What do the majority of Anglican bishops – who have not condemned austerity’s impact on the poor – really think?

Posted on March 10 2013

I was pleased to note this morning that 43 Anglican Bishops had condemned the impact of the government's cuts programme on the poor in a letter in the Telegraph.

Then I did a quick count of how many Bishops there are, including suffragans, some of whom signed the letter. Allowing for vacancies there are more than 100.

So what of the majority of the Anglican's bishops who did not sign? Are they in favour of cuts? And is anyone asking them, because if so they've got a lost of explaining to do.

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6 Responses

  1. useful in parts says:
    March 10 2013 at 9:51 pm

    i guess it depends on who was asked to sign it?

  2. KY says:
    March 10 2013 at 10:35 pm

    I wonder if the Dean of Jersey, a Tax Haven, is a one of the critics, now that he has been suspended?

  3. William says:
    March 10 2013 at 11:54 pm

    Richard,
    Our Lord was pretty clear on what he wanted – “give everything to the poor & follow me”.
    We’re not good at following Christ & I don’t think any church will help you. The Roman Catholic should do more because, unlike the Protestants, we see poverty as a good thing, a state of grace, but we, ourselves, fall short of grace all too often. In fact, with Priestly paedophilia etc, we’re far too short of grace ourselves to be offering any round.

  4. Andrew Dickie says:
    March 11 2013 at 9:18 am

    It has been said – and I’m an Anglican myself – that getting Anglicans to come to a common mind is a bit like herding cats (as Bishop Rowan, formerly of Canterbury painfully discovered) so I’m pretty impressed that as many as 43 came together in this way.

    The more so when I recall that Lord “motormouth” Carey, the Archbishop of Canterbury before Rowan, laid into the Bishops in the Lords for opposing the Coalition’s cap on benefits – a move which benefits landlords and disadvantages claimants.

    So, whatever the other 60 or so Anglican bishops did or didn’t do or think, here’s a solid and sizeable block of them coming together to censure the Coalition’s policies – a sign, I would say, that the worm has turned, and that Anglicans have re-asserted their Catholic allegiance to “the Common Good” as evidenced in Archbishop Runcie”s “Faith in the City” report of 1985, which so angered Madam Thatcher, with its searing analysis of urban deprivation, she got her boot boy, Norman Tebbit, to dismiss it, ludicrously, as “Marxist” in inspiration!(Which is rich, given that Thatcher was a Right-wing Maoist, with her hatred of AlL elites other than the market).

    So, let’s rejoice that 43 Bishops have come together to fire this broadside, and work to widen the real coalition of those who have seen through, and oppose, the Coalition’s inhumane policies (who, pace William, DO include Protestants, as well, of course, people of other faiths and none, but united by good faith and a desire for the common good)