
The Church of England has recently lost £1.3 billion through its investments in shares and property. Yet it still has huge assets as well as large responsibilities. This paper looks at some of the difficulties and contradictions of the Church's investment and finance policy, particularly the dislocation of financial decision making from integral mission and economic justice, which is both practically and theologically deficient. Acknowledging both the good intentions towards ethical practice and the constraints imposed by the legal and Established framework of the C of E, the paper argues that for Christian churches, economics needs to be re-located in the subversive and alternative calling of a Gospel community in an unjust world. It suggests there are many positive ways forward. The paper is authored by Jonathan Bartley and Simon Barrow.
Ekklesia's briefing on faith and economy has been updated again to include the latest material appearing on the site about the global credit crunch.
Jonathan Bartley puts forward proposals for alternative co-operative structures to sur