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The Church of England has been inextricably linked to the rise of capitalism from the very beginning, according to the seminal work by the historian, R H Tawney: Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (1926). This text (compulsory reading for all arts students at my university) explored the relationship between Protestantism and economic development in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. As the Wikipedia entry has it,
Tawney “bemoaned the division between commerce and social morality brought about by the Protestant Reformation, leading as it did to the subordination of Christian teaching to the pursuit of material wealth”. In keeping with his social radicalism, Tawney came to regard the Church of England as a “class institution, making respectful salaams to property and gentility, and with too little faith in its own creed to call a spade a spade in the vulgar manner of the New Testament”.
Sounds familiar? Some of the comments on the occupation of the area around St Paul’s have regretted that the protest, aimed at the City of London and the unacceptable face of capitalism, should have found itself outside St Paul’s, as it were an innocent bystander, when it should have been round the corner in Paternoster Square, home of the Stock Exchange since 2004 (please enjoy with me the delicious irony of the stock exchange address being the opening words of the Lord’s Prayer). Fate may have lent a hand in the re-positioning of the encampment. Or has it occurred to you that there may have been a divine hand in moving this ‘in your face’ protest to the very steps of St Paul’s, forcing the ecclesiastical powers that be to re-examine the charges laid by Tawney?
I recommend a piece by Symon Hill of Ekklesia called ‘Would Jesus kick protesters off St Paul’s ground?’ And Gurdur has a good summary at The Heathen Hub: The Church of England, Occupy London Stock Exchange, religion & atheism. Simon Sarmiento of ‘Thinking Anglicans’ has a Saturday round-up of press coverage.
What an opportunity for mission we have been offered! I give thanks for the brave public stand by the Revd Canon Giles Fraser. The Revd Lesley Crawley blogs today about his willingness to stand up for his principles, no matter what the private cost and links to an interview with him. I give thanks for those who organised the services of Evensong once the doors of St Paul’s had closed to the public. I give thanks for other clerics, including Bishop Alan Wilson, who visited the encampment. I regret that others did not, so far as we know, feel able to engage with the protesters (offering soup and sandwiches would not have implied endorsement of their protest, but would simply have been a Christian gesture).
I end by quoting from Bishop Alan’s piece:
And, as St Paul’s reopens its doors, this tale raises a question for its managers. Can they redeem their initial hysterical over-reaction? Do they want to draw all voices into a vital public debate, or will they clear the site as tactfully and soon as possible, probably in the middle of the night — when Caiaphas and chums used to do their business?
In other words do they have the stomach to engage in the real world at the crest of a tidal race between people, money and power, or are they just overgrown public schoolboys playing indoor games in their own self-important Tourist Disneyland?
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Note
The illustration is ‘St Paul’s Cathedral against £10 notes’ by Stephen Finn via Shutterstock.
There is nothing new in anti-capitalism, just a different style of doing protest. It’s a refreshing change from the violent confrontations of recent demonstrations.
50 years ago, and more recently, it was not the done thing to basically stage a ‘live in’, ‘sit ins’ were the style of the Anti-Nuclear campaigns, and the Aldermaston Marches. Later, the Greenham Common women chained themselves to fences and broke through to make their protest. The pictures of protesters being lifted and carried away by uniformed police officers flooded the papers, and were denigrated by the main-stream media. These were people of principle, with an idea of what they were protesting about, and with the determination to carry out peaceful protest.
Peaceful protest is a right, but also a privilege. And to some extent, I’m beginning to wonder if that privilege is being abused by the protesters, who had one agenda, but now, having seen the effects they have had on the issues of St Paul’s and the Churches response, which seems to have been to allow Mammon to dominate their actions and to cast out the sole voice (Giles Fraser), they seem to be content to develop another. I have no clear idea what they are about, or what their agenda is, apart from trying to get someone, anyone to listen to them. But nobody is listening, they are just jumping on the bandwagon of bash a Christian when he (or she) is down.
Unfortunately for St Paul’s, they are tainted by their links to City Institutions and the Corporation of London – these vested interests purport to be the great and good, but in reality are a mercenary band, interested only in the next profit to be made.
Now, we have the prospect of legal action and its inevitable consequences, removal peaceably or by force. From Church property, with the world gazing on in bewilderment. How can a so-called Christian organisation tolerate or cooperate with as Giles Fraser portrays it, ‘violence in our name’.
What I have noticed is that apart from some hand wringing from the Bishop of London, and an unwelcome and typically bombastic intervention from Lord Carey, is a deathly silence from the titular head of the Province of Canterbury – his only comment on record was a note dropped to Giles Fraser, saying that he would pray for him.
