In the first project of its kind, St Paul’s Cathedral launches St Paul’s Institute, a think tank that aims to explore the moral themes surrounding business, finance and global economics.
Located within the heart of the City of London, St Paul’s Institute seeks to foster an informed Christian response to the most urgent ethical and spiritual issues of our times: financial integrity, economic theory, and the meaning of the common good.
Visitors to http://www.stpaulsinstitute.org.uk/ can find theological commentary, video interviews, original research and analysis, as well as daily news aggregation. St Paul’s Institute will also host a series of lectures, debates and study days.
Dr Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury said;
"An ethical approach to economics requires us to move away from the illusion that economics can be considered separately from questions of the health and well-being of the society we inhabit. It also involves recognising that we exist in a world of materially limited resource – so that environmental degradation has to be taken into account in any assessment of the cost of projects or transactions. I suspect that getting this right would in itself introduce into the language of economics a sense that it couldn’t be only about the mechanics of generating money and might help keep issues of ethics, justice and trust in perspective. So I welcome the continuing focus the St Paul’s Institute brings to these issues by providing a challenging and well-resourced space for conversation and I wish the Institute every success in this new phase of its work”
This post is obviously before I have visited, and the words posted here come from their web site. Once I experience it in person, I will give my my personal thoughts and photos. Can't wait! London, here I come.
Pat Deere
LINKS: St. Paul's History Page
