007, licensed to pray: how religious was James Bond?

A lovely post on this James Bond fan site by "Silhouette Man" explores the religious affiliation of Commander Bond., jumping off from an occasion when Ian Fleming himself wrote a worried letter to a preacher who had condemned the books.
     "Now, having had a Scottish nonconformist upbringing and considering myself at least some kind of a sub-species of a Christian, I am naturally very upset if it is thought that I am seriously doing harm to the world with my James Bond thrillers." he wrote.    Silhouette man reckons that Bond, like Fleming, was Scottish nonconformist.  It is pretty clear that he wouldn't have much truck with exotic foreign religions: 
    "The Protestant religion also fits more with the Anglo-Saxon, British Raj, patriotic elements ...As Amis in the Dossier points out, “Throughout Bond’s adventures no Englishman does anything bad. The villains are Americans, Bulgars, Chigroes, Corsicans, Germans, Italians, Jugoslavs, Koreans, Russians, Sicilians, Spanish-Americans and Turks.”  The rightness of England has with the attendant notion of the rightness of the Anglo-Saxon mainly Protestant view of England".      

Comments

[ian payne]

Shaken but not stirred me thinks !!!

[Dilip Dhokia]

With all that womanising, the idea of 007 having a religious affiliation is SHOCKING, POSITIVELY SHOCKING!!!

[Bob Ericson]

The question still remains - was Bond really Christian? If he was so easily able to dispatch others to their graves - even under orders, seriously womanise and so easily condemn those of other races or creeds - then the question still remains

[Bob Ericson]

The question still remains - was Bond really Christian? If he was so easily able to dispatch others to their graves - even under orders, seriously womanise and so easily condemn those of other races or creeds - then the question still remains

Bond was a conditioned character. A man of his time but also a spy with orders.
He's changed these days...

[S. Barraclough]

".reckons that Bond, like Fleming, was Scottish nonconformist..no Englishman does anything bad. The villains are Americans, Bulgars, Chigroes, Corsicans, Germans..." A Scottish nonconformist Englishman?