On my way to work this morning, still half-asleep and bleary eyed (on the Tube I hasten to add – not on the M25), I was flicking through the Metro (the free morning paper) and to my astonishment, noticed a whole quarter of a page devoted to a prayer.

The Church of England, anticipating that commuters will be pretty miserable having to return to work after the summer holidays, have published a prayer asking God for help with love-life issues; financial troubles and the stresses of returning to work.

Summer 2008 has seen men and women from over 200 nations facing a once in a lifetime opportunity to win ‘the prize above all others’ in sport at the games of the 29th Olympiad in Beijing. But as we join in the celebrations alongside the medal winners, do we forget the true prize - as well as the price - in sporting competition which, anyway, is still not truly open to all?

Should Christians, indeed, be supporting competitive sport at all? What happened to preaching an agenda which seemingly overturns all the normal rules of sport so that the “first become last and the last become first”?

Is the UK populated only by cynical people who are unable to have faith in the sincerity of others? Where are the people of hope?

Am I the only one in the UK who finds the current media approach to politicians and leaders of large institutions so demeaning and cynical? Every item of news or every article that is written seems to suggest that they are all manipulating the truth and what they say is not to be believed, from the NHS to the Police to the Church.

This creates in me a feeling of helplessness and hopelessness - and I don’t like that.

Last week I found was having dinner in Cambridge admiring a fine view of King's College Chapel. It was the first day of an international scientific conference where my colleagues and I were presenting our project results. Maybe it was the influence of the chapel but talk turned to personal faith and one of my colleagues was astonished to find that she was the only non-Christian on the project.

It’s easy to assume that all academics think faith is illogical and intellectually suspect. My experience has been that if discussions are placed in an open and rational framework, they can be very revealing. True, they often start off with a dismissive, knee jerk reaction – "it's just like believing in the tooth fairy" –but they easily turn to deep disclosure of why belief, for an academic, can be difficult. So I wasn't surprised by a recent declaration that religious belief decreases with IQ, especially in universities.

In a recent speech in Glasgow, David Cameron talked of "restoring responsibility to our society" and of "the twisted values that have eaten away at our social fabric". He "spoke of the need for tough action to repair our broken society".

He was very critical of the way so much was said about social factors being the main problems when he felt that personal responsibility and moral choices were at the heart of the issues.