In the House of the Righteous is Much Treasure

That pious fraud the Archbishop of Canterbury has stepped forth from his palace to pontificate upon the increasingly dysfunctional society which may soon result from the gap between rich and poor. The economic crisis, he proclaims, is a lesson that "economics is too important to be left to economists"; particularly given the catholicity of agreement among economists concerning the practical, ethical and social supremacy of the Thatcherite doctrine which has been in force these thirty years. Hence, the Archbishop feels it incumbent upon himself, as an awkward amateur and professional lily of the field, to take a bit of a holiday from his Church's holy agonies about what consenting adults do in private and give us the benefit of his wisdom on the matter. He noted the public's sense that "people are somehow getting away with a culture in which the connection between the worth of what you do and the reward you get becomes more obscure"; and, perhaps because of this encouraging evidence that the kingdom of heaven is upon us, he also worried that "there hasn't been what I would, as a Christian, call repentance. We haven't heard people saying: 'Well actually, no, we got it wrong and the whole fundamental principle on which we worked was unreal, was empty." It appears that he has failed to appreciate the nuanced, but very real, distinction between the economy of history and the economics of faith. On the other hand, the Government has intervened quite decisively to give more to those that have, while for those who have not, even what they have shall be taken away. The value of the Church's own investments may have fallen somewhat, leading to "diffused resentment" and "muted anger"; but provided one is sufficiently meek in submitting to the punishment of others, there are surely some grounds for optimism.