Sam Wollaston (TV review, 6 March) calls me a “Christian zealot”. I think this is because I said during Monday’s largely admiring TV profile of Philip Pullman that this author’s work is an attempt to undermine Christianity. Actually, I was citing Mr Pullman’s own self-description. In the Washington Post, on 19 February 2001, Mr Pullman was quoted by his interviewer, Alona Wartofsky, as having said: “I’m trying to undermine the basis of Christian belief.” As it happens, I am a soppy, broad-church Anglican who dislikes any sort of religious enthusiasm or sectarianism, given to hiding behind a pillar during Evensong. I don’t especially want to undermine anyone’s faith, even that of atheists. Surely, it is Mr Pullman, with his self-declared hostile intent towards the Church, who is the zealot.
Peter Hitchens
London
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