Is Anglicanism the most accommodating form of Christianity ever? The latest evidence is the Church of England's new liturgy allowing couples to get married in church and have their children baptised at the same time.

The attitude seems to be: "It's very important that Christians live according to the laws of the church. And since most of them aren't, we'd better change them."

Anglicanism is the perfect religion for people who aren't religious. Its message is: "Repent and turn to God. Or if you can't manage that we'll bring him to you. Unless God's not really what you're looking for at this stage of your journey, in which case how about some shortbread? Mrs Thurston made it, isn't she marvellous?"

Private Eye has recurrent feature unveiling new Anglican liturgy for a church desperate to woo the modern world with its relevance and friendliness – a service for the blessing of mobile phones, that kind of thing. And of course the marriage-christening two-for-one is exactly the kind of spoof Private Eye would have come up with if the church hadn't thought of it first. I suppose it's the best way to stop someone satirising you – pre-emptive self-parody.

Personally, I absolutely love it. I think the world of Anglicanism.

For a start, it's realistic. There's enough religion offering miraculous cures that it can't deliver, and supposed answers to ethical and philosophical problems that don't actually work. And there's enough religion demanding abstinence from professionals whose disastrous failure it then has to cover up.

There was a time when, for centuries, the church took a principled biblical stand against lending money with interest, but we don't hear a lot about that these days, because sometimes the world changes so radically that even the Lord goes with the flow.

It's really only the same principle as providing army chaplains. War is evil and unacceptable, but saying so isn't going to stop people doing it, so the best thing the church can do is live with it and provide spiritual support for those involved. In the same way, the church is never going to stop people living together before marriage – and why should it – so instead it is adapting itself to the way family life has developed.

Another reason why I love it is that Anglicanism is nothing if not broad. Some parishes will use this new liturgy, some will denounce it as the work of the devil, some will just turn their noses up at it. There's room for pretty much every species of Christian here.

Admittedly, the Anglican communion may be in the process of finding that if you get too broad you finally fall in half. But it's still a great ideal. Why shouldn't friendliness be next to godliness?

Anglicanism is also mercifully moderate. If it seems incongruous to see a church bending to the mores of its world, that's because we're so used to seeing religion denouncing and opposing, but, while it is good for a church to be society's conscience, such conflict is hardly the heart of religion.

We have all we need of conflict over religion from the extremes of Christianity, Islam and atheism. Sitting in the middle, trying to be nice to everyone, Anglicanism may not present a heroic figure, but it is, well, nice. And I think that's a good thing.