"Mr Derbyshire—-A basic phenomenon when dealing with Russians is that being Russian equates to being Orthodox in the Russian mind. 'Sectarians' (i.e., Protestants) are widely reviled, and Uniates (Roman Catholics using the Orthodox liturgical forms) are mostly confined to Ukraine and its environs. When did you last hear of a group of Muslim Russian citizens refer to themselves as Russians?

"The upshot? It's like Italians and Roman Catholicism. The Italians all claim it, even if the piety and practice aren't there."

[Derb] This issue of religious identification from cultural motives (as opposed to actual piety) seems to need factoring into any discussion of how religious a population is. It used to be the case that 99 percent of non-RC English people, faced with a box on a form labeled "Religion" would write in "C. of E.," even in they hadn't been inside a church for years. I feel pretty sure that my father—a militant atheist, but 100 percent Grade-A English—did this.

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John, your correspondent has a good point (as you recognize), and, as you say, the same applies in England. For example, with the exception of "hatches, matches and despatches" and, when the time comes, my own deathbed conversion, I never step foot inside a church, but I always describe myself as C of E.

The more interesting question is how much the distinction between 'cultural' and 'actual' religion really matters in practice in countries where the wilder excesses of religious enthusiasm have, thank God, faded away. If, in such countries, you identify yourself as a cultural 'Christian', your general worldview and moral outlook are, if only loosely, likely to reflect the way that that the practical teachings of that religion (who cares about theology?) have evolved in that country and will not be particularly affected by, for example, your view as to what may or may not have happened two thousand years ago.

What is more problematic (I seem to recall this was discussed in 'The Closing of the American Mind') is whether this cutural Christianity is strong enough to be passed on to successive generations. I'd argue that it is, but only in societies culturally self-confident enough to do so. Sadly, England no longer appears to meet that test.

In the recent exchanges about eugenics, one such reader explained to me at length why even the merest kind of genetic intervention is wrong, wrong, wrong. I couldn't follow his argument at all. It might as well have been in Greek—which, in fact, a couple of his technical terms were!

If that is typical of the arguments that will be placed before the American public to persuade them that it would be wrong, wrong, wrong for them to pay $2,000 to a clinic to increase the odds of their newborn being healthy, clever, and good-looking; well, as I said, lotsa luck.

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