Douglas Knight

This year’s Lent talks follow the Lectionary readings for the five Sundays of Lent. They will examine our social, political and economic crises and relate them all to a crisis of morale that follows from our uncertainty about the covenant of God. The first talk starts like this:
What the Church says it not only [...]

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Sorry, a blog pause appeared there. A sign that some work is underway I always think. I am following Rod Dreher, like everybody else. But if you are desperate for something to read you could have a look at my latest work-in-progress dump at at Scribd. The theological discussion of economics is presently masquerading as [...]

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Here’s one close to home. Rod Dreher is asking what lessons we can draw from ‘St. Cyprian’s writings during an early age of martyrdom that Christians living in contemporary liberal democracies can use to determine when they are obligated to speak up… for their faith, and when they are permitted to keep silent without [...]

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During the decade leading up to the crisis, current account deficits increased steadily and became unsustainable. Strong domestic investment (much of it in unproductive residential construction) outstripped domestic saving. Government budget discipline dissipated; fiscal policy became pro-cyclical [ie, not counter-cyclical]. Financial regulation and supervision was weak to non-existent, encouraging credit and asset price [...]

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…this is not a business cycle, but a life-cycle malfunction. Your problem is that nervous retirees are making most of the decisions, rather than young families. The trouble is that America is getting grayer. People with young children are spenders rather than savers. Young people take risks, and old people buy insurance. Your country needs [...]

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An Emergency Call to Prayer For Christian Leaders in the UK
11am – 4pm Saturday 28th February 2009 Emmanuel Christian Centre, Marsham Street, London SW1P 3DW
When a nation is in trouble it is right for leaders to call the people to prayer. Our nation is in trouble – more than most people are aware. In December [...]

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Professor Philip Booth Catholicism and Capitalism, ‘Faith Matters’ lectures Westminster Cathedral Hall, Ambrosden Avenue, London SW1, 18th March 7.00pm
The Catholic Church has never supported socialism and has often spoken against the excesses of welfare states. However, the Church has never been totally comfortable with capitalism either – and certainly not with the materialism [...]

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The Tyndale Kirby Laing Institute of Christian Ethics is co-hosting two day conferences
Responding to Secularism: Christian Witness in a Dogmatic Public Culture 24 April 2009, Tyndale House, Cambridge – a day conference on mission and contemporary culture with the Gospel and Our Culture Network
Dr Dominic Erdozain (King’s College, London) on the growth of secularity in [...]

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I disagree with the assumption that law is what holds our society together. In his work on the decline and corruption of a culture, C.E.M. Joad correctly notes that decadence is the identification of means with ends. Or as Mr. Wilson puts it ‘When our masters have destroyed the schools.’ When wealth becomes the end, [...]

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Many people are wondering how the current problems came about:

3. No-one, other than the British Government, believes that the rate of inflation has ever been less than 7% over the last decade and today it is clearly more than 15%.
7. The ‘growth’ in the profits of most western companies since 2000 are really due to understated inflation [...]

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