Grealish is like a brilliant deacon at a crowded altar on a major feast, just there when you need him with the thurible, the humeral veil, pointing at the right bit of the missal

Richard Coles, Vicar of Finedon and radio presenter, on the England football player Jack Grealish, 22 June

Financial wellbeing is part of clergy wellbeing. This means that the Church as a whole has an obligation to ensure that that clergy are equipped with the necessary financial skills and that stipends and pensions support clergy wellbeing and enable them to flourish in ministry — as clergy who are anxious about the future or suffering financial hardship or dealing with heavy debt are likely to be less effective in ministry

Clergy Remuneration Review, 24 June

In the current circumstances of huge uncertainty for many people in the country, I think the clergy will be regarded as very fortunate to have assured housing and incomes with great security of tenure when many people will be experiencing the opposite

Ibid., survey respondent

It’s the flipside to the American Dream: that anyone can make it if they just try hard enough. If people are architects of their own success, they must also orchestrate their own failure. This isn’t how the Bible sees it. Life isn’t that simple. For those growing up in poverty, the odds are stacked against them from the start

Natalie Williams, Church Times interview, 25 June

Growing up as a young man, I was taught things as a young man that I later realised were lies. . . Unless you go looking for the truth and read other things, you go through life believing what you are told. How could Jesus Christ look like he does? He could never have looked like that, but that is what you believe because that is what you are told

Michael Holding, former Jamaican cricketer, interviewed about racism, The Daily Telegraph, 21 June

I don’t think I would be alive today

Ibid., speculating on the consequence had he grown up with UK racism

Our Lord isn’t woke

Mike Stone, conservative leader in the Southern Baptist movement, quoted in CNN report, 15 June

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