London, England - Most people believe that religion is a force for good and should play an important part in national life, according to research published today at the launch of a counter-attack against secularism.
The survey by Theos, a newly-formed religious think tank backed by the leaders of the Anglican and Roman Catholic Churches, also found young people were less hostile to faith than their elders.
Launching its initiative, which will refuel an already inflammatory debate over the role of Christianity and the State, Theos attacked "public atheism" and called for a "fight-back" for faith.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, and Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, the head of Catholics in England and Wales, said that religion had rarely been so significant or so misunderstood.
They argued that those who campaigned for the removal of religion from national life were themselves guilty of an "intolerant faith position".
In a joint foreword to a Theos report entitled Doing God: a Future for Faith in the Public Square, they said that religiously-inspired activity in the public arena could be "radically inclusive".
The report argued against confining faith to the private sphere and predicted that religion would play an increasingly crucial role because of growing interest in its part in promoting happiness and well-being as well as its impact on civil society and the politics of identity.
The Archbishop and the Cardinal referred in their foreword to Leo Tolstoy, who resisted the conventional wisdom of his day that religion could not be taken seriously by educated people because of his growing perplexity about the meaning and value of life.
They said that people today were experiencing similar perplexity and asked: "As a society, we must decide how we will respond to this moment of collective confusion — can we go on living as before? Or, like Tolstoy, will we reassess the importance of faith to individuals and society?"
The Church leaders' remarks follow rows over faith schools, the wearing of crosses and the publication of an attack on religion by Richard Dawkins, the Oxford University professor and "militant" atheist, in his book The God Delusion.
But a poll of 1,008 adults for Theos by CommunicateResearch found that 53 per cent of Britons agreed that, on balance, religion is a force for good, compared with 39 per cent who disagreed. An even higher proportion, 58 per cent, agreed that Christianity had an important role to play in public life, while 37 per cent did not.
The survey also found that young adults were least likely to agree with Prof Dawkins's assessment that religion is one of the world's great evils, comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to eradicate.
Of 18 to 24-year-olds, just over a third, 36 per cent, agreed with this statement, in contrast to 44 per cent of 35 to 44-year-olds and 47 per cent of 55 to 64-year-olds.
Paul Woolley, the director of Theos, said: "It is clear that society is embarking on rapid de-secularisation. It is no longer considered bold, brave and brilliant to argue that religion is an infantile delusion."
But Terry Sanderson, of the National Secular Society, said the report was "a recipe for disaster".
"The British public does not want its life to be dictated by religious institutions, which it sees as nasty, small-minded and controlling."
