In this article, the author makes some further remarks on the legacy of Ninian Smart and related issues in reply to L. Philip Barnes. In his judgement, the exchange between them is worth following up. Substantial issues are raised that are not resolved. In the Editorial of the issue of this journal in which Barnes' response appears, Vivienne Baumfield complains that debates between those who argue from very different premises can become self-referential and remote from classroom practice, but the author is convinced that this is not the case here (Baumfield 2007). He believes that this particular debate includes questions highly relevant to classroom practice, though to some extent those questions are waiting to be brought out. The author tries to do so in this article, covering some of the smaller or more technical disagreements between Barnes and himself in passing.