Crisis 'driven by impatience'
Bill Bowder in the Church Times
| 02 Dec 2008
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The Archbishop of Canterbury, in a video from the Church of England’s Advent website, says the economic crisis has been driven by impatience.
“We are not a culture that’s very used to waiting,” he said, at almost the same moment as the Chancellor of the Exchequer was announcing that he would borrow £118 billion next year, the equivalent of £1934 for every person in the UK.
Dr Williams said: “All those bits of our contemporary culture which are about rushing to get gratification, getting the results straight away, all those habits of our culture which so drive the crises of our culture, whether it’s the credit crunch or the environmental crisis — all those things we have to cast a rather cold eye on during Advent.”
The message of Advent was the opposite of what the Chancellor was saying, said the RC Abbot of Worth, Dom Christopher Jamison, author of Finding Happiness, extracts of which are included in the Advent site.
“We see Advent as a very seriously charged moment, in which we . . . refuse to behave as though the way to salvation is to spend more and to get into debt more, because that is what has got us into this trouble in the first place,” he said at the launch.
“The antidote to greed is waiting. It is not never shop, but shop less; not stand still, but go slower; but that is not what the politicians are going to tell us. The Chancellor is going to say ‘Spend like before.’ But that is what has got us into trouble in the first place."
In the video, Dr Williams criticises the way society is “saturated” with carols as leaving little space to think. But Dr Paula Gooder, the Birmingham-based theologian and author of The Meaning is in the Waiting (Canterbury Press), said: “I don’t think there is anything wrong with lots of carols and early Christmas trees. It is the way we celebrate Christmas now.”
Meanwhile, the Archbishop of Wales, Dr Barry Morgan, six other Welsh bishops, and the four Chief Constables in Wales have combined in a campaign against binge drinking. People are invited to “pledge” to cut down, Dr Morgan said at the campaign launched last week.
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