St Paul's has clearly given the signal to the police to clear #occupylondon camped on its doorstep this afternoon.
Is that surprising?
Look at the list of sponsors of the Cathedral including:
Lloyds TSB Group plcAn Independent Trust Associated with BarclaysCity of London CorporationCity of London Endowment TrustThe Schroder FoundationGoldman Sachs InternationalThe Worshipful Company of MercersUBS Investment BankMcKinsey & CompanyN M Rothschild & Sons LtdSkandinaviska Enskilda BankPrudential PlcSlaughter & MayElectra Partners LLPLand SecuritiesStandard Chartered PlcJPMorgan CazenoveJ.P. MorganThe Freemasons' Grand CharityCanary Wharf Group PlcMan Group Plc Charitable TrustLondon Stock ExchangeThe Worshipful Company of GrocersAmerican ExpressThe Coutts Charitable TrustThe British Land Company PlcHSBC Holdings Plc
In the face of that what has happened? St Paul's has asked those seeking to protect the 99% form the 1% to very politely go away.
It's clear whose side St Paul's is on.
Each evening St Paul's sings the Magnificat (it's part of Evening Prayer) It says:
My soul magnifies the Lord……,
He has shown strength with His arm:
He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
He has put down the mighty from their thrones,
and exalted those of low degree.
He has filled the hungry with good things;
and the rich He has sent empty away.
Not at St Paul's he doesn't. The rich he welcomes with open arms. It's the poor he sends empty away.
And can say unambiguously St Paul's has got this wrong.
My new book is The Courageous State. It looks like we need a Courageous Church too.
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‎”You cannot serve both God and Mammon” (Matt 6:24)
Jesus threw the money changes out of the temple saying: “don’t make my fathers house a den of thieves”.
Here we have a modern version, nothing changes with sinful nature!
Dear Melmo, The really interesting – and highly appropriate – aspect of your reference to Jesus driving the moneylenders out of the Temple with the “den of thieves” charge is the fact that Jesus was actually quoting from Jeremiah Chapter 7, when Jeremiah laid into the 1% of his day, who were using religion as a cloak for wrong-doing. Read the excellent Chapter, but here’s a snippet from it:
9 “‘Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury,burn incense to Baal and follow other gods you have not known, 10 and then come and stand before me in this house, which bears my Name, and say, “We are safe”–safe to do all these detestable things? 11 Has this house, which bears my Name, become a den of robbers to you? But I have been watching! declares the LORD.”
The 1% have always been the same – thinking they can “get away with murder”, if they dress themselves up in fine clothes of status, and position, and alleged value and indispensability, and above all of religious allegiance. However, the 99% can now see these are “Emperor’s new clothes”; not real, only pretend clothes, with OLSX acting to make clear how the 1% are actually naked, with no ve4stige of justification for their wealth and power. THIS is what Jesus was actually doing – he wasn’t against wealth, or money, or the money-changers per se, but against the way they were cheating the ordinary worshippers, and unfairly extorting hard-earned wealth from ordinary people. As usual, Jesus expressed a radical option in favour of the poor.
A Courageous Church. There was Rowan Williams’ New Statesman issue in June 2011: http://www.newstatesman.com/uk-politics/2011/06/long-term-government-democracy It drew a no-nonsense reaction from David Cameron and his people in the press.
I attended an interesting lecture by Peter Atkinson, Dean of Worcester, earlier this year. You can download the text of it from here: http://www.stmartinsworcester.org.uk/centenary-lectures/4547722683
Here’s a paragraph this stayed with me: “There was a strong strand of ‘Christian socialism’, advocated by people like Charles Gore, consecrated Bishop of Worcester, and by 1910 first Bishop of Birmingham; by William Moore Ede, who before becoming Dean of Worcester had been Rector of Gateshead; and Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy [a.k.a. Woodbine Willie], in 1910 a curate at Rugby, but in 1914 to become Vicar of St Paul’s, Worcester, and after that the most celebrated army chaplain of the First World War. But these were men wanting to move the Church of England out of its natural habitat; and its natural habitat was not the working-class or the poor. Other Christian denominations: the Roman Catholic Church (especially among Irish immigrants), the Methodists, the Salvation Army, were more at home there.”
The Church of England was first described as “the Tory Party at prayer” in the 18th century. [Can anyone provide chapter and verse, please?] But in 1910 the poor had no-one else to turn to. It’s very interesting that one hundred years ago, in Worcester of all places, three leading C of E figures were writing papers critical of capitalism. I asked the speaker if the C of E might return to this argument. The way he avoided the question answered that.
Perhaps the Welfare State took the pressure off the C of E. Perhaps its charitable status keeps it compliant. It does own a massive amount of land and property. A displeased Government could coerce it into selling some. The C of E does do its share for the poor — but it won’t make an issue of it.
By the way, does anyone else remember when the poor were seen as St Peter’s ‘secret shoppers’? The gentlemen of the road knew where the church-goers lived. Many people felt the need to be Good Samaritans. And if the needy were, say, vulnerable to human weaknesses they remembered The Prodigal Son and helped them anyway.
Talking of Worcester – your last Bishop was brilliant and your latest not at all bad
What’s going for Worcester?
>It’s clear whose side St Paul’s is on
Perhaps they’re on the side of tourists?