TalkingPoint : Trust, Responsibility, Compassion: keywords for 2012

written by TalkingPoint on 13/01/2012

by Reverend Jeremy Crossley, Rector of St Margaret Lothbury.

Many of us have been back at work for barely a week and already Christmas and the arrival of the new year seem like fading memories.

St Margaret’s Church, Lothbury, sits at the heart of the City just behind the Bank. As 2012 gets underway, so we resume our pattern of services and other activities. It is good to see old friends coming back through our doors, and to welcome new ones as well.

Many of those who make up our church community work in banking and financial services. We have shared the stresses and strains of the turbulence that has beset the industry and understood something of the impact of all that has happened – the impact on workers and their families.

Banks have faced a tough time in recent years. From being pillars of respectability bankers have become the target of blame; held responsible for all the economic woes that have engulfed the domestic and world economy. The bond of trust between the banks and the society that they serve has been damaged. 

But banking is a necessary community activity. As a society, we need to be able to trust and depend on the banks in our high streets.  In the Church we too know what it is like to have faith in our institution break down and how hard it is to restore trust. No group, no institution – bankers, the Church, or indeed politicians and journalists - can survive for very long if they don’t learn how to reconnect with the people and the society in which they live and which they serve.

Banking, we are told, is a global industry. If the new rules suggested by the Vickers report are implemented in full, it is suggested that talent and expertise will move to more welcoming jurisdictions. Of course some parts of banking maybe a global activity, but bankers still live in communities. They still share their lives with those around them – whichever country they are in. And like anyone who works in one of our major institutions undergoing major reform, they know the importance of earning back trust and respect; not least from their friends and neighbours.

As Christ taught us, only by being honest, straightforward and humble can we hope to earn and keep people’s trust.  The clear message of the Gospel is that no group can live in isolation from the rest; that we are all dependent on each other. If any individual or group ignores this basic fact, they harm the wider society. And Christ also taught that, from where he sits, no-one has any right to take the high moral ground and leave the blame with others for whatever has gone wrong. In recent times, people