worshipping the trees

One of my favourite stories was told me by Fr Richard in a sermon at St Lukes Enmore (Sydney). He was in a red neck area of Sth Australia and he had a visiting Lebanese priest who preached. The red necks associated Lebanon with middle east and "therefore" Muslim (ie, 1+1 = 11). After the sermon he took questions: "And how long have you been a Christian?" to which he replied - Well you remember when your ancestors were painting their faces with woad and worshipping the trees? "Duh, yair". - Well my ancestors had been Christian for four hundred years before that.
So for capacity building here, I try to remind myself that St Augustine of Canterbury's famous retort on seeing the people of Britain - "Non anglesi sed angelis" - not Angles but Angels. It was his attitude that counted, for these were people who were a mixture of Celts, Romans, Anglo Saxons by this time (c600). The Romans' contribution to Britain was described by Tacitus in Roman terms as roads, civilisation, baths, hygiene, Roman sophistication. By his enemy whose name escapes me, (Vercingetorix? - no that's Gaul and Caesar?)the R's contribution was - they create a desert and call it prosperity; they bring war and call it peace.