SIMON PHIPPS

At my church, we are finally about to change our bank account .  It has been a long journey. Changing your bank account is hard. Changing an organisation's bank account is very hard (so many forms!!!!!!!!). I bet you are wondering why any organisation would go through the hassle of making changing their bank a priority. The Kingdom of God Millions of good people give their hard earned money to the Church each week.  Billions of Pounds (or insert your nationalities currency here) are poured into the Church across the globe, and people have one express purpose for doing so – to build the kingdom of God . This looks different for different churches, whether it be to keep the lights on, run feeding programs, debt management programs, buy new equipment or teas and coffees – but they all have a similar theme: To reveal the transformative love of God to the world and to attempt to remake the world in the life-giving, loving way that we know God sees it. What Actua...

Kindness is acting for the good of people regardless of whether they are useful to you. In the context of consumerism this calls into question the whole economic system that consumerism runs on. In this system there are value judgments that are made. The shareholders have supreme value. The business runs to generate profits for the shareholders and to keep them happy. They are useful to the business because of their investment. The customers also have value; without them the business fails, so the business serves their needs. They are useful because they buy the product. Within this value system there are various levels as well. The more money one has or invests, the more value one has. The problem arises when we understand that millions of people either have no money to consume, or have little money so that their options are removed and they do not have consumer choice, therefore they are devalued . This means that the people that make our product...

*updated for 2017* We recently passed the 4 th  anniversary of the Rana Plaza disaster , where over 1000 garment workers lost their lives in a tragic, yet entirely avoidable way. The Mark of the Beast In the book of Revelation , the last book of the Bible, John tells us about a mark , put on the head or hand of all people that trade in the marketplace (Revelation 13:16-17).  He called this mark ‘the mark of the beast ’ and urged believers to stop trading in the market. For those living in that time, this was a big deal. One possible interpretation ( mentioned in some documents ) is that in some localities, before trading in the market, you had to burn incense to an effigy of Caesar as an act of worship .  You then received a mark on either your hand or forehead to show that you had done this. John was writing to say that this practice was not acceptable. Essentially he was calling for one of the first recorded boycotts In history . P...