Archbishops statement on the Referendum result

"...The vote to withdraw from the European Union means that now we must all reimagine both what it means to be the United Kingdom in an interdependent world and what values and virtues should shape and guide our relationships with others.

As citizens of the United Kingdom, whatever our views during the referendum campaign, we must now unite in a common task to build a generous and forward looking country, contributing to human flourishing around the world. We must remain hospitable and compassionate, builders of bridges and not barriers. Many of those living among us and alongside us as neighbours, friends and work colleagues come from overseas and some will feel a deep sense of insecurity. We must respond by offering reassurance, by cherishing our wonderfully diverse society, and by affirming the unique contribution of each and every one.

The referendum campaign has been vigorous and at times has caused hurt to those on one side or the other. We must therefore act with humility and courage - being true to the principles that make the very best of our nation. Unity, hope and generosity will enable us to overcome the period of transition that will now happen, and to emerge confident and successful. The opportunities and challenges that face us as a nation and as global citizens are too significant for us to settle for less.

As those who hope and trust in the living God, let us pray for all our leaders, especially for Prime Minister David Cameron in his remaining months in office. We also pray for leaders across Europe, and around the world, as they face this dramatic change. Let us pray especially that we may go forward to build a good United Kingdom that, though relating to the rest of Europe in a new way will play its part amongst the nations in the pursuit of the common good throughout the world."

full text here. 

I'm disappointed at the result, but in the long run our fullest prosperity depends not on our relationship with the EU, but on our relationship with the Kingdom of God. I pray that the referendum is a discussion-starter, not a last word, on what kind of nation we want to be, and on what our vocation is to our own citizens, and to the world.

Sentamu: Take Pride in your Tax Bill

Provocative article in the Yorkshire Post by John Sentamu, Archbishop of York, yesterday. It opens:

With renewed public outrage at the excesses of the financial sector and the huge inequalities in wealth it has helped to generate, we are being confronted daily with new evidence of extremes of wealth and poverty, demonstrating how scandalously unfair our society is. But how is this to be addressed? This is the urgent task for us all.

The news that Chief Executives (CEOs) of the FTSE 100 companies last year received average pay increases of almost 50 percent adds urgency to our cause. Typically these CEOs receive 300 times as much as the least well paid British employees in their companies. If they have a responsibility to their staff, it is hard to imagine a more powerful way of telling some people that they are of little value than to pay them one-third of one percent of your own salary. (emphasis mine)

Sentamu argues that a change in attitudes towards wealth and inequality will drive a change in practice, and suggests a couple of reforms that might help to trigger the change in attitudes. One is to withhold royal honours from those who've awarded themselves large salaries, or whose companies have a big wage gap between the best and worst paid. The other is making public the amount of tax we pay, (voluntarily) to encourage people to take pride in the contribution they make, through tax, to the country.

Behind both of these is a desire to change values, to see pay not simply as an issue of economics, but of the fundamental value we place on one another, and on what we do for one another with our money.

Why?

Because changes in public attitudes can take place quite quickly. Over the last few decades racism has lost its respectability and is seen as unacceptable. The same applies to homophobia (the irrational fear of homosexuals) and discrimination against women. My belief and trust is that a society which has shown itself capable of making such rapid changes to attitudes in these areas will also prove capable of recognising that our society will work best when we recognise that as human beings we are all, fundamentally of equal worth and members of one society.

It's the Economy, Stupid, not Rowan Williams

At least one blogger has laid into Rowan Williams for being a 'Marxist', in the light of his critique of the crisis in the banking sector. Williams, and John Sentamu, are both singing from the same hymn sheet in condemning some City practices and calling for better scrutiny of the financial markets.

