DEVOUT Muslims are right to complain about the way the prophet Mohammed has been mocked in the newspaper cartoons which have appeared in several Western countries. But they are wrong to threaten death to the perpetrators. I have a lot of sympathy with Muslims on this issue for I have had to endure seeing the Lord Jesus Christ ceaselessly derided and lampooned in the press, on television and in films.

But it would be wrong of me to call for the Python set to be "beheaded" for their blasphemous film, The Life of Brian, which gives us an image of a singing Christ on the cross. And even I would not ask for the Director General of the BBC to be "exterminated" for the scurrilous and filthy representation of Our Lord in that nasty and infantile piece of pornography, Jerry Springer: The Musical.

I have even more in common with Muslims when they express astonishment that we, who live in so-called Christian countries, are not more outraged when we see God and the Lord Jesus ridiculed in our mass media.

But let's get one thing straight. Forget the idea that Britain is any longer a Christian country. There is only one state religion here now and it is the consumer-fest-celeb-culture of self-indulgence, over-consumption, tastelessness and freak shows such as Big Brother. No wonder the holy Muslim, living his life of fasting, Friday attendance and five times a day praying despises us. The Muslim is right to despise us.

But the Muslim is not right to call for us to be beheaded or otherwise exterminated. And to do so betrays a colossal immaturity and overreaction to an insult. No grown-up person with a sense of perspective calls for the death of anyone who upsets him. That is the world of the petulant child, the unformed sensitivity and even the tyrant. The makers of the cartoons were in error, but those who call for their death are absurd and psychopathic.

Moreover, the whole incident is being blown up as yet another instance of Islamophobia and racism. The word Islamophobia has no place in the English language. And the word racism, whether institutionalised or otherwise, is usually only totalitarian jargon for bad manners. Gratuitously to insult Mohammed, Moses, Buddha or the Lord Jesus shows tastelessness, insensitivity and bad manners. It is not something which an intelligent, civilised, well-brought-up, polite person would do.

But we are not polite and civilised. Look at them all bingeing and ogling the freak shows on telly. Intelligent? You must be joking! Have you seen the preferred entertainments these days?

But the wisest and most courageous words written on this nasty business so far were by Charles Moore in a newspaper last Saturday. He deplores the insult to Muslims, but he condemns their hysterical, childish and threatening response to the insult.

Moore says: "Jack Straw gibbers about the irresponsibility of the cartoons but says nothing about the Muslims threatening death in response to them. I wish someone would mention the word that dominates Western culture in the face of militant Islam - fear. And then I wish someone would face it down."

Well, I will not be impressed by the extreme and immature overreaction of the Islamists. I will not be frightened. And I will not be bullied. I will face it down.

* Peter Mullen is Rector of St Michael's, Cornhill, in the City of London and Chaplain to the Stock Exchange.