Perhaps we are seeing a realignment of the Church and State, but on the wrong side. I sincerely hope not. Because, if so, dis-establishment will surely follow. The coalition are already tinkering with the Act of Union, why not a few more lines and write out the church altogether. Given what is happening, who could blame the government for taking the view that the church has lost its moral and spiritual authenticity and they might as well listen to the Chief Rabbi rather than the ABC.
I hope and pray that I’m wrong, but if the ‘do nothing’ and ‘stand-aside’ and let it happen stance continues, I can see it coming.
God save the Church of England, as we can’t.
Thank-you, UK Viewer.
Like you, I am uneasy about developments – I certainly didn’t intend to give the impression that the protesters are all good, with the Church being all bad: of course not. It is rather that the edges are uncomfortably blurred, as you hint.
I do think that if the Church of England goes ahead and signs the Covenant (possibly on its own?!), this might precipitate the disestablishment of the Church of England, since its provisions on LGBT in church will be against the laws of England.
I can’t speak for the protestors at St Paul’s, but, as I said at Bishop Alan’s blog, when I visited Occupy New Orleans and talked to the people, I learned that the protestors are not of one mind as to why they are there. I heard a variety of reasons, which come down to the idea that things are simply not just or fair in our societies today, and no one in authority is paying attention. Here we are messing up your public space only a bit. Look at us; talk to us. I felt as you did UKViewer, but I changed my mind.
Either the movement will fade out, or it will grow, and if it grows, it will likely become more focused.
Different thought continue to pop into my consciousness with respect to the protestors at St Paul. Today, the thought is church as sanctuary.
That would be ‘different thoughts’.
I’m sure you are right that the protestors are not a homogenous group – and in fact I’ve no doubt that ours share the general dissatisfaction among the group you talked to in New Orleans, all coming from different backgrounds.
What the whole event highlights for me I think is the inability of the Church to think on its feet and react with imagination and Christian feeling to the situation at hand.
Ah well!
I wish it wasn’t billed as an anti capitalist movement because it largely isn’t. I think this idea comes from America where people genuinely find it difficult to understand the concept of a social market economy where raw capitalism is not tamed by an unspoken social contract that the rich look after those who cannot benefit from the system.
But here in Europe we know better. We all live in countries where governments have for a long time been engaged in a more or less fair redistribution of money.
What is happening now is that this moral contract is perceived to have been broken. My children’s future is indeed a lot bleaker than mine ever was, yet only yesterday did we hear that in our “we’re all in this together” country executive pay has increased by an average of 43% last year. 43%. Increase. While for the rest of us pay has been largely frozen and taxes and costs have gone up virtually everywhere. There are a number of families in my immediate circle who are paying a high personal cost for this and the effects of it on their lives are painful to watch.
You don’t need to be an anti-capitalist to find that inconceivably unfair.
As for the movement not having concrete proposals – it wouldn’t! We’re not all economists who can turn out a plan for a global restructuring of the system so it contains a “moral” component.
Capitalism was supposed to be self-regulating according to a fine balance of demand and supply and the trickle down effect was to even out some of the resulting inequalities.
Neither is true anymore. Global finance is far more fickle than pure economics would tell you and even the combined top economic and financial brains around the world don’t seem to fully understand what has happened and how to put it right.
So it’s a bit much to expect protestors to have perfect plans.
It’s easy to be for or against tuition fees, for or against a war, for or against nuclear weapons etc. But this!
All we can do is to express our collective unease with where things are going, hoping that those who do understand and who can make changes will eventually be sufficiently moved to do so.
Whether individual protestors are clever, articulate, knowledgeable or just a bit of a rebel with a semi-cause is completely beside the point.
And the problem with “peaceful protest is a right” but “not in my back yard” is a tricky one when the protesters don’t own their own back yard and every bit of public space is owned by those who would rather not see the protesters there.
Where are they supposed to go to exercise their right to peaceful protest?
Isn’t it astonishing how those who own the spaces manage, time and time again, to divert from the nature of the protest and rubbish the perception the world has of the protestors?
That alone should worry us more than anything.
In some parts of America and in Melbourne peaceful camps have been broken up with tear gas. Here, the Corporation of London and St Paul’s are seeking legal advice to get rid of those who criticise them. Well, they would, wouldn’t they!
