"the sons of this world are more shrewd . . . than the sons of light"

"My sister, years ago, asked me to be godfather to my new nephew and I, being very dutiful though frequently misguided, felt obliged to tell the C of E vicar in a hesitant English way that I was, er, not really religious, in fact I was, um, a bit of an atheist really…sorry.
"'No problem' said the vicar, explaining that there was nothing in the rules saying that godfathers had to be Christian, although, when I heard the baptism service, I realised this was only because it was so obviously central to the whole palaver that nobody had thought to spell it out."

Oliver Cross, "a radical atheist to the left of Richard Dawkins," in the Yorkshire evening post, 21 January 2011 (http://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/olivercross/Oliver-Cross-Church-needs-to.6698143.jp).