I am bemused to read in the Journal Letter's page (14/04/05) that my earlier letters pleading for English children to be taught about their own innovative ancient culture has only engendered rather shaky arguments about the pros and cons of religion.

However, I still maintain that the role of Christianity in civilising Western Europe is unparalleled because no other culture has equalled it. Political wars have always outnumbered religious wars. Indeed the conflicts described by Dr J.F.Young are political and geographical; if the Israelis and the Palestinians were agnostic they would still be at war. How does he suggest that "Science and reason" became part of the European culture? If not through the early Church scholars who transmitted the Classical philosophies of logic, geometry, mathematics and grammar through their own philosophical writings, which were disseminated throughout the monasteries of Europe. John Locke and Isaac Newton were both graduates of an English University, a direct descendent of the monastic ethos. Which also fostered the first grammar schools and hospitals; two of the earliest still exist very successfully in London: St Bartholomew's Hospital (l189 AD) and Dean Colet's St Paul's School (1240AD) where Pepys was a scholar.

In reply to Mr Richard Martin (Journal 7/04/05) I can only point out that the Rennaisance was not a myth, neither were Michaelangelo nor Leonardo; neither is the Book or Kells nor the Sistine Chapel. The Reformation and the Guggenberg Bible were not myths and neither was Bach. Oxford University is not a myth and neither is Salisbury Cathedral. They are all direct results of Christianity. And so was Geoffrey Chaucer, (c1340AD), the father of English literature (200 years before Shakespeare), the author of the first work in vernacular English, The Canterbury Tales, about a Christian pilgrimage to a Christian Cathedral.

Sheila Jones (Mrs), New Road, Offenham, Evesham.