SO Gordon MacRae of the Humanist Society (Letters, March 15) is of the opinion that anyone who does not share his secular beliefs should not be involved in educational policy-making.

Secularists subtly suggest that in some way secularism is the default position for any rational, thinking person - without prejudices, anodyne and value-free. I would suggest that the views expressed in Mr MacRae's letter indicate that this is not the case.

What Mr MacRae's letter highlights is that we have here a clash of world views. One of the privileges of living in our liberal democracy is that different world views have the right to be expressed and to be heard, whether that is a world view based on faith or one whose religion is secular humanism. Otherwise we have totalitarianism.

It was the Christian church which laid the foundations of the Scottish educational system, from the time of John Knox's vision of “a school in every parish” up until 1872 when the state took over responsibility for education. Based on the contribution made by the church to Scottish education over the centuries there is every justification for people of Christian faith to be involved in education.

William Baird,

Rossnowlagh, 2 St Clement Avenue, Dunblane.