With £8 billion in the bank, church wages war on 'greed'

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O, church! Verily take the mote out of your own eye before lecturing your plebs! Amen.

And the idea that the church "represents" me (I'm sure I count as one of the 25 million) is absolutely ludicrous. They don't get 25 million people in church every weekend. In fact, I bet a large minority of those people hardly ever set foot in a church, much less worship.

This is merely the last, pathetic wailing throes of a religion that is almost irrelevant to the lives of most Britons. As it should be.

Well, they're their shares...

Where did they get that 25 million figure from? There's only 60 million people in the UK, of whom I think 11% are regular churchgoers, and many of those are in the free church - I just got back from a Free Methodist service.

That Catholic Church is not state supported as far as I know. It is supported by voluntary contributions and by returns on investment.

ruveyn

It's "take the log out of your own eye before trying to take the speck out of your brother's eye", which is considerably more pithy.


The article you linked claimed the 25 million number, not the church.

It's clear you don't like the church of England, what isn't clear is why we should share that belief.

OOOOPS! I should have read more carefully. Church of England. That is state supported Sorry about that.

ruveyn

I don't like religion. Especially Christianity or Islam. Haven't you noticed?

Certainly. That wasn't my point, though, I was trying to point out that if there is a good reason to disapprove of what the church of England was doing, you didn't point it out.

I was trying to point out that they were first-class hypocrites, flouncing around in their frocks, telling the rest of us how to behave.

I was baptised Church of England, by the way. I hate religion with a passion.

Are they? What makes them hypocrites?


They can flounce away if they like, as far as I'm concerned.


I don't see the problem with that. They're supposed to be moral experts, so that's doing their job. It isn't like they can make you do what they think is right.

Jesus:

"How hard it is for the rich to enter the Kingdom of God! Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God"

"If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."

And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you make it a den of robbers.”

Yeshua of Nazareth wasn't really a fan of whatever brand of capitalism they had in his day.

The way I look at church is that it is a way for the rich to make the poor happy to be obedient slaves. When you go to church you are told to kneel, stand, kneel and stand at the headmaster wish, subconsciously this trains us to be followers to our masters, the corporations and the rich.

Whatever one might think about the existence of an established Church, or the source of its invested wealth, I think that the substance of the Church's position is an admirable one, and one that we should applaud.

Ethical investment is a valuable political tool to shift the attention of corporate directors and officers. When large-scale, institutional investors start to agitate against excessive executive compensation, and against commercial and industrial practices that are not sustainable, that puts pressure on corporations' lifeline--the flow of investment capital.

Now, £8 bn isn't a vast amount. But if this can inspire other ethically conscious institutions to take similar positions, and if it can inspire individual investors to start to question their mutual fund and pension fund managers, then we can be looking at more significant money.

It won't change the market overnight. There will always be money that will chase after the biggest return and damn the consequences. But with a critical mass, shifts can occur.