Church attendance rises as recession deepens

From the London Telegraph - a reflection on the connection between the financial crisis and people moving back towards a Christian spirituality.

There is a perhaps an element of stock-taking going on; a belated recognition of how decadent and greedy we have been in Christmases past. Now that they are in sharp focus, the bonuses paid to investment bankers in the boom period look obscene. Perhaps they always were, but they seemed too abstract and unreal to latch our minds on to. Nothing to do with us. None of our business.

Not any more. Perhaps we are coming to see that greed should not be worshipped; that actually it is something to be ashamed of. A profit motive – making money out of your fellow man – cannot be the sole purpose of society. The Christian message, by contrast, is that society is about how we live with each other; about loving thy neighbour, honouring your mother and father, and doing unto others as you’d have them do to you.

This is not to say that recession is good for the soul, nor is it to trivialise the crushing psychological damage caused by unemployment and debt, but it does force people to examine their lives and work out what matters. Traditional values tend to be Christian values in this country — we do, after all, have an established Church and we are, according to our constitution, a Christian country. Not Muslim. Not Hindu. Not atheist.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/christmas/3630732/Church-attendance-rises-as-recession-deepens.html