If there is one thing I long for above all else, it's that the years to come may see Christianity in this country able again to capture the imagination of our culture.

Even when I was Archbishop of Wales and working with new bishops, I used to say, not realising quite how true it was, 'One of the things you will do as a bishop is disappoint people'.

We discover too late that we have turned a blind eye to the extinction of a species that is essential to the balance of life in a particular context. Or we discover too late that the importation of a foreign life-form, animal or vegetable, has upset local ecosystems, damaging soil or neighbouring life-forms. We discover that we have come near the end of supplies-of fossil-fuels for example -on which we have built immense structures of routine expectation.

The planet should not be used as a warehouse of resources to serve humanity's selfishness

To be a Christian is to believe we are commanded and authorised to say certain things to the world; to say things that will make disciples of all nations.

Our present ecological crisis, the biggest single practical threat to our human existence in the middle to long term, has, religious people would say, a great deal to do with our failure to think of the world as existing in relation to the mystery of God, not just as a huge warehouse of stuff to be used for our convenience.

Truth makes love possible; love makes truth bearable.