OK, that title was a ridiculous pander.  

Just a quick note of another column in concurrence with the broad line of discussion that Greg has been tracing:

In writing to Don Giovanni–a Catholic priest, Lewis commented on the matter and  observed that  modern man was in such a lamentable state that perhaps it was necessary “first to make people good pagans, and after that to make them Christians”.

(source: Pagans or Puritans…You Choose)

(shameless plug:  some of my poems recently published)