Saturday, August 18, 2012

Giles Fraser: The danger of being respectable


From The Church Times-

Judging from the number of phone calls I have had recently, the academics are beginning to get their teeth into the Occupy protests. Mostly, they ask the same things, and get the same replies. But, this week, a particularly well-informed post-graduate asked me a question that unexpectedly opened up a portal into my soul. He simply used the phrase "reputational risk". The hairs on the back of my neck stood up.

"Reputational risk" was a phrase often used at St Paul's Cathedral, and in the City generally, and one that a number of us especially disliked. What would the man who was attacked for hanging out with prostitutes and tax-collectors have made of "reputational risk"?

Surely he would have had no place for it. Indeed, he was the stone that the builders rejected, and yet became the cornerstone. So how is it that the Church built in his name has become so concerned with its own reputation? In a sense, if the Church does not have a bad reputation - or, perhaps better still, if it were indifferent to the fact that it might - it would not be doing its job properly.

More here-

http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2012/17-august/comment/columnists/giles-fraser-the-danger-of-being-respectable

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