And Lazarus in his Bosom

The Church of England's moral compass has been doing the rounds again. The Worshipful Company of International Bankers, having given Mammon his due and offered a place at their annual dinner to the Archbishop of York, were treated to a sermon about the importance of "stable financial institutions" and the immorality of "bank robbers and asset strippers". The Archbishop, who lives in a palace where copies of Luke 18 xxii are apparently in short supply, also noted that the financial crisis "makes action on poverty look utterly achievable. It would cost five billion US dollars to save six million children's lives". By the grace of God, the Church of England has about five billion pounds (five thousand million, in Standard English) invested in the financial system which, according to the Archbishop, "seems to have taken its rules of trade from Alice in Wonderland". Five thousand million pounds sterling being worth rather more than five thousand million US dollars, it appears that the saving of rather more than six million children's lives is utterly achievable for the Church of England, with the added benefit that the money thus used would be safe from the March hares and mad hatters of the market. The Archbishop of York has claimed in the past that "the safeguarding of a God-reference" is necessary for human rights to be maintained; while the Archbishop of Canterbury has stated in an interview that "people ought to look to the church for moral guidance" and, in the next breath, that "it is also important about the way we use our money, especially us in the West, about how much we give, about how we care for the poor".

The Son of God, as is well known, was a talented maker of metaphors. Being the kind of man who could exhort his disciples to love their enemies, and then abuse his own enemies as fools, vipers, blind guides, whited sepulchres and (most entertainingly) hypocrites, he had a rather good one about preaching to others while behaving badly oneself. Something about boats and memes, I think - no, it's gone. Oh, well. Probably not relevant anyhow.