"This is not the fault of ordinary Muslims but Islam is being used by very evil people to do a great deal of damage.

"I think the real challenge is to be rooted in these universal values that make life worth living and work honourable. To reconnect with that great story of what Christ has done for us is the only antidote to despair and cynicism."

Lord Carey is today in Llandrindod Wells where he will deliver an address on the theme Mastery and Mystery: The Power of the Bible in the Church and the Individual.

His concern at the way in which Islam has been manipulated by extremists was echoed yesterday by Sheikh Said Ismail, imam of the South Wales Islamic Centre.

He said, "We are against all these killings. We can understand why it is being done but that still doesn't make it lawful. Muslims should be people who are merciful and reasonable and compassionate. Then you have the people who interpret things differently and the people who are egging them on and are exploiting the name of Islam.

"God is not pleased when you kill his children."

Within the Welsh Muslim community, he said, there was great frustration that the violence of a few had damaged the reputation of the many.

"Instead of people loving us they have got further away from us," he said. "These are the things which are hurting us very much inside."

Lord Carey will call on the church in Britain to bring the study and the appreciation of the Bible back into the heart of its corporate life.

He compared the lacklustre preaching in many churches with the fervency with which Muslims cherished the Koran.

He said, "[They] have a great devotion to the Koran and study it avidly. That used to be the situation here."

Sheikh Said described the central place the Koran still held in a Muslim's life.

"We have to pray five times a day so it's a connection with God five times a day," he said. "We are never out of the vicinity of God."

At the conference, organised by the Evangelical Fellowship in the Church in Wales, Lord Carey will examine the causes of "the decline in Bible knowledge" and suggest ways forward. He said, "I'll offer some reasons for this and go on to talk about the failure of the church to make the Bible central to our liturgy and preaching today.

"I want to explore that and give some examples of the richness of the Bible and how we may be encouraged to return with a greater commitment and a deeper devotion."

Lord Carey said the writings contained in the Bible had been "the backbone of British culture since the Reformation" and had inspired some of the greatest storytelling of the 20th century.

"Lord of the Rings was written by a profoundly Christian man," he said. "You can't really understand Lord of the Rings without understanding the world of evil and good upon which it draws."

The success of The Passion of The Christ, he suggested, showed the continuing power of religious stories in the present day.

"I've been quite reluctant to see The Passion because it focuses too much on the physical sufferings of Christ ... but it's amazed me, the interest it's created around the world.

"In Qatar, the Emir has allowed The Passion to be shown for one month. Of course, Muslims have a great admiration for Jesus Christ."

Lord Carey hopes people will take the opportunity to discover the Bible for themselves. The number attending weekly services has dropped sharply in recent decades, but he suggested that people today had a chance to read its stories with a freshness other generations might not have enjoyed.

"There's still a very deep interest in Jesus Christ as a person," he said. "Perhaps the chasm that's opened up between the knowledge of the Bible and popular culture has given many people a fresh opportunity to look at it in a fresh way outside the church stronghold."

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