Yet over 100m copies of the Bible are sold or given away every year. Annual Bible sales in America are worth between $425m and $650m; Gideon's International gives away a Bible every second. The Bible is available all or in part in 2,426 languages, covering 95% of the world's population.

But U.S. District Judge Barbara M.G. Lynn in Dallas upheld the statute this week.

She said the law - amended in 2003 to add the word "pray" to "reflect" and "meditate" as options for students' use of the minute - does not promote an "excessive entanglement between government and religion."

Bishop Nazir-Ali's concern that the rapidity and scale of immigration, together with the policy of multiculturalism, threaten Britain's Christian heritage are echoed by the Church of England General Synod, a majority of which worries that large-scale immigration is "diluting the Christian nature of Britain".

In 1988, 74.9% of the American Public thought that sex between two people of the same gender was always wrong. By 1998, the percentage had fallen to 54.6% (National Opinion research Center, The University of Chicago.)