In Depth:  John Appleby

As the clever professor said on the BBC one Sunday recently: 'Religion has become relatively unimportant in this society.' And he is right, isn't he? Our society is going further and further from God, with increasing speed. No longer is there even a nominal understanding of Christian things to which we, as Christians, can relate.

We can now boast the highest level of unmarried teenage mothers of any developed country. Abortions are performed here at something like 500 a day! We have the largest prison population of any European country. An estimated million of our young people are using drugs. The great city of London is advertised in America by our Tourist Board as 'the gay city of the world' - and they don't mean that it is a city full of mirth. I needn't go on, for you can add more and more facts like those yourselves. Religion is relatively unimportant in our society.

Research into the process of communication provides an interesting insight into how we communicate the gospel . . .

Because human beings have always communicated with each other, one might be forgiven for supposing that we know by now how communication works.