Shorn of impartial, independent judges, justice buckles beneath the combined weight of the mighty and the mob

David Walker, Bishop of Manchester, Thought for the Day, Radio 4, 23 August

I used to worry that flags were only used to highlight our differences. But over the last 18 months, thanks to the Ukraine flag, I’ve come to learn that they can be acts of solidarity and promises of help

Krish Kandiah, director of the Sanctuary Foundation, Pause for Thought, Radio 2, 23 August

This World Cup, with its record crowds and viewing figures, is a celebration of the body, not as a sex object or ornament, but as power, skill, and resilience. It also challenges me that support is both cheering a particular team and changing the structures of society to give opportunity for all

David Wilkinson, Principal, St John’s College, Durham, Thought for the Day, Radio 4, 21 August

As I listened, it seemed that the loss of Christian faith, and the parallel loss of a close, communal culture, were matters of no great moment. If these losses meet with apparent indifference, or weary resignation, in the medieval villages of East Fife, they may do so everywhere: something of the kind, in widely distinct forms, is happening all over the western world. Is the importance attached by many to faith, many more to community ethics, merely an archaic throwback?

John Lloyd, Financial Times, 19 August

Most people who disaffiliate do not cite a single precipitating factor. It’s more of a fading away from religion rather than a dramatic break

Daniel Cox, director of the Survey Center on American Life, quoted in The Washington Post, 21 August

The faith often seems to have embraced a new mode of bourgeois respectability — not the old-fashioned kind, which was focused on keeping up appearances around dress and sexual propriety and social standing, but a new iteration, where correct political positions are the key to appearing Good. No wonder then if this all appears unattractive to those mystified or bored by the current preoccupations of the bourgeoisie

Niall Gooch, UnHerd, 19 August

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