Unemployment
If you are considering the effects of unemployment, the following papers may be of help:
Unemployment - What can we do? Raymond Draper
What do you do if you lose your job? Raymond Draper
Redundancy Essex Churches Council for Industry and Commerce
Credit Crunch
Terry Drummond has produced this paper as Chair of the Social Responsibility and Regeneration Working Group for the Diocese of Southwark in partnership with Mission in London's Economy: The Credit Crunch - Pastoral responses
Ethics, Economics and Global Justice The archbishop of Canterbury gave this lecture at Cardiff in March 2009
Archbishop speaks out on faith in the workplace
Faith cannot be separated from the world of work – and employees should not be expected to give up their religious convictions when they walk into their office, the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu declared this week. His comments, at the launch of the God at Work course at Holy Trinity Church, Brompton, came as a series of high-profile cases continued to keep the religious discrimination debate in the headlines. Dr Sentamu said Christians had the daily challenge of ‘living by a set of values that the world thinks are mad’. He added, ‘there is no more urgent time than now to break down the compartmentalised thinking that separates trust in God from the world of work’. As the number of cases of workplace discrimination on religious grounds increased in the year to April 2008, the Chartered Management Institute urged members to review their existing policies and rules to ensure they do not discriminate against staff holding particular beliefs.
Sources:
Telegraph (15/2, 16/2, 18/2),Times
(19/2)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/4622858/Christians-face-discrimination-in-workplace-say-church-leaders.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/4640611/Companies-told-to-review-rules-to-avoid-indirect-religious-discrimination.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/4681357/Archbishop-of-York-Dr-John-Sentamu-Christians-are-regarded-as-mad-by-society.html
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article5766640.ece
Workshops and Events
Shared faiths response to the credit crunch - was held on Wednesday 3rd December, St Ethelburga's Centre for Reconciliation and Peace, 78 Bishopsgate, London EC2N 4AG. An initial meeting discussing ideas for a shared faiths statement on the credit crunch. Contact Jonathan Evens (on tel: 020 8599 2170 or email: jonathan.evens@btinternet.com) if you would be interested in contributing to the development of this shared statement
We have added a new website in our Links page www.transitionculture.org
You will find weekly reflections on the Gospel for each Sunday on our Prayer page. These relate the Gospel reading to the experience of work and the workplace. Take a look here
Faiths in London's Economy (FiLE)
This is our newest practitioner group, designed to work with other faith communities in order to create coordinated faith-community responses to the issues facing London's economy. If you would like to be part of this group please download this form and return it. This group has a FiLE Page with many useful resources. See FiLE
Education, Churches and Economy
This practitioner group has a new Education Page with resources for Industry (Rogation) Sunday 27 April, Climate Change and other issues. See Education
Quoted with permission from the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity
St Paul: Principle vs. Expediency
'When Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he was in the wrong.' Gal. 2:11
The story goes that, in his first job, the young Gordon Selfridge answered the phone for his boss. 'Tell him I'm out', said his boss. 'Tell him yourself, sir', Selfridge replied, passing the phone over. When the call was finished, his boss turned in fury to Selfridge, demanding an explanation. 'If I tell a lie for you,' he replied, 'I could just as well tell a lie to you.' He risked – but kept – his job. The rest, as they say, is history, as the London department store that bears his name testifies.
The apostle Paul was faced by a similar dilemma. He had worked hard to win Peter's sanction for his ministry. With Barnabas he had established the first church in which Jewish and Gentile believers worshipped together as equals. Peter had endorsed this equality by eating with Gentiles. But then men came, insisting that Gentile converts adopt Jewish customs, and Peter stopped eating with the Gentiles. What a crisis for Paul. Should he retain Peter's favour by following Peter's example? Or should he risk potentially fatal disfavour by standing up for the principle?
Being Paul, he took the bull by the horns, opposing Peter openly, thereby most likely rescuing 'the Way' from becoming simply another sect of Judaism. He realised that the principle of justification by faith was at the core of the Gospel. If adherence to the law were to be grafted on to it, salvation would no longer be by grace alone.
Many of us are faced in our everyday lives with dilemmas like Paul's – not so strategic, no doubt, but just as critical to maintaining the integrity of Christian witness. Temptations abound, particularly in the workplace. Corporate culture regards 'whistleblowing' as a sin; God regards condoning evil as a sin. Similarly, jumping onto a questionable band-wagon, ingratiating oneself with a corrupt colleague – such actions compromise Christian integrity, and contribute to the contempt that many feel for the church.
It is very hard to maintain this integrity. Paul got away with it. So did Gordon Selfridge. We will not always do so. We don't have to be as confrontational as Paul, but have we the courage to be just as steadfast?
Helen Parry (LICC) www.licc.org.uk
Discussion Papers presented at a conference held by Mission in London's Economy on 30 May 2007
More documents can be found on the Papers page