Categories: life-and-musings, faith
Date: 20 November 2009 13:01:44
This is mostly a response to Steve in the comments of the previous post, but it got far too long to leave as a comment, even by my current standards of verbal diarrhoea. In the rest of this post, big-C Church refers to a Denomination-as-corporate-body; little-c church refers to church-as-individual-building.
As a Catholic, I can’t really comment on the investment policies of any other Church. I think Steve was referring to the Anglicans when he talked of property investments, since the Church Commissioners, who are responsible for the Anglican Church’s investment policies, have been in the news recently for making unwise investments. Steve, if I’m wrong, please feel free to tell me so in the comments.
However, as a general rule, all Churches have a duty to care for their sick and retired workers, and therefore need to provide pensions for them, given that the alternative is to work them until they drop. It would be unlikely that the requisite income could be provided purely from the collection plates, and so they need to invest in property, stocks & shares, etc, just as any other corporate body which is interested in providing a decent pension for its workers. As the labourer is worthy of his hire, so the retired labourer should not be reduced to penury and living on value beans in retirement.
Also, as you say, all those churches need maintaining. The Church of England, whilst it is the “Established Church” is not funded by the government, so, unlike the Catholic Church in France, it is responsible for the maintenance of its own buildings (with some grants from English Heritage for buildings of historic import, for example). An individual congregation may not be capable of providing for all the costs relating to maintaining a 1,000-year-old-church, so the Church as a corporate body has to provide funding to maintain the church as an individual building.
I do not think any reputable Church sets out to make a profit, either from its congregations or from its investments – money earned or donated is, or should be, used or invested in order to meet the expenses outlined above, and prudence dictates that money should be kept in reserve to meet large, unanticipated expenditure. The problem arises where a Church exploits its congregation to keep the minister in Mercedes cars and Saville Row suits, and his wife in fancy hats and Jimmy Choos. Yes, I have seen this, and it makes me sick. However, as Christians, we believe that your actions in this life are not the end. Either you will be called to repentance in this life, and sell the Mercedes and devote your time to Good Works, or it will be sorted out in the next by the One to Whom all hearts are open, all desires known.