Following On From The Church And

[emmie]

Wonga

seems someone is not happy.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23459932

[emmie]

what other dodgy places do they invest in i wonder.

[Old_Geezer]

Must be difficult to keep tabs on everything their agents invest in. Maybe they need to some church members full time monitoring it all and making moral decisions on whether it is ok or not. Or maybe it's worth the risk of the occasional embarrassment.

[sandyRoe]

You'd hope that that was a mistake and that they're ethical investors.

[emmie]

true, however seeing as how the new Archbishop has targeted this company specifically and said they would like to compete them out of business, this is highly embarrassing,

[emmie]

sandy, don't the church still own lots of property..

[jno]

I believe they have a number of small religious buildings, now that you mention it.

[Gromit]

The question yesterday was

// Is the Church of England in danger of suddenly becoming effective and relevant? //

It would seem the CofE does not know its at*e from its elbow. You would have thought he would have properly checked that ALL the churches investments were ethical before spouting off. Deeply embarrassing.

[emmie]

other than churches, of which there are thousand across Britain, however a portfolio of properties that have nothing at all to do with the church or it's teachings.

[emmie]

Gromit, so it is, and i suspect this isn't the half of it.

[emmie]

from 2012

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9659eefa-4e86-11e1-8670-00144feabdc0.html

[sandyRoe]

Doesn't the income generated by rents from those properties go to pay the pensions of older members of the clergy who've been put out to grass?

[emmie]

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9659eefa-4e86-11e1-8670-00144feabdc0.html

[emmie]

sorry about the second same post, this is playing up, the back button keeps going round and round, press submit and nothing seems to be happening.

[mikey4444]

I listened to Humphries interview the Archbishop this morning on Today. I thought he gave a pretty good account of himself and was certainly less distant and "beardy-weirdy" than his predecessor. He answered every question that Hunphries threw at him honestly and candidly, using plain English.

If only the politicians that Humphries normally interviews was as forthcoming !

[emmie]

that may be the case, however that doesn't have a lot to do with the point in question, unless that is what Humph was asking him about.

[LazyGun]

Oops.

Slightly embarassing for them, following hard on the heels as it does of Welby declaring War on Wonga.

£5.2 billion is a sizeable fund, and I know that they do have a list of what is considered ethical or not, so it sounds like an embarassing oversight more than anything else.

I found the story about Cisse, the Senegalese Newcastle Striker interesting; He initially declared he was not going to wear a shirt with the Wonga label on it, claiming the Muslim faith prohibited money lending; Just 3 short days later his religious beliefs have been overcome in what is described as some sort of compromise engineered by the PFA. And apparently Muslim leaders in Newcastle city endorsed his change of heart. So much for the restrictions of their faith.

Mind you, it did not help his case much to be photographed gambling in a casino, since gambling is prohibited by muslim law as well, as I understand it...

[mikey4444]

I suggest that everybody listens to the Today interview on the i player, as soon as it becomes available. The situation surrounding ethical investments isn't as clear cut as it would appear. At least the Archbishop is doing something, rather than sitting in Lambeth Palaces, debating the "old angels dancing on the head of a pin" nonsense.

I am not a Christian but they tell us that this is exactly what Jesus would be doing if he were alive today.

More power to Welby's elbow !

[youngmafbog]

The CoE set aside 10% of the the £5Billion they have for investments for investment into hedge funds etc. Since the church was so vocal about Bankers (and hedge funds were largely one of the so called casino banking) they are even more direct hypocrites.

But why does that not surprise me.

Seems they have £1m in Wonga, not large but should be significant enough to notice.

[emmie]

i would have thought that his advisor's would have mentioned this before he mentioned the company in question, surely that is their job

[mikey4444]

emmie...you have a a very simplistic idea how the Church Commissioners work ! The ArchBishop is not "their" Boss ! Listen to the interview and all will be revealed.