Church investment: unethical? Unbiblical?

The historic investments of the Church building of England are managed past the Church Commissioners, who are formally independent of Church leadership though report to General Synod. They hitting the headlines in the 1980s when they lost a staggering £800 million, largely through unwise holding speculation, and though in that location take been glitches since and then, the fiscal performance of what is now one of the largest and nigh influential institutional investment portfolios has been impressive. (The poor return in the alimony scheme is due to the number of retired clergy to back up, rather than poor performance of the investment fund.)

But recently, the Commissioners take more striking the headlines because of a disconnect between investment decisions and church policy. The most recent was the fiasco nearly the housing for Peter Hancock, the new bishop of Bath and Wells, where the Church Commissioner's conclusion was overturned, and last year interest with Wonga embarrassed Justin Welby.

Following on from this, the latest study from the Ethical Investment Counselor Group, defends continue investment in Wonga in quite a bizarre style. At that place are some positives; in his introduction, the Chair of the group, James Featherby (pictured), announces that:

But the justification for what anyone would consider poor ethical investments is very odd:

Elsewhere, it is no more than realistic to desire that they invest but in morally perfect companies than it is to desire that any of u.s. should chronicle but to morally perfect individuals. In whatsoever event, such an objective would rather miss the point of the Gospel. It is not the healthy who need a medico only the ill. When engaging with companies the investing bodies seek positive momentum not perfection. Nosotros normally only recommend divestment where we encounter no genuine want for change.

This statement makes some very strange assumptions. Start is the idea that those calling for clearer ethical policy believe there are 'morally perfect companies.' There are not—but in that location are companies which many would consider unethical and should not be invested in. This includes armaments manufacturers, the tobacco industry, and (for many) the alcohol industry. Given the fact that pay-day lenders are function of a system which traps people in poverty, and that Wonga is currently under consideration for criminal investigation, the pay-day lending manufacture looks very much similar one to avoid.

Secondly, the redeployment of Jesus' saying (Mark 2.17, Matt 9.12, Luke 5.31) seems odd. Is this suggesting the Church should invest in the most evil and unethical companies, with a view to getting them to become less unethical? This turns on its head the purpose of ethical investment; it is about getting a good return without upstanding compromise, rather than using investment as a principal tool for influence. Surely influence comes in other means?

Thirdly, the annotate about momentum is curious. Since much investment is done through intermediary, pooled funds (as with Wonga), who is it that the Church should be influencing—the end company, or the intermediary doing the pooling? And is in that location any bear witness that Church investment decisions actually influence the choice of companies that pooled funds purchase into? Wonga certainly announced to be impervious to criticism.

What is clear is that compromise in this expanse seriously undermines the Church'south teaching ministry. Though he is chair of a group which advises the Commissioners on ethics, Featherby is styled in popular reports as a 'church leader.' And the bulletin which this sends out, loud and clear, is that the Church is hypocritical, and its leaders cannot concur.

I am also slightly puzzled by the utilise of the parable of the weeds from Matt 13.24–xxx. This forms part of Matthew's tertiary block of teaching by Jesus, and is ane of the kingdom parables unique to Matthew (along with the treasure in the field and the pearl of great toll). Similar Matthew'southward parable of the talents and parable of the sheep and the goats, it is widely misread. Following Augustine, most people read this every bit depicting the mixed nature of the church, arguing against the pursuit of a 'pure' church building. In fact, Jesus gives his estimation of it later in the chapter, in Matt xiii.36–43. This clarifies two central points:

• The field in the parable is not 'the church building', simply the world. The question the parable addresses isnot 'Why is the church building mixed?' simply 'If the kingdom has come, why are the wicked nevertheless living?'
• The focus of the parable, the mixed nature of the field, hardly features in the explanation at all. Instead, the focus is the eschatological judgement exacted by God. So the invitation in the whole piece is less on putting up with compromise and more on being patient because of the certainty of sentence that is to come.

Jesus certainly talks elsewhere in Matthew of the mixed nature of the church, but this parable seems unrelated to it. To conclude from this that good and evil are hard to tell autonomously, and that we must put up with ethical compromise, is a long style from the parable'due south original context and pregnant. Information technology likewise makes nonsense of the parable itself; the wheat and weeds (darnel) in the story are genuinely hard to tell apart; merely this is not the problem faced by decisions on ethical investment. And there are many other places in the NT where, though nosotros live alongside 'the world', nosotros are implored to be ethically distinct from it.

I hope that response to this report might be a greater pressure level for the Church'south investment policy to exist more ethical, and for that upstanding framework to exist more conspicuously theologically grounded. If information technology is, information technologycould be a significant support to the mission of the Church, rather than the embarrassment it oftentimes appears to be at the moment.

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Source: https://www.psephizo.com/life-ministry/church-investment-unethical-unbiblical/

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