I AGREE with John White (Oxford Mail, March 31) that school children should learn about the world’s major religions, including Christianity.

However, it is most important that first they have a knowledge and understanding of their own religion before learning about others.

With regard to his comment concerning the subsidy of faith–based schools, Christians often pay twice; both as taxpayers and as contributors to their church’s education fund.

The success rate of Christian schools is often higher than the comparable state school.

His next comment was about subsidising hospital chaplains. It is taxpayers who finance the NHS and it is therefore the taxpayers who finance the chaplains and have a right to their help when ill in hospital.

The sterile comments made about chaplains by our secular society, based only on money, show that they are unaware of the total needs (body, mind and spirit) of hospital patients and of those who love and care for them.

Some hospitals discourage patients from requesting the presence of chaplains.

Mr White states that the lifestyles of many are influenced by the concept of a divine presence. Does he not know that it is possible for the unprejudiced person, using his reason, to come to a certain but limited knowledge of that divine presence?

This divine presence manifests his presence in nature and has revealed his presence to individuals and nations down the centuries.

It was Jesus who told us everything about that divine presence; that he is our creator and father and whose tender love and care for us is overwhelming.

Jesus also told us that God has a plan for each of our lives which will lead to our eternal happiness. The more we abandon our Christian principles the deeper we will slide into a moral quagmire. The evidence for that happening is all around us.

DERMOT R CARROLL, Wilkins Road, Cowley, Oxford