Our church of St Michael’s, Cornhill, is just up the road from the Bank of England, and every year when we host the City New Year service, the church is packed full of bankers, brokers and liverymen lustily singing the old warhorse hymns Jerusalem and I Vow to Thee my Country. The service also uses great chunks from the King James Bible (1611) and The Book of Common Prayer (1662). In short, it is everything the liberal modernisers and social-gospellers in the Church of England loathe.
Each year we welcome a visiting preacher and recently a prominent prelate came and admonished us as follows: “Money is important but it isn’t everything.” On our way across to Drapers’ Hall for the customary reception, the preacher asked me quietly how I thought his sermon had gone down with the City types. I said: “They loved the joke you started with, but I saw their heads go down when you said that bit about money not being the be-all and end-all. They know that only too well. Those movers and shakers spend only about two per cent of their money on wining and dining; and they spend hours in tedious meetings deciding how they’re going to give the rest of it away to needy causes.”
I don’t know why so many churchmen are so antipathetic to wealth creation, so down on capitalism. They should be reminded of Prime Minister Thatcher’s memorable address when she said that the Good Samaritan would have been useless unless he’d had some money to pay the innkeeper to look after the one who fell among thieves. Modern churchmen give the impression that they think it is the money-makers who are the thieves.
They should be reminded of Prime Minister Thatcher’s memorable address when she said that the Good Samaritan would have been useless unless he’d had some money to pay the innkeeper to look after the one who fell among thieves.
A quote from the Iron Lady which heretofore, I had not read, but gives history all the more reason to like her.
A strange and wonderful thing- an Anglican priest who makes sense!
wow – don’t break your arm patting yourself on your back
Interesting that you do not applaud Dame Thatcher’s Thatcher’s support of liberal abortion laws, and appointments of a number of [closeted] gay men to her Cabinet [one – Lord Avon, son of Harold Macmillan, was an early victim of AIDS].
I was also so proud of almost all of the CoE leaders, who consistently pointed out the consumerism and income inequaity that was at the core of Thatcherism. If only Bob Duncan or David Anderson had such courage nowadays.
Well, the theme was economics, Bob. We’ll leave the gay-baiting to you southpaws.
Jeffersonian,
I believe it was your namesake who once said:
All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.
Funny to see people who see themselves as right use portions of a “hero” like Thatcher, but omit the rest.
Bob, do you have to agree 100% with someone on all topics before you can aplaud the parts you do agree with?
Andrew717,
I suspect you get the supreme irony of a question like that on a site that touts itself as a re-asserting hub.
Generally speaking, I try to avoid hijacking the pithy statements of someone I do not agree with on foundational issues. In the same way that I try to avoid taking Scripture out at a passage comma or completely out of its context.
But the again, that’s just me.
St Michael’s Cornhill is a stalwart BCP parish, and quite theologically conservative. Just FYI..
Bob, I don’t recall anyone here saying that Margaret Thathcer is the way, truth, and life, or that her utterances are Holy Writ. If I’ve missed it, I appologize. But I thought she was just a person, and so we can be free to agree or disagree with her as we choose, depending on the issue under discussion.
[blockquote]I believe it was your namesake who once said:
All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent. [/blockquote]
Indeed he did, but he was merely rephrasing that famous British conservative, Edmund Burke. I’ve never really thought of you as a mossback, bob.
Wealth is not the problem and never has been. Wealth does make it harder to trust God because we are so used to trusting wealth. But the monomaniacal pursuit of wealth. The grasping of wealth and the abuse of people and things to get wealth. These are evil and wrong. If you are blessed with wealth, then great! If you create wealth by producing something that benefits society then wonderful! But remember that the wealth is not ours. We are stewards of the wealth we have.
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
IMO there is a wariness in much of our tradition about the danger of having wealth. To remind a congregation of ‘movers and shakers’ of money’s dangers and responsibilities is hardly unscriptural or untraditional. Indeed I pray some may have found it quite salutory.