"The Church is looking for a candidate to maintain the balance."

"What balance?"

"Between those that believe in God and those that don't."

The genius of the Church of England captured by the genius of Yes Prime Minister.

So popular is this image of the dear old CofE - broad, tolerant, generous, liberal to the point of agnostic - that it can come as a shock to read the Thirty-Nine Articles, the defining statement of Anglican doctrine:

"Christ did truly rise again from death, and took again his body...

The condition of Man after the fall of Adam is such, that he cannot turn and prepare himself, by his own natural strength and good works, to faith...

Man is very far gone from original righteousness, and is of his own nature inclined to evil, so that the flesh lusteth always contrary to the Spirit; and therefore in every person born into this world, it deserveth God's wrath and damnation...

We are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by Faith, and not for our own works or deservings..."

Not much woolliness there.

This appears to be a classic example of cognitive dissonance. The national church is warm and cuddly but also hard-edged. It's open to all but convinced that "the visible Church of Christ is a congregation of faithful men [sic], in which the pure Word of God is preached and the sacraments be duly administered."

But it's also reassuringly Christ-like. No one would accuse Jesus Christ of woolliness, of a vague, easy-going, take-it-or-leave uber-tolerance. "Repent and believe; the kingdom of God is at hand" was the equivalent of a suicide note in first-century Palestine.

But nor would anyone accuse him of alienating those outside the fold. Indeed, it was the fact that he spoke, touched and ate with outcasts, whilst proclaiming the kingdom, that so enraged the authorities.

It is possible, it seems, to have both a clear mind and open heart.

In case anyone thinks otherwise, I am not accusing the Church of England of living up to the standards of its Lord. Merely of trying to.

Agnostics belong at evensong, and indeed matins, communion or any other service. Such is its public image today - party self-generated, partly generated by those who seem to believe that every local parish church is a clandestine fundamentalist-factory - that non-believers seem unlikely to wander into church, to pause and reflect if not to repent and believe.

But having conducted qualitative research among those who did just that, it seems that when they do they are pleasantly, sometimes overwhelmingly, surprised.

This article first appeared in the Daily Telegraph's Ways and Means blog.