Dear Madge,

My boyfriend is quite anxious for me to become an Anglican. He is getting ready to bombard me with Christian literature and videos and to have clergymen come and see me and to generally make my life quite miserable with his evangelism until I see the light.

I am an agnostic and have no serious objections to doing what he asks, especially since Anglicanism seems a rather cute and undemanding little faith with far and away the best music of any branch of Christendom. I am tempted to agree just to get some peace. What do you think.

Unsure of Reid (a suburb of Canberra)

Madge says:

Although conversion in the hope of a quiet life would be a mistake in some more earnest, whirling, wild-eyed religions, it may do no harm to become just another grazing Anglican.

And for everyone who ever thinks of converting to Christianity to get some peace and quiet, there is an influential precedent in history. In the year 1000, the Althing, the Icelandic parliament, voted to accept Christianity because because it knew that this would remove the main excuse the current King of Norway had for invading them.

You may choose to think yourself as Iceland and of your boyfriend as the King of Norway and of your quiet adoption of Anglicanism as the means of avoiding a space-invading fuss.