Nothing wrong with spiritual guidance

Regarding your article about prayer before meetings for public business.

We live in a moral universe. It is the wisdom of the ages that good ultimately triumphs over evil and that the victory of evil over good is only ever temporary and illusory.

It was that knowledge that sustained us through the dark years of the Second World War.

History is a much neglected subject these days but we need to heed its lessons.

The Danish incursions caused much pain, loss and suffering and peace treaties were always broken, often almost immediately. That is until 878AD when King Alfred (righted called "the Great") made peace with the Danes by giving them land on condition they abandoned their pagan gods and espoused Christian faith.

It worked and within five years the now Christian Danes were asking their Wessex brethren to come to their aid against the incursions of the own pagan cousins from across the North Sea.

Peace in the long-term can only be assured where the people have shared symbols of their identity.

Robert J Lifton has drawn attention to the problems of societal breakdown where such symbols are lost in his major work The Broken Connection which was a reflection of what he learnt as a psychiatrist in Hiroshima.

Multi-culturalism inevitably leads to the breakdown of social relations and in our society we have gone farther and abandoned civility, morality and virtue as the foundation stones of public life.

Biblical faith is not a moral system; it is not a mode of holding on or staying in control. It is an act of yielding in the present to the assurances given for God's future.

Prayer before public business is an acknowledgement that we in our humanity have not got it all worked out and that we need both humility and wisdom from beyond ourselves if we are to make sound decisions on matters that affect us all. It is folly and arrogance to think otherwise.

S G B Baker Ash Tree House Crickham Wedmore