People interested in leaving Islam for Christianity often believe that the personality of God is the same; they have heard that Christians worship the true God but our fault is in associating Jesus with him, calling Jesus God's Son. So when they move from Islam to Christianity they tend to focus on superficial differences regarding dress and diet. They rightly realize that they are getting rid of Muhammad and declaring allegiance to Jesus.

Under this legislation those who refused to attend Church of England service (recusants), whether Catholic or Nonconformist, could also suffer severe penalties.

But from 1800 these Acts were seldom enforced, except at Oxford and Cambridge universities, where Nonconformists and Catholics could not matriculate (Oxford) or graduate (Cambridge). The Acts were finally repealed over a number of years with little controversy.

In your own local Anglican church, you will find this "council" at the annual congregational meeting, and between those meetings through a representative group called the vestry. At the diocesan level, this happens at the annual diocesan synod--gathering all of the clergy and lay delegates of every congregation to meet together "in council" to make important decisions that affect the life and mission of the diocese and its congregations.

But the Archbishop also said that God is not a father in the same way that a human would be -- and that descriptions of God are always "to some degree metaphorical".

Speaking at St Martin-in-the-Fields in London on Monday evening, Archbishop Justin said: "It is extraordinarily important as Christians that we remember that the definitive revelation of who God is was not in words, but in the word of God who we call Jesus Christ. We can't pin God down."