It turns out that Rowan Williams cites Karl Marx only once, and this is what he says:
"Marx long ago observed the way in which unbridled capitalism became a kind of mythology, ascribing reality, power and agency to things that had no life in themselves; he was right about that, if about little else." (emphasis mine)
(Ht Ruth Gledhill, Times main story here, and more quotes on her blog here)

So Williams says that Marx got just 1 thing right, and now he's a Marxist? That must make me a member of Al Qaeda, since I agree with Osama bin Laden on the existence of God. I must admit that Times headline really doesn't help "Archbishop of Canterbury speaks in support of Karl Marx" - that's not quite what Williams is getting at! But hey, now an army of the usual suspects will pile in, misquote Rowan without reading what he's actually saying, and the focus will switch.

So lets stick with the real story here. The Archbishop of York said to a group of bankers (you've got to love his guts - talk about Daniel in the lions den):

"To a bystander like me, those who made £190million deliberately underselling the shares of HBOS, in spite of its very strong capital base, and drove it into the bosom of Lloyds TSB Bank, are clearly bank robbers and asset strippers.

"We find ourselves in a market system which seems to have taken its rules of trade from Alice in Wonderland, where the share value of a bank is no longer dependent on the strength of its performance but rather on the willingness of the Government to bail it out, or rather on whether the Government has announced its intentions so to do."

and the real bomb:
"the President of the United States recently announced a $700 billion bailout plans for banks and financial institutions. One of the ironies about this financial crisis is that it makes action on poverty look utterly achievable. It would cost $5 billion to save six million children's lives. World leaders could find 140 times that amount for the banking system in a week. How can they now tell us that action for the poorest on the planet is too expensive?"

If you were planning to get enraged about Rowan Williams, don't. If you were planning to get enraged about media reporting, don't. If you were planning to get enraged about bloggers not getting their facts right don't. Get enraged about this. Bush can find hundreds of billions of dollars to bail out the banking sector, but not even 1% of this to stop people dying of starvation or for lack of clean water. If this doesn't show that capitalism is sick to the heart, then I'm Karl Marx.

Update: Thinking Anglicans has a good round up of links for this one.

The London Service

In case anyone's visiting here without catching up on the 'gay wedding' story via Dave Walker or Thinking Anglicans, the Archbishops have issued this statement:

Joint statement by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Archbishop of York regarding St Bartholomew-the-Great

“We have heard the reports of the recent service in St Bartholomew the Great with very great concern. We cannot comment on the specific circumstances because they are the subject of an investigation launched by the Bishop of London.

On the general issue, however, the various reference points for the Church of England’s approach to human sexuality (1987 Synod motion, 1991 Bishops’ Statement- Issues in Human Sexuality- , Lambeth motion 1:10, House of Bishops’ 2005 statement on civil partnerships) are well known and remain current.

Those clergy who disagree with the Church’s teaching are at liberty to seek to persuade others within the Church of the reasons why they believe, in the light of Scripture, tradition and reason that it should be changed. But they are not at liberty simply to disregard it.”

Judging by the liturgy, it was clearly a wedding in all but name. However, the person who conducted it has the freehold of St. Bartholemews, and so can't be sacked or suspended for flouting church rules (not that the church has 'rules' on this - as the statement above shows, there are 'reference points'.) Within the CofE structure, it's a matter for the Bishop of London, the Archbishops can't wade in and take over, but the statement is pretty clear on what they think about it.

Contrary to reports in the press, the Church of England is not in meltdown, but there are a lot of very confused people. Those who look to the church to uphold traditional morality and the teaching of the Bible are asking why the priest in question hasn't been sacked (answer: he can't be), and the church is trying to deal with it properly rather than follow the knee-jerking legions of commenters. Amidst all the cries to 'do something', there will be a measured investigation, which will base its conclusions on facts rather than feelings. The church is counter-cultural in how it deals with these things, and rightly so. If you're not sure what happens when the crowd dictates penal policy, read the passion narratives or watch last Saturdays Doctor Who.

