At the end of this series on the cardinal virtues, presented during Lent, we come to what may seem the most Lenten of them all: to temperance, or restraint. In a certain sense temperance is Lenten. I’ve been drawing on Thomas Aquinas as we journey through the virtues, and Lent features in his discussion of temperance in a way that it doesn’t in his treatment of the others. He brings in Lenten fasting, for instance. In another sense, however, Lent cannot be said primarily to be the season of temperance, simply because Lent is supremely the season for virtue, and temperance, while a virtue, is a lesser virtue than either prudence (the capacity to make wise moral decisions) or justice (or fairness). Those are the virtues of the first rank. We need temperance, and courage, as the virtues in the second rank, only as aids in the prudent attainment of justice.

On love of life

Aquinas is a cheerful theologian, and an upbeat writer. We see that in his insistence that temperance is ultimately about love of life, not hatred of it. Indeed, temperance is about self-preservation. Indeed, that applies twice over: first, because the domain of temperance concerns things that make for life (for instance, food, drink, sleep, and sexual relations), but also, and all the more so, because temperance is about moderation in those areas precisely for the sake of self-preservation. Human nature being as it is, the very things that most make for life, and which we therefore desire strongly, can – because we desire them so much – be taken up immoderately, and then impede life. Eating again serves as an example, or the loss of the very great good of a life-long relationship because of a promiscuous moment. It is the greatest goods than need the most diligent preservation. Just as courage recognised the good of what it was prepared to lose for the sake of the doing the right thing (for, if they were not good, why would we need to show courage in losing them?), so does temperance.

Aquinas praises fasting, for instance, but exactly not because it stands against human life or the body. Rather, he praises fasting as a way to bodily and spiritual health. Indeed, he thought that the connection, especially with respect to spiritual wellbeing, was so strong and obvious that it would oblige everyone to fast sometimes, as a matter of universal common sense, even outside the strictures of any particular religious tradition.

The middle way again

His discussion of temperance is really all about moderation. We saw in the last article that virtues have the character of a ‘mean’ or middle way, such that hope lies between despair and presumption, and courage between cowardice and foolhardiness. In this way, temperance lies between harmful excess and harmful restraint. There is a vice of too much foregoing as well as one of too little.

I began by remarking that temperance, for Aquinas, is a secondary virtue, vital but needed only because of human weakness. Josef Pieper, among his most insightful twentieth century followers, offered an admirable summary. Temperance, or moderation, does not, in itself ‘realise the good’, but it remains an important part of that realisation. Pieper offers the image of a river and its banks. Without temperance

‘the stream of the innermost human will-to-be would overflow destructively beyond all bounds, it would lose its direction and never reach the sea of perfection. But it is the shore, the banks, from whose solidity the stream receives the gift of straight unhindered course, of force, descent, and velocity.’

The magnetic pole of virtue is the good. It is not defined by difficulty or hardship. Temperance, or the virtue of restraint, is not the goal of the river that is human life, but it does form the river banks that allow a human life to flow deep and true.

Article

Creed

Identity

Nationalism

30 October 2025

5 min read

Flags on lampposts are a cry from long-neglected communities

As banners fly, they whisper of pride and pain

Philip North

Philip is the Bishop of Blackburn

A St George's Cross flag flutters on a tower.

St Helen's Church, Welton, Yorkshire.

Different Resonance on Unsplash.

A flag meant to symbolise unity within a nation. Yet over the summer, flags in the UK became less a source of togetherness and more a flashpoint for division.

In towns and cities across the nation, flags of St George and Union Flags have appeared on bridges, on lamp posts and on buildings. The motivations of those hoisting the flags are often unclear, but the way in which different sets of people perceive these flags carries an alarming message about the widening gulf that now exists within our nation.