We should be appalled by the ease with which they can do that rather than support their spurious reasons that don’t really amount to much more than “we don’t like those messy looking people clogging up our pretty street and drawing attention to what we’d rather they didn’t articulate”.
Thank-you Erika – this is a really helpful analysis of the (of course) heterogeneous make-up of the protesters, and also an illustration of why our political vocabulary is so different from the American (eg the word ‘liberal’).
Because it serves their interests to do so, and because it does not force them to think, I suspect that the City of London is lumping these protesters together with the series of ‘Stop the City’ demonstrations, which were organised by situationist anarchist groups (contradiction in terms, I know) like Class War.
As you show, this is facile and does not take sufficiently into account the very real grievances of the middle classes or what the last government called ‘Worcester man and woman’.
Even I have become radicalised!
Especially when I hear muttering from Boris that this all has to be cleared up in time for the Lord Mayor’s Show!
I think it’s important not to run away with the idea that the entire CofE shares a comfy collusion with capital. Our Church has had (and still has) its fair share of radical and vehemently anti-establishment figures, both lay and ordained. Think of Fr Conrad Noel, the – in his day, notorious – communist vicar of Thaxted, who flew the red flag from his church tower. And it would in my judgement be wrong to assume that all our present leaders are happy with the status quo (remember the ABC’s New Statesman editorial which caused such a fuss just a few months ago?). This strain of radicalism – often outspoken and irritant to the establishment – is as much a part of the CofE’s inheritance as it is present in our national DNA.
Thank-you for this useful corrective lens, if I may put it like that. I can certainly think of plenty of ‘leftie’ clerics (who was the Red Dean?), and the list would certainly include ++Rowan. I believe that the Dean of St Paul’s said plaintively to the protesters this morning that they should not assume he does not share their political views (because he does, by inference, at least some of them).
I think the point I was originally trying to make – Tawney’s point so far as I can remember from 1966! – was that the growth of capitalism was inextricably entwined with the rise of the bourgeoisie through ‘the Protestant work ethic’, and their Protestant faith was important to this newly rich class.
(I appreciate that this raises the problem of the Church of England not being a Protestant church, so far as the Anglo-Catholic wing is concerned, but this little local difficulty spoils my argument!)
I think that Erika makes some pretty good points. And like Laura, I think that I’ve been radicalised to an extent, I never imagined in the past.
I think that perhaps it started with John Major’s government, which had success, but was mired in sleeze. I had great hopes for New Labour and voted for them in two successive elections – but became disillusioned with both their politics and their policies. Perhaps the final straw was the Iraq war. I was still in uniform, so couldn’t voice my feelings, in the Army you can vote, but are expected to hold to a neutral political viewpoint. Very much the view of secularists, on religion being a private matter, in the Armed Forces, politics are also a private matter. Radical political opinions exist, but voicing them is treated with suspicion and can even impinge on your security clearance.
Now, I support the policies and ethics of the Green party, who appear to be untainted by the political machinations which effect the mainstream parties, and whose policies can understand and agree with (although I have a few doubts about their policy on drugs). Their policies and actions, articulate much of what the protesters at #occupyLSX seem to stand for, and I suspect there are probably many active green party members among them.
I find Giles Fraser’s so-called radical viewpoint, one which resonates with me. His point of ‘what would Jesus do’?, answering himself, that ‘he would be in the protest camp’ holds true to a large extent.
Today’s Gospel for All Saint’s Day, the beatitudes, really brings it home and our Vicar preached on this today – he seemed to be signposting that he agreed with Giles Fraser, although he didn’t say so outright.
Not due to lack of moral courage, just in consideration for the wide mix of people in our benefice, who come from a wide spectrum or mix of rural villages, some upper, some middle and many from what I would say are working class, in fairly deprived rural pockets with high unemployment and reducing inccome.
I suppose I am expecting the occupyLSX to be able to state their aims and objectives, my military background likes this sort of clarity, but that expectation is mistaken (see, I am able to say that I might actually be wrong). They need time and space to work out their agenda, coming from such a diverse mix of backgrounds. But it would make things clearer to the public and help them gain and retain support from a wider audience, and perhaps stop the Daily Mail and other right wing rags from lambasting them and categorising them as Anti-Capitalist, when they seem to have a much more specific agenda.
Bishop Alan has said elsewhere that your argument about the protesters NOT being simply anti-capitalist is ‘on the money’ – and I would certainly not wish to disagree with my favourite bishop!
Some people have refused to take the protesters seriously unless they come up with proposals for how to run the world differently, but in committees the people who find the solutions are very rarely the people who identify the problems in the first place.