BEING the rector of a Wren church in the City of London is nothing if not great fun.

We are a Grade One listed building and, since parish churches get no financial help from the state, we are always struggling to maintain the fabric. This is not easy as we have no resident population in the City. So we decided to levy the Voluntary Rate - a statute dating from 1956 which allows churches to render an annual account to the businesses within their parishes. It's called "voluntary" because, while we are allowed to levy it, the businesses are not obliged to pay it.

I am glad to report that since January 3 we have received about £10,000. I suppose not every business will pay the rate in full. Many have phoned to say they would prefer to make a donation instead. Fine by me, but the point is that none has shown us any hostility; no one has objected to the levy. There has been only one sour note and it came from that dour band of atheistical Calvinists, the National Secular Society. Well, that's fair enough: live and let live. No one is forced to pay the voluntary rate and no one is forced to believe in God. Though I recall a telling piece of graffiti which said: "God is dead - Nietzsche", and then printed the reply: "Nietzsche is dead - God."

But it was the manner of the NSS's objection that struck me as petulant and dishonest: they issued a press release which accused me, by name, of being a "conman" and operating "a scam". The BBC sent a bright young reporter round to interview me for the Today programme. He began by asking me what I thought of the NSS's response. I said: "Well, it's not very nice, is it? I mean when an Englishman acting entirely within his legal rights is accused of being a conman operating a scam, it's a bit much."

He asked me: "How angry do you feel towards them?"

I replied: "Speaking not as a petulant atheist, but as a Christian, naturally I forgave them instantly."

I'd love to attend the AGM of the NSS. I imagine Michael Foot asleep in his donkey jacket while Ludovic Kennedy says: "When we're old, we should have the right to kill ourselves." And Richard Dawkins, wearing a genetically-determined pained expression, asks: "But how shall we do it?" In fractured grammar Harold Pinter says: "I know: let's bore ourselves to death!"

No, but satire is impossible faced with this dreary bunch of inadvertent comedians. Here is what they are up to for real. In their latest stunt, "Heroes of Atheism" members are being invited to nominate their favourite atheist and, when the votes are counted, the face of the winning atheist will be imprinted on the official NSS pottery. A mug-shot for mugs.

But guess who is threatening to top the poll? The Theosophical nutter Annie Besant. She was a devotee of the Higher Hampstead Buddhism, and she once said, at a meeting attended by GK Chesterton: "There is no such thing as right or wrong, good or evil; just the gentle upwards drift of the universe."

To which Chesterton replied: "If there's no such thing as right or wrong, good or evil, how does she know there's such a thing as up or down?"

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