For one set of people, the flags are sinister and carry a deep sense of threat. For many people of global majority heritage, the flags bear an intimidating message that those with racist motives are claiming the nation 'back' from them, leaving them stateless and with nowhere to belong. Meanwhile for those on the centre or left of the political spectrum, the flags feel like a straightforward claim to power by the far right and a sign of the growing popularity of their policies and rhetoric. The Church of England has mostly placed itself on this side of the divide and many church leaders have spoken of the flag flying phenomenon with anxiety and distaste.

But there is another narrative at play. As the flags continue to flutter in the autumn breeze, something which is a symbol of fear for one set of people is for another a welcome sign of hope.

This was powerfully brought home to me during a meeting with a leading Orthodox rabbi following the synagogue attack in Manchester. In the course of a lengthy conversation, I asked him how he understood the flags and his comments were striking. 'When I returned from my holiday and saw the flags flying in Salford,' he told me, 'I felt the most tremendous sense of relief.'

So for that rabbi, the flags are claiming back a distinctive and confident British identity, lost by a failed experiment in multiculturalism that has left his own community deeply fearful. And he is far from alone.

One of the strengths of the Church of England is that we place well-trained, professional clergy and lay leaders in every neighbourhood in the country. That means that, in a culture of echo chambers and algorithms, we are uniquely placed to understand every side of a conflict.

When I contacted a group of church leaders from flag-flying communities in Lancashire, the results were intriguing. Of course they were aware of the darker side of this phenomenon. But they also understood the needs and fears of the people for whom the flags are welcome.

One priest told me of a volunteer in her church who assists with projects for the vulnerable and is good friends with asylum seekers in her congregation and yet she is still flying a flag because she feels that immigration has now 'gone too far.'

Another priest spoke of the flags as an outlet for the intense frustration of local people who feel left behind and ignored. Another spoke of them communicating a chronic disillusionment with a political system that has failed them.

For others there is frustration that their institutions seem willing to fly many different flags – the Ukraine flag or the LGBTQI+ flag – but perceive those same institutions to be embarrassed by the flag of their own nation.

Indeed, a chance to demonstrate a love for country was the most often cited reason. Many people take genuine pride in the flags flying over their communities as it gives them a chance to express pride in a nation that often seems to them to be overly apologetic about its past and embarrassed by patriotism.

Perhaps the most poignant reflection was a from a priest who has stood up to Tommy Robinson marchers on his estate and yet wrote, 'I think for some of those people who put up flags it was a desperate cry for their nation to take better care of them, like a neglected child trying to remind everyone that they're a part of the family too.

For many working-class communities, the globalisation and transnationalism that is viewed by those who hold power as the path to greater prosperity has been bad news. It has outsourced jobs, it has forced down wages so that many in-work people are still benefits-dependent and it has resulted in major demographic changes to communities over which local residents have no had no say.

Combined with years of grinding austerity and a political class that is quick to promise and slow to deliver, there is a powerful and intense anger in many parts of working-class Britain for which the flags have become a lightning conductor.

It seems now that one flag now symbolises two nations. And what is so alarming is that one side barely understands the other.

So how should Christians respond? A divided nation wants the established Church to take sides and indeed sees us as weak and vacillating if we do not. But the task of the Christian is not to take on one side or the other in every binary debate. It is to be on the Lord's side. And in this context, I think that means a twin response.

First it means attentively listening to everyone. We should hear the fears of those for whom flags are a sign of growing intolerance and so condemn racism and hatred. But equally importantly, even when we don't agree, we should understand and give voice to the anger of working-class communities who fear that the nation they love is being taken away from them. If that voice is not heard and attended to, then the far right will be all too happy to fill the vacuum that is left behind. In a divided nation, part of the vocation of the Church is to help one side to understand the other.

And second, it means speaking into the place of conflict words of Gospel peace. The Union Flag is more than a symbol of nation. It carries three crosses, each one pointing us to the saving work of Jesus Christ through which we are reconciled to the Father and so to each other. We listen, we understand, but above all we hold the cross high, for in that symbol is the only true and lasting source of unity.

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