The Archbishop of Canterbury has called on individuals and whole societies not to build lives based on selfishness and fear.

In his Christmas Day sermon, due to be delivered this morning, Dr Rowan Williams urged believers to be open to searching questions about identity and solidarity in the wake of falling confidence in institutions and challenges to social order.

He said: "The most pressing question we now face, we might well say, is who and where we are as a society. Bonds have been broken, trust abused and lost.

"Whether it is an urban rioter mindlessly burning down a small shop that serves his community, or a speculator turning his back on the question of who bears the ultimate cost for his acquisitive adventures in the virtual reality of today’s financial world, the picture is of atoms spinning apart in the dark."

He said The Gospels were still full of questions, such as who are you and where are you?

life to others? Or are you on your own side, on the side of disconnection, rivalry, the hoarding of gifts, the obsession with control?"givesHe added: "Are you on the side of the life that lives in Jesus, the life of grace and truth, of unstinting generosity and unsparing honesty, the only life that

The Archbishop said the way we responded to that question was "our way of discovering for ourselves and showing to one another what is real in and for us.

He quoted The Book of Common Prayer, which celebrates its 350th anniversary this year, which underlines notions of duty and common interest.

"The truth is still an uncompromising one: if you cannot or will not respond, you are walking away from reality into a realm of trackless fogbound falsehood."