From Chris Hoy to Bradley Wiggins, from Rebecca Adlington to Christine Ohuruogu, British athletes have adorned the winners' rostra at the Olympic Games in Beijing, accumulating an almost unimaginable tally of gold medals. By the time The Tablet went to press, the Olympic medal table showed that Great Britain had won more medals than its chief sporting rival, Australia. It is the largest haul of medals for Great Britain at the Games for 100 years.

That the Olympic Games have so captured the imagination of the British is not surprising. After a summer of rain, falling house prices and rising ones for fuel and food, and no sign of the end of the credit crunch, the stories of champions who battled against the odds to achieve Olympic glory offer a narrative of the heroic that is utterly compelling, never mind that much of it is down to having the best kit and decent investment after decades of penny-pinching. This was a winning formula where nothing was left to chance.

Yet for all the pragmatism, and the inevitable problems with illegal drug use by athletes, there is still an idealism about the Olympic Games. They began with the ancient Greeks who saw the Games as a celebration of the human body and a way of honouring the gods. They have re-emerged in the modern era, with the bringing together of people from across the globe, despite the barriers of language, race and culture.

There is also a moral dimension to sport perceived clearly by St Paul and told to the Corinthians, urging them to live with a sense of purpose, just as runners and boxers compete with purpose. This moral and spiritual dimension was also apparent in the teaching of Pope John Paul II and is the raison d'être of the John Paul II Foundation for Sports, which was opened in Rome last month. John Paul understood that sport offers an example of how to live: to make sacrifices for what a person believes in, to persevere in the sports field, as in life and faith.

As the Games end this ...

The current armed conflict in the Caucasus has a long history. The province of South Ossetia is sovereign Georgian territory, but it is also a Russian ethnic enclave where many Russian citizens live under the tacit protection of their mother country next door. When Georgia moved to reassert its sovereignty by what was in effect a military invasion, Russia's reply was in kind, and devastating. So Western dismay ...

The Beijing Olympic Games symbolise China's arrival in the front rank of the international community. Barring a major mishap, the Games are set to be an impressive organisational triumph as well as a shop window for China's own sporting prowess - it confidently expects to win more medals than any other nation. But amid all the glory there has to be one serious reservation about China's success story ...

Bishops of the Anglican Communion were fortunate in their choice of speaker on Monday, because talking about the big picture is one of the things the Chief Rabbi, Sir Jonathan Sacks, does best. He has an acute understanding of the role of religion in society, and an ability to use an attractive narrative style that those not of his persuasion can easily follow. Religion is important to the health and sustainability ...

In his memoir, A Crown of Thorns, Cardinal John Heenan of Westminster called the crisis that overtook global Catholicism in the summer of 1968 "the greatest shock the Church has suffered since the Reformation". He was referring of course to the publication of the papal encyclical, Humanae Vitae, at the end of July in that tumultuous year, and its painful and divisive aftermath. Forty years on, the most striking ...