In America . . . we have religion all over the place, but I’m afraid it’s not, in many cases, the genuine article. . . It does not reinforce a generous, hopeful, reverent attitude toward other people

Marilynne Robinson, Start the Week, Radio 4

I think education has failed, and that has had a very pervasive effect. It’s not only education: it’s also things that traditionally have been educative, like religion. There was a sort of forgetting of the fact that democracy is an ethic, and a demand for restraint

Marilynne Robinson, ibid.

Another collapse: the idea that we had to honour the opinions of people who disagreed with us, and so on, was based on a deeper belief that the conscience is sacred, that the human mind is something that has to be granted respect for autonomy and so on. There was an aesthetics of democracy that was based on a certain vision of what a human being is, and we have simply pulled that conception apart over years of time, in all sorts of ways

Marilynne Robinson, ibid.

Episcopal election: We promise, it will be more exciting than watching paint dry! Join us via livestream as we elect our next bishop

Diocese of British Columbia, Canada

Of all the developments that cause me concern over the past few years, none is greater than the growing disregard of maintaining a high standard of objective truth. We have no future as a society if we abandon that framework

Francis Collins, accepting the Templeton Prize

Why is there a picture of Boris Johnson on the front of today’s paper? I almost cancelled my subscription on the spot

Reader’s letter to the Editor

The PM says that Covid is the single biggest crisis the world has faced in his life. Is this correct? What about world hunger or even TB? Or is it just that it is the biggest crisis for “people like us”?

Mark Bryant, former Bishop of Jarrow

You don’t get to tell us to put lives at risk just because you want a nice carol service to complete your Good Housekeeping view of “a good Christmas”

Miranda Threlfall-Holmes

We’re all very pro-Christmas in the @churchofengland

Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury

We invite readers’ contributions to this new column. Quotations have to be from the past few days (or quoted therein), and we need author, source, and date. Please send promptly to quotes@churchtimes.co.uk