Someone decided that it will be good for the body of Christ to have us turn away from communion-building conversations about poverty, global warming, war, and peace, and argue like it’s 1998

John Harvey Taylor, Bishop of Los Angeles, blog about the Lambeth Conference “calls”, 21 July

The bishops of the Church of England sincerely believe that their role in certain key issues is to kick the can down the road. What they don’t understand is that there are real people in the can

Andrew Graystone, Twitter, 22 July

Every stimulating job is gruelling and will have tough moments. But I am still enjoying myself enormously. It’s such a privilege to do this job. I never take it for granted

Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury, interview in The Times, 23 July

This is now the divide in the Conservative Party: not leave v. remain, but rather the one memorably described by the unnamed aide to George W Bush who contrasted “the reality-based community” with those who inhabited the realm of faith. Once you’ve made the move from the former to the latter, life is so much freer. In politics, especially, so many opportunities open up. You can say whatever your audience long to hear

Jonathan Freedland, columnist, contrasting Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss, The Guardian, 23 July

“The Church fostered a fear in men that the brewsters . . . had unnatural power over them,” O’Meara says. Alewives wore tall, black pointed hats; they made their beers in bubbling cauldrons, using botanicals to cover the unpalatable taste of their vbrews; and they advertised their wares by hanging long sticks with bundles of twigs from their houses. Could the alewife be the original witch?

Mallory O’Meara, review of Girly Drinks: A world history of women and alcohol, Sunday Times Culture Magazine, 24 July

Sir, Emma Duncan (Notebook, July 25) questions the value of “tidying up” graveyards, but the serendipity of looking at a seat in our churchyard that has been constructed from reused gravestones gave me great pleasure as I recognised in it the perfect illustration of Mrs Malaprop’s “a nice derangement of epitaphs”

Jane Whiter, The Times, Letters to the Editor, 26 July

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