The plight of ordinary people — struggling to pay for food and heating — can only be spoken of as a “distraction” by those who don’t feel the compassion and longing for justice that it takes to fight for a more equal society

Steve Chalke, Twitter, 3 October

I hope that we might see change [on sexuality in the C of E]. If not, Parliament might want to look at this. Patience is being worn very thin, and Parliament is in a position to put pressure on the Church. Without change, I think we might see growing calls for disestablishment

Ben Bradshaw MP, member of the Ecclesiastical Committee, The Guardian, 4 October

Holiness is often weaponised — a stick with which to hit people. The decision as to who is holy is often historically given to people in power in the Church — Bishops, Archbishops, leaders of the church — to exclude that which is not holy. That power raises questions about inclusion and exclusion. For what makes one person holy and thus included, is not human action. It is divine gift and human response. It is seen in many ways, but always it demands our daily conversion

Justin Welby, sermon preached during service of dedication, St John’s, Waterloo, 3 October

Putin’s political objective is a national cleansing or purification, which Kirill might call atonement or purgation. He believes the liberties and moral licentiousness of Ukrainians need to be restrained. The spiritual discipline echoes the political oppression: for him, ethnic cleansing is symbiotic with religious cleansing. President Putin is a faithful disciple of this ideology. Together, the patriarch and the president have purposefully conflated religion and political power to propagate a strong delusion of Christian nationalism

Adrian Hilton, Spectator website, 29 September

I’m hearing foodbanks across the region are running out of food as providers are now becoming users. The first time things have been so worrying. Where we can, please support local foodbanks

Bev Mason, Bishop of Warrington, Twitter, 3 October

The Creed opens up for us a much bigger world than a purely materialistic one can offer. It’s a world that has space for all that we can see and touch and measure but also, all kinds of things that we cannot see but are equally real, such as love, compassion, holiness, miracles, and — yes — angels. The world opened up for us in the Creeds and in the Bible is just too big to fit into purely secular modes of thinking

Graham Tomlin, former Bishop of Kensington, sermon in Westminster Abbey at the consecration of James Grier, Bishop of Plymouth, 29 September

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