Hideously diverse Britain: The hardline according to the Rev Peter Ratcliff

The Rev Peter Ratcliff is a evangelical minister of the uncompromising variety, and many things trouble him about the world as we live it. The drink, the sex. Female clergy, that quite a big one; it's what led him to leave the mainstream church. And right now, there's the fact that, as he ministers to his flock in south-west London, he can see a mosque, and it's one that has been earmarked for a £2m development. Not an irritant of Ground Zero proportions, perhaps. And Colliers Wood, south London, is not Manhattan. But the existing one-storey mosque would rise to three, and the gloomy whitewashed frontage would disappear, replaced by a classical flat front, with arched picture windows. At the top, a dome and a minaret. This bothers Ratcliff, the editor of the hardline English Churchman newspaper, on so many levels that he felt moved to write a protest letter, warning that "so many Muslims will be drawn to the area that they will be put under sharia law". The minaret would be used for a call to prayer, he said, and as for the underground car park? What a potential boon for terrorists. "Some of our Muslim neighbours are starting to integrate nicely into society but a large mosque would exert pressure on them to conform to sharia and not make friends with 'infidels'," warned the reverend. Blood-curdling stuff. So one of the first things I asked when we met was, "Have you ever been to the mosque?" He hadn't, so we did. And soon we were shoeless, taking tea with three of the white-gowned trustees in the break between prayers at Eid. There'll be the same number of people using the mosque as now, they told him. But we'll have a kitchen, a study area and meeting facilities. No call to prayer; that's not allowed. As for extremists, we are conservatives – like you, Rev Ratcliff. But no truck with extremists. He namedropped Jesus a lot. They smiled pained smiles and raised the commonality of the Prophet Abraham and Adam and Eve. He didn't like their plan when we arrived; and he still didn't like it when we left. But he seemed to like them a bit, and enjoyed the tussle about theology. Progress enough for one day.