No revenge

Militant secularists are not exactly renowned for their objectivity when it comes to debating Christianity, so it came as little surprise when Garry Otton of the Scottish Secular Society produced the standard cocktail of half-truths and nasty rumour in his response to Reverend Robert Anderson (Letters, 22 January).

Recalling the 1988 bombing of a Paris cinema by a group claiming to be made up of Christians revenging the screening of Martin Scorsese’s film The Last Temptation of Christ, Mr Otton part-quoted the then-archbishop of Paris, Cardinal Lustiger, in a way that hinted at His Eminence’s approval of that criminal act.

In fact, Cardinal Lustiger, having indeed lamented the offence given to millions of Christians by Scorsese’s sacrilegious film, went on to say to those responsible for the revenge attack: “You don’t behave as Christians but as enemies of Christ.”

Mr Otton carefully omitted these qualifying words.

To love, not hate, one’s neighbour, is the Christian commandment. Hence, while it is very painful to have to bear public insults of religious mockery by those who use freedom of expression as a cloak for malice, revenge of any kind on the part of Christians is out of the question.

Martin Blackshaw

Glen Road

Livingston