“In my business, asking people to risk their lives is part of the job, but doing so without giving them the chance to understand that there is a life after death is something of a betrayal … inspiration best comes from a personal relationship with Jesus Christ … the example of his life, the purpose of his death and the hope that comes from his resurrection brings that special dimension to leadership and to life itself.” Isn’t it reassuring to know that the commander in chief of the British Army is more than just a few of rounds short of a full ammunition belt?

For those were the reported comments of General Sir Richard Dannatt, who managed to take time off from fighting two wars, in order to address a recent conference for evangelical Christians in Swanwick, Derbyshire. To my ears, it would have been scarcely less bizarre had he been extolling the virtues of the goddess Aphrodite, discussing his private conversations with Elvis, or perhaps suggesting that every soldier be equipped with a voodoo doll of Osama bin Laden as a key weapon in the war against terror. And yet, with one notable exception, the General’s remarks produced barely a murmur in the press; while our politicians, fearful as ever of losing the God vote, maintained a strict radio silence – such is the absurd degree of respect we routinely afford those who would order their lives (and indeed everyone else’s given half a chance) around the delusions of one or other of the ancient mythologies.

But what makes this latest public display of deranged thinking at once astonishing and deeply disturbing, is Sir Richard’s explicit invocation of a metaphysics of life after death. Failing to explain to our brave soldiers that this life is but a trivial prelude to the eternal life to come, would in his words amount to a “betrayal.” Has he forgotten so soon the apocalyptic events (if you pardon the expression) which brought on our disastrous misadventures in the Middle East? When the 9/11 hijackers ploughed into the World Trade Center in 2001, they did so with a huge grin on their faces. For they believed with chilling certainty that they were merely seconds away from entering a paradise flowing with milk and honey, scented wine and delicious fruits, and never forgetting of course the seventy-two dark-eyed rechargeable virgins (or whatever it is that devout Muslims actually believe). So it was that 16 acres of Lower Manhattan were duly demolished in the name of the “religion of peace.”

Yet now we learn that Sir Richard himself holds beliefs which, though arising from Christian culture, are qualitatively no different to those held by the 19 gentlemen who managed six years ago to upend our world in such spectacular fashion. So, whilst it seems most unlikely that the General will soon be perpetrating a terrorist atrocity of his own, do we really think that he is a fit person to be commanding the British Army?