I'VE listened to a number of radio and television programmes recently which have posed the question "Does Religion Cause War?".

My answer is a definite "no". Human beings cause wars.

Both history and archaeology tell us that there have been wars from the dawn of time. It seems that we humans are a warlike people. We seem to need enemies. When we don't find them, we invent them.

But religion does tend to fuel these wars. Once a war has begun, we all seem to want to think that God is on our side. The other side will also want to say that God is on their side. This makes war even more dangerous.

The worst kind of war is which one side sees themselves as the saviours of the world. It is not just that God is on their side, they go one step further and claim that God has given them, and them alone, a mission to save the world. Christianity was guilty of this in the Crusades.

My worry is that America is preaching a secular version of this kind of war. Although America is a secular country, although it does not teach religious faith in its schools, it still has a national religion of a sort. In the present "War on Terrorism" the voice that comes from America seems to be saying -- "We alone can save the world."

When I was a child, we played the game of cowboys and Indians. The cowboys were always right and the Indians always wrong. In the present conflict, America seems to want to say that it alone can save the world with its religion of democracy, freedom and capitalism.

To preach this gospel is a lie. No matter how justified we are in going in search of bin Laden and other terrorists, no matter how bad these terrorists are, the doctrine that America can save the world will only make things worse. It will only turn the present conflict into a bigger one.

Secular religion, like that of America, can fuel wars just as much as traditional religion does.

If, as a world community, we plead with our Islamic brothers and sisters to reinterpret their doctrine of Holy War, so we should plead with our American brothers and sisters to renounce the belief that they are the saviours of the world. America can never be the saviour or even the policemen of the world.

Michael Williams

Vicar of Bolton Parish Church