Committed secularists who oppose Christianity in schools fail to see their own principles depend in large part on wisdom born of the faith.

That’s according to the Bishop of Down and Connor, Alan McGuickian.

Bishop McGuickian was commenting on a recent ruling of the UK Supreme Court that state schools in Northern Ireland should not be teaching Christianity ‘as true’.

Bishop McGuckian, however, said he wanted to challenge the principle that Christianity should be given no priority at all in schools, saying it, “is simply ungrounded, unreasonable and illogical.”

“Those who seek to have Christianity sidelined in our shared society are cutting off their noses to spite their face. The very values and principles on which they base their case are rooted in western civilisation which owes a great debt to the teachings of Christianity.”

“The idea of the rights of the individual to be free from coercion, all the freedoms contained in the various charters of human rights, are based on and stem from the biblical teaching that every single person is created ‘in the image and likeness of God’.