I’VE tried atheism and I can’t stick it: I keep having doubts. That probably sums up my position — if I’m a Don’t Know, I’m a C of E Don’t Know.

My father died when I was 12, which I’m sure had some bearing on my belief. If you’re an atheist, death drives you away by proving that it’s all pointless; if you’re not, it makes you go back and face it — it’s one of the rituals that Anglicanism is terribly good at.

A. N. Wilson, writing about funerals, suggested that we are all in a long line of worshippers going back about 1,000 years, all shuffling slowly to be the next one to fall into the grave, which is a fabulous image. I like a good funeral; I like that a lot.

My father was a civil engineer who was stationed abroad most of the time. I was born in Wales before we moved to Nigeria, and I went to school in all sorts of places, notably Jedda, in a school run by Americans. We had to salute the flag in the morning, which I liked because I refused to do this and it made me feel more English. My father was a Presbyterian Scot and I was baptised as a baby, but without godparents, so there’s no one to claim responsibility for my moral welfare, which is just as well.

We did go to church, but I don’t remember much about it before I was about 8, after which there was a lot of chapel. Unlike most people who had to sit through chapel services, I wasn’t bored or irritated — I found it quite interesting.

While I was at Ardingly College, a fantastically traditional Anglican boys’ public school, it was swept by a religious revival.Christian Union membership went from about 11 to about 300 (almost the entire school), and we had a full-blooded, charismatic evangelical revival. Boys who were supposed to be reading the lesson would suddenly start witnessing, American-style, and there were huge prayer meetings for hours after lights out.

It was extraordinary, in a closed community, feeling that you were the Early Church, and the staff had no idea what to do about it. Most were good Christian men and the headmaster was a former monk and, although they were inclined to think that it was just schoolboy enthusiasm, part of them was paralysed by the terrifying thought that it might be the real thing.

It burnt itself out after a couple of terms — during one school holiday everybody met girls and gave up completely. To my older eyes, now, it was very ludicrous but also incredibly exciting and I’ve never quite lost that sense of excitement, even though, like an innoculation, it has left me with a certain resistance to that particular evangelical form of religion.

After school I went to a kibbutz before going up to Oxford. I was at Magdalen — I went to a Christian Union meeting or two before deciding it wasn’t for me; went to chapel occasionally (there was a lovely choir). Religion was part of the background, but I was not a committed university Christian. Later I had my children christened in the college chapel, so that’s a place I love.

I went to a confirmation recently in Dorchester Abbey, which is more than 1,000 years old, and there is that sense that people in this country have been doing this for a very, very long time, and being part of that line is immensely comforting.

People ask why we don’t have leadership, but I feel that if I wanted leadership I would not belong to the Church of England. But I like being part of a Church where, after the tsunami, the Archbishop says not: “I can see God’s hand in this,” but rather: “A lot of you might think that this proves it’s all rubbish” — and then he goes to the next stage and tells you that his faith is still there, and gives you some reasons why, and some examples, and then you begin to go with him.

A Church that allows for science, biblical theology, unbiblical scholarship and changes in knowledge, and trusts its members to form their own opinions — that is its strength. I like it because it isn’t inflexible; it has a woolly appeal for those of us with a woollier mind.

I’m often accused of being a cynic, which I’m not, because that implies someone with no belief in anything. I happily admit to being a sceptic, but I think there is a tradition of English satire which is Augustinian in its approach: you do it because you think you are taking the part of the people who you think are right.