It may go without saying that, so far as he himself is concerned, the former Archbishop of Canterbury does indeed fully "accept the Christian revelation". But does this — can it? — mean that he should regard other religious traditions to be, perhaps even grievously, mistaken in their prima facie cognitively incompatible doctrinal claims? Or should we — should he? — understand the repetition of these claims in one traditional context or another, whether it be one of private or of common utterance, not so much as expressions of explicitly cognitive affirmation or endorsement, but rather as the performance of a verbally structured practice of continuing commitment to the community of which one may see oneself and be seen as a member — or indeed, as in the case of bishops, archbishops and the like as an institutionally important representative?

The continuing observance by their members of their traditional customs and practices plays, of course, a crucially important part in holding families and communities together across the generations with all that that means in terms of mutual recognition and support. And that other families and communities have each their own established traditions of shared practice, both verbal and non-verbal, is something much easier to accept — and even on occasion to take part in as honoured and respectful guest — than differences in belief as to the very nature of the universe and of the cognitively doctrinal demands that its supposed Author may be thought to make of us. Men and women of very different religious traditions, or even none at all, may perhaps ecumenically agree that there is indeed "quelque chose de sacré dans la nature", even if they have also to agree that it must in the end be impossible to specify, let alone actually to agree on just what may be meant by "the sacred", or how best to express one's recognition of it. But what the implications of such ecumenical agreement may be for the working theologians of different faith communities, and more especially of communities with long established traditions of their own specific revelation, is a question that one can only leave for debate among the theologians of such communities themselves.