An obscure newspaper in a small country commissions and prints a series of cartoons. The cartoons depict the leader of one of the world's major religious faiths.

Even in the freest of democracies the freedom to demonstrate its circumscribed by other rights. It is an abuse of my right if I intend to incite or practice violence.

Holding up placards calling for murder or the repeat of terrorist atrocities, as some protesters did in London, is not furthering any argument in a positive way and simply turns up the volume on the rhetoric of violence. These threats and those who make them must be treated with the same strong opposition in law as people who actually plan terrorist bombings. The scale of penalty may differ, but there must be strong legal action.

In the case of the Danish cartoons and the reaction to them, both democratic rights have been abused.

Freedom of speech was not well served by those newspaper which published the cartoons. They overstepped the mark - as they often have done, incidentally, in their treatment of ideas related to Christianity. They knew the material would only cause offence and unrest.

On the other hand, some Western Muslims - a minority who are obviously looking for a fight -- have abused the freedom to demonstrate. They have called for the destruction of people, property and social order in societies which, after all, allow them freedoms not normally accorded them in their countries of origin - the freedom of religious expression for one.

Meanwhile, in Muslim nations, thousands have gone beyond marching and taken to burning embassies. In some cases, in Damascus and Lebanon for example, civil authorities have almost turned a blind eye to the destruction of these properties, thereby giving tacit approval to the actions of the mob.

There is still a huge ideological gulf between the democracies of the West and theocracies elsewhere. There is also a clear gap between the values on which civilizations have been built.

Perhaps we'll never change the minds and hearts of people who live with theocracy, but we can at least make our own house stronger.

It is time for us to choose: not just which laws we will live by, for law alone cannot produce harmony and peace. We must choose which spiritual values we will adhere to, for the law is simply a reflection of much deeper spiritual values.

If we are to come through the so-called 'clash of civilizations' around us, we will need to be very sure of who we are and what we stand for.

Today, we're living in a kind of spiritual vaccuum.

We try not to offend people whose cultures are not based on the same spiritual beliefs as our own, while being totally unsure of what it is we actually believe!

We have, for more than a century, steadily rejected the Christian faith and values which played a central role in making the West strong, creative and -- at least in our intent -- tolerant.

Wherever a spiritual vacuum exists something will try to fill it. We can't bury our heads in the sands of secularism and say "people are no longer interested in spiritual things." We need to admit that Christian faith does play a central role, as it always has, in shaping our values.

T.S. Eliot once noted that he could not see how European society where ever survive the complete destruction of Christianity. Christianity promotes the ideal of not only loving God, but loving our human neighbours as much as we do ourselves.

We must choose on which spiritual values we will build because religious systems do not all advocate the same values - and they don't all view freedom in the same light.