A CHURCH leader has announced his New Year's resolution - to challenge the view that "religion is dead and buried".

Writing in Crux, the Manchester diocese magazine, the Rt Rev David Gillett, Bishop of Bolton, hit out at the media who "talk about religion as a minority interest and Christianity as the faith of yesteryear".

The Bishop wrote that nearly 75 per cent of Britons call themselves Christian.

He added: "My New Year resolution is to take every opportunity to challenge the secularist view that religion is dead and buried.

"We owe it to the 70 per cent to speak up for the Christian way.

"I spent a lof of time working for the full inclusion of other faith groups within mainstream British society, with all the freedoms and rights that brings.

"Christians often tell me to give equal emphasis to Christians who face hardship, discrimination, persecution and even death because of a lack of freedom in their societies - and they are right.

"That is my second resolution."