most clergy are too ignorant to have any views themselves. Yet the idea of evolution has radically changed the way we think of life and Nature, and world issues. The Church has reaped the reward of preaching about an unreal world, or a world that no longer exists. The World has simply made it irrelevant.

Yet Society needs Religion to nourish and keep alive the innate decency of many human beings, and prevent life degenerating into the free-for-all, envisaged by Hobbes in his Leviathan. And it helps if there is a hero, in whom we can all find inspiration. Better still, if there is a hero who leads us to the Almighty, the Creator of it all. So that in meeting Him, and in getting to know Him, one is prepared one day to face the awful mystery which is reality.

What went wrong – is probably deeply hidden in the collective unconscious of the Christian community. If it is in the unconscious, we will not be aware of it. Does that matter? And God, what does He think?