A culture can live off the fumes of Christianity for maybe a few centuries, possibly. But you know, the beating heart of Christian faith that gives rise to these beliefs — the equality of all people in the idea of human rights, a legal system that actually treats everyone equally — they’re all found in that belief that everyone is the object of divine love. It seems to me that you can’t have the ethics without the metaphysics, and sooner or later, that will play itself out. Without that transcendent metaphysics, the thing will begin to crumble longer term, I think

Graham Tomlin, director of the Centre for Cultural Witness, quoted in “The Rise of Cultural Christianity” by Madeleine Davies, The New Statesman, 21 August

I’m wary about the alignment of Christianity — a religion that started in the Middle East — with this concept of white Britishness. . . I would be excited about the so-called Christian revival if it did not just stop at Christianity being “good” but moved people to believing that Christianity is “true”

Chine McDonald, director of Theos, quoted in the article above

I think our job is not to set a standard of orthodox belief that must be met before people may participate, but to invite them to step over the threshold and to share in a common life that is radiant with light, buoyant with hope and abounding in grace. In the Church of England now we seem to be more about closing doors than opening them, as if it were up to us to decide who gets invited and who does not

Richard Coles, The Sunday Times, 25 August

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