Show-off vicars are ruining the Church of England

It’s generally my morning habit to leap out of bed at 5am singing the Queen song ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’, but on those rare mornings when I sleep in, nothing can be guaranteed to finally get me moving at 5.43am as surely as Radio 4’s Prayer For The Day. One of two things will happen; usually, some wet-wipe in a dog-collar will come out with a mouthful of woke platitudes and I’ll be so cross that I can’t keep still a moment longer. On a few occasions, though, I find the person speaking so affecting that it seems wicked to lie in bed for a moment longer when the Lord’s wonderful world is out there waiting to be experienced afresh. So either way, it gets me going.

I’ve noticed that the best religious speakers on Radio 4 tend to be disproportionately female; perhaps because women were allowed to be ordained only relatively recently, they are more thoughtful than male vicars, who can seem like the most awful shower of self-serving show-offs.