The CofE is facing the impossible task of holding together a liberal and conservative wing who are both pulling hard in opposite directions, and demanding a clear choice of roads, rather than finding a way of remaining one church in unity.

All clergy swear to use only the forms of service recognised by church law. The Rector of St. Bartholemews has broken this vow, but so have I, and many of my colleagues (not, I hasten to add, in blessing civil partnerships, but I doubt the communion service at our parish weekend this Sunday will tick every canonical box). However in the current context, he's done much more than that. Bishop Alan comments:

I suspect this particular service, will generate far more heat than light. The theological confusion inherent in taking off a 1662 Prayer Book wedding, lock stock and two smoking barrels, may actually make it harder to define the significance of covenanted friendships before and within the whole Christian community.

Post-Freudian anthropology, whilst most triumphant in the West, is incomprehensible to the vast majority of people in this world. Many post-Colonials note that it flowers in the least relational, most depressed, screwed up and confused societies. They just don’t buy it. More work needs to be done about this aspect of the concept before it can go global.

I don't really want to add to the bubbling pot on this issue, but I'm with the Archbishops both theologically and practically. Provocative actions - including the planned gathering in Jerusalem, which I'm glad to see is focusing on poverty, AIDS and mission as well as Anglican politics - don't help us to love one another, and in the end the reason the church exists is the mission of God, and we are in serious danger of taking our eye off the ball.

Update: The Bishop of London has made public a letter to all his clergy about the case. He's clearly not impressed by Martin Dudley's actions. Meanwhile Dave Walker is looking for evidence of meltdown in the Church of England

John Sentamu on Faith and Politics

Ruth Gledhill has posted in full a talk on religion and politics given by John Sentamu last night. Lots of good stuff in it, and I imagine his critique of New Labour will get more attention than his critique of secularism. Though Sentamu doesn't mention the vote on 42 day detention, it must be in his sights when he comments on liberty and state power.

Here's a chunk of it, on whether excluding religion from the public sphere is a good thing:

Organised religion is always ambiguous. It can be both an instrument for good or for great evil. When I consider the history of organised religions the world over and look at the present state of our world and the countless acts of violence committed in the name of God, is it any wonder that the third commandment given to Moses on Mount Sinai was not to misuse the name of the Lord?

Such acknowledgements of wickedness give succour to those dogmatic atheists or illiberal secularists for whom any Utopian vision requires the eradication of all religion. Yet we only have to look to the Third Reich, the former Soviet Union and the present regimes of North Korea and Burma to consider that a society without religion rapidly loses faith in humanity.
People become essential means of production – except, of course, the ruling classes.

It isn’t by accident that every totalitarian movement of the last century sought to eradicate the influence of belief in God prior to imposing its despotic will.

In our new century organised religion has become not so much the enemy to be eradicated but the tool to be abused. Whether it be the so called Salafi-Jihadism of Al Qaeda claiming the lives of innocent people perversely in the name of Allah or those narrowly focussed political parties attempting to usurp religious values and heritage, the purveyors of hatred and violence cover their wickedness with a religious cloak, or to use the words of Rabbi Lionel Blue, “the terrorists covering their own inner violence under a fig leaf of faith”.

Such abusers of religion lay easy claim to centuries of heritage with their lip service whilst their actions, and in some cases perverse ideologies, twist out of shape the garment of faith woven over centuries by faithful scholars and adherents.

For those who claim the mantle of faith, the ultimate injunction must be for us to know God better, to know God more, and to love and serve our neighbour better. In doing this we fulfil our obligations not only to God but also to the society which we share.

Such duties and obligations form the bedrock of a religious approach to politics that extends far beyond the comparatively modern term of “social justice”. Rather the prophets and the law lay the foundation for our primacy of care for the other and in so doing lay down the foundation for the role of religion in politics.

He goes on to spell out where religion and politics intersect under the headings of Responsibility, Service and Liberty. Plenty to chew on. Other speeches by the ABY here, on his website.