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THE implications of the financial crisis and the recession were debated by the General Synod on Thursday afternoon last week, when it took note of a report from the Mission and Public Affairs Division.
The Archbishop of York, Dr Sentamu, made it clear that the focus of the debate was the Church’s own response to the financial crisis. The urgency was to see what could be done to help those at the sharp end of the crisis.
Society had gone from sustained growth, historically low interest rates, managed inflation, and low unemployment rates to a lament for economic exile and “blaming for our collective ills those who have besieged our city — the bankers, mortgage lenders, money-markets, speculators, and government deregulators”.
But everyone had “worshipped at the temple of money”, and had been guilty of a pursuit of profit without regard for ethic, risk, or consequence. The Church must face up to its responsibilities for those in hardship in active solidarity.
A vision was needed that was deeper than political. The Church of England began with a great advantage: a moral framework and a big vision. It must act prophetically by proclaiming it, living it out in practice, and decrying any injustices that desecrated it. Speaking prophetically was not just about condemning failures, but “helping everyone to accept common goals which in the end uplift the heart”.
The Millennium Development Goals must not be abandoned in the present crisis, he said. England’s problems were relative to the problems of world poverty and disease, where almost ten million children died from extreme poverty every year: “we should get real.”
New and existing church projects in the UK were helping those in need. They included night shelters, food banks, debt counselling, and youth-employment projects in London; help for rural communities from the ARC Addington Fund; and a crackdown on doorstep lenders in Leeds.
He concluded: “Our strength as a Church lies not only in our vision, but in our presence. Our place in every parish in England gives us an unparalleled opportunity to make this fresh vision a reality.” |
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