For God's sake No 3996

Report by Ms de Meaner

Hmm. What a lot of people don't seem to realise is, whatever else you think about her, that Julie Burchill is a very, very intelligent woman, so simply sending in a lot of rude words and then confusing the Immaculate Conception with the Virgin Birth just doesn't cut the mustard. She would certainly know the difference. £20 to the winners, the best of whom, Adrian Fry, also gets the Tesco vouchers.

Divine Providence

Ah, I do like the doctrine of Divine Providence: the assertion that shagging is not our fault, that God is in complete control of things. What a get-out! No more chance, no more fate - we're all under the Divine Cosh. Forget the natural order of things, it's all down to a higher Will. And we can keep getting away with it, because it's not our Will, just our pathetic, scummy Way. Our dumb sinfulness is just God with a shaven head saying, "Gross out, Homo Sapiens!" No more moral high ground. I CAN'T HELP IT! I'm going to be a little pervert today. Yep, we're all sluts, stuck-up Nazi pigs, high-fibre debauchees, suppurating sores. But that's all right. Everything we do, and everything we choose, is in full accordance with DP - the new PC.

John O'Byrne

The Trinity

Threesomes? Been there, done that. But the Trinity's different. I pioneered iconography, inventing iconoclasm on the way, back at the Modern Review, but the Trinity is counter-iconic: even at Frenchay Sunday school I knew you couldn't draw the Holy Ghost without the proverbial holey bedsheet. Besides, the whole point isn't the individual members but their indivisible oneness. Like the Beatles, the Trinity is greater than the sum of its parts, with the advantage that nobody's going to introduce Yoko on the backing shrieks. The Father's working-class, into construction big time; the Son can come back from the dead; and who wouldn't want a ghost onside? Combining their talents into a single unit, they outnumber and outclass the enemy like England's football team don't.

Adrian Fry

The Virgin Birth

Women survive better in the biblical stakes than blinkered male "experts" realise. Fifty years ago, never mind 2,000, only faith would have accepted an elderly prima gravida like Elizabeth producing John the Baptist. Ignoring selfish old biddies paying what you would consider obscene fortunes for fertility treatments (since I sold my Brighton house, my monetary perceptions have altered!), we know better nowadays. Nor are we hoodwinked about Virgin Births. Joseph probably was Jesus's father - a little premarital nooky, why not? - so whichever apostle we favour, we find Christ's genealogy traced through the male line (76 ancestors going back to God via Adam in Luke; 42 to Abraham in Matthew). But Mary is still the star, and I'm personally uncovering intriguing aspects of the maternal line.

Alanna Blake

Set by Hank T Romein

With Dylan on the syllabus, why not other gems from the popular songbook? Choose a favourite - from the 1920s to recent chart-toppers - and subject the lyric to a rigorous, A-grade lit-crit analysis.

Max 125 words by 4 October

Email: comp@newstatesman.co.uk