God is behind some of our greatest art

Richard Dawkins, biologist and bestselling author of The God Delusion. Photograph: Sutton-Hibbert/Rex Features

And so the stellar casting in Doctor Who continues with the news that Professor Richard Dawkins, biologist and bestselling author of The God Delusion, is to appear in the current series as himself. On Outpost Gallifrey, the definitive Doctor Who website, I read that Russell T Davies, the show's executive producer, and all the crew were delighted to see Dawkins. "People were falling at his feet," says Davies. "We've had Kylie Minogue on that set, but it was Dawkins that people were worshipping."

It's a great tribute to our age that a scientist can still be greeted with more adulation than a pop princess. But I can't help noting the irony of the imagery that Dawkins' reception has conjured up. Falling at his feet? Worshipping? It all seems oddly reminiscent of the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem in the days before his Passion; a strange resonance for the scientist who has declared himself the champion of secularism in a world where, he claims, the delusions of faith are gaining an increasing stranglehold.

Christianity is a myth. But it's a myth that has helped us - and continues to help us - ask searching moral and philosophical questions. Ours is an age in which a lack of belief, at least in secular Europe, is prized. Before, having one overarching belief was central to life, guiding our choices. But now we're all supposed to travel light, be supple, so that we can swap jobs, partners or political allegiances at a moment's notice. But this perpetual state of agnosticism, this lack of commitment, must surely be corrosive. Those who are able to locate, and to explore intelligently, a system of belief, be that religious or political, are surely making a valuable contribution to our times. We may not share their beliefs, but we should treasure them.

As a child, I had a few years of passionate interest in the church. I'm not sure I ever connected with the spiritual aspect of God. I went to a Methodist church, where we were more robustly pragmatic than metaphysical, but I loved biblical stories more than any other children's literature. The great, essential dramas of father and son, mother and child, brother and brother, were fought out on those pages and gripped my imagination. I loved the sometimes mysterious beauty of the King James Bible, and I loved singing along with the great marching, proto-socialist anthems of the Methodist church.

As my teenage years hit, so did disillusion, and I retreated into my bedroom with a stack of records and John Peel for company. But I'm sure the narrative, ritual and music of the church were an essential part of my education as a writer. I'm not alone. The late Sarah Kane acknowledged that her youthful Christianity was the single most formative influence on her playwriting. It's strange to think that her Blasted and my Shopping and Fucking wouldn't have been written without the Christian church. But that's the truth. There's something about their sharp iconography and intense language that suggests a youthful experience of Christianity on the part of the writer. And I resent the possibility that aggressive secularism would deny future generations this inspiration.

The Bible - as literature, if nothing else - should be an essential part of every child's experience. And children should study the great Christian art of the past, too. We often have a revisionist view of this great legacy of paintings, music and literature. Of course, we can't help denying the beauty and resonance of the Sistine Chapel, Handel's Messiah, Milton's Paradise Lost or the York mystery plays. But we like to tell ourselves that their creators were covert humanists, who wanted to make art and had no choice other than to make it within the confines of a church that held all the power and money.

This idea that all artists are essentially humanists is a comforting myth for an agnostic age. There is little evidence to support it. It is, if you like, the agnostic's delusion - because the very opposite is true. The greatest artists, from Matthias Grünewald in the 15th century to Benjamin Britten in the 20th, had a genuine Christian faith: complicated, questioning, agonised at times, as any intelligent faith should be, but a very real faith all the same.

The church continues to play a largely beneficent role in the arts ecology of Britain. It maintains and restores the legacy of church architecture - an important collection of beautiful buildings whatever your beliefs. And churches up and down the country offer, as any working musician will testify, a fantastic programme of recitals and concerts of both secular and religious pieces, often for free or for a low ticket price. Areas where there is little access to live classical music are having that provision met almost entirely by the church. The more enlightened churches are still commissioning work, from paintings to sculptures and music.

Of course, we have to guard against the aggressive and restrictive fundamentalism that has poisoned so much of America. In the US, evangelicals and fundamentalists have now strangled school curricula and stunted, if not actually dictated, the agendas of arts organisations, leaving the nation culturally poorer. But we're not America. Our Christian tradition is very different. We should celebrate the Christian legacy in western art and society - and stop the Dawkins army from denying us the possibility of drawing inspiration from faith to create the art of the future.