The Anglican Church of Canada is more of a crypto-Marxism cabal than it is a Christian denomination, so it isn’t surprising to find a bishop writing this in the Anglican Journal:
The intimate connection of individual lifestyle and global economic and political practices has been revealed in forceful detail. Yes, there are big actors that enflame this crisis—governments and corporations—but it is very clear that the tolerance that lets such deadly misbehaviour continue arises from our personal captivity to comfort, luxury, and wealth. And this tolerance is not just for what is overwhelming our planet. We have also accepted, with no major protest that I can see, the hideous damage that our present greed-related practices have inflicted on the poor, Indigenous peoples, and on the creatures that share Creation with us.
[…….]
Jesus showed us how to make this world and its relations sacred through the ceremony he gave us. This ceremony looks and acts towards his coming again, a time when God “will be all in all.” (1 Cor 15:28) What humanity has done through the global culture of money is the opposite, with the poor bearing the consequence. To make no choice in regard to these realities is an act of violent moral consequences. We must engage in a spiritual revolution, based in Eucharistic discipleship, and move in concert with and activate public policies and practices that will change these things. We must, in a hallowing of the Name of God, choose life.
A few pages further on in the paper we learn that clergy are rejoicing in how much profit (sorry, budget surplus) the church raked in in 2021:
Archdeacon Alan Perry, general secretary of General Synod, said the church was running a surplus for the year, to date, of more than $600,000. “That’s really extraordinarily good news,”
This is peanuts in the overall picture, though: The Anglican Church of Canada has around $1.2 billion invested in church pension funds, diocesan investments and trust funds. Shameless Capitalism.
Presumably, these considerable sums are somehow cleansed of the global culture of money and greed-related practices by virtue of Eucharistic discipleship. Whatever that is. To put it more simply, the ACoC is a major player in ecclesiastical money laundering.
Further on in the paper, we find the new ACoC treasure intoning these words that were clearly inspired by Squealer’s speech in Animal Farm:
“We don’t look at the work we do [as] bringing money for profit,” she says.
“We’re bringing money to help others. This is not the organization’s money, to be honest with you. We look at it as God’s money, and God gave it to us so we can utilize it to the best interests of everyone and to the benefit of everybody.”
Four or five years ago, retired clergy were concerned that their monthly church pension cheques might be reduced by as much as 20% if the pension fund continued to be in trouble. Today, retired clergy’s pension income remains stable in the foreseeable future. We live in a capitalistic society, not Communist China. We have to live with changes because of the changing democratic policies. We are not ruled by the followers of Chairman Mao.
The bible talks a lot more about money than it does about sex so it’s entirely appropriate to focus on economic practices and our participation in them as a major part of injustice and yes, sin. More of that please. What’s so irksomely lacking in the Journal is much vague language of good intentions without robust theological thinking about participation in money and how to redirect some of it for good. The parable of the dishonest manager in Luke 16 comes to mind as a prod to figure out ways of using and even redeeming the use of money.
And while we’re at it, let’s banish the word ‘stewardship’ (with apologies to stewardship committees). We’re not passive managers of the status quo but conduits and shapers of a grace that reveals a whole new world of social and economic relationships – which I think is what the above quoted article is driving at.
Let’s hear from the Christian investment managers from the Diocese on the use of money, the redemption of money, and wrestling with that we participate in systems of exploitation for our wellbeing yet at the same time find inroads of grace that show alternative uses and investments.
Happy to provide such contacts from my parish church.