What has apparently shifted is the old default setting of uncomprehending contempt [for religious belief]. A figure such as Bertrand Russell comparing belief in God with believing that an invisible chocolate teapot was circling the solar system might raise fewer laughs now than half a century ago

Rowan Williams, The New Statesman, Christmas issue

I don’t feel able to go into the Bishops’ robing room at the moment on my own. You might say that’s an overreaction but I don’t feel confident enough to go into that room with colleagues present. So I’ve asked for my robes to be moved. And I’m really sad that’s the case but I have to look after myself in this too. I hope it’s temporary

Helen-Ann Hartley, Bishop of Newcastle, interview in The Times, 14 December

Is the outspoken outsider readying herself to throw her mitre in the ring? “I think if I was planning on that, I would not be speaking out in this way. I love being Bishop of Newcastle. It’s the best diocese in the Church of England.”

ibid.

Jesus famously invited those who are “without sin to cast the first stone”. There cannot be a bishop of the Church of England who has not made delicate judgments about safeguarding issues. Will all those judgments have been correct?

Charles Moore, The Daily Telegraph, 17 December

The smooshing together of different degrees of knowledge and so of culpability runs throughout Makin’s account. But he does keep the chronology fairly clear. It is the media that has mixed up the timeline so the casual reader gets the impression that Justin Welby or other bishops knew more than they could have done, and failed culpably to do things that they couldn’t possibly have done

Andrew Brown, Prospect, 11 December

Without diminishing the seriousness of the Makin Report, it was undoubtedly a convenient hook upon which to hang Welby out to dry, and it has achieved the wider end of displacing him from the See of Canterbury. . . It’s ironic that in his appalling abuse of young men, Smyth’s behaviour may also have solidified his party’s hold on the theology of the Church of England for a decade or more

Adrian Beney, Prospect, 11 December

Human beings are called to be God’s workers, striving to build his Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. Practical, including human, resources need to be found and deployed. Whilst I fully believe in miracles, I don’t leave them to do the heavy lifting

David Walker, Bishop of Manchester, Thought for the Day, Radio 4, 16 December

We invite readers’ contributions. 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