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.<\/p>\n
Each year we welcome a visiting preacher and recently a prominent prelate came and admonished us as follows: \u201cMoney is important but it isn’t everything.\u201d\u009d 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: \u201cThey 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.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n