One of those small vignette-style scenes that occasionally goes through my mind has resurfaced of late.

A few years ago I was sitting in church when the preacher related a story. Apparently he’d recently met his friend, who’d said that, while he wasn’t a Christian, sometimes when he was out walking his dog, he felt close to God.

“Ah, but is there salvation in it?”, the preacher asked us.

Had it not been only a rhetorical question, my answer would have been an enthusiastic “Yes (smartass)”. Because isn’t that the definition and purpose of salvation?

When the destination is the same, at the other end of the motorway, insisting on travelling a given trunk road to join it is particularly futile and partisan.

We’d do a lot better to recognize the grace behind Gandhi’s quote: So we can only pray, if we are Hindus, not that a Christian should become a Hindu … But our innermost prayer should be a Hindu should be a better Hindu, a Muslim a better Muslim, a Christian a better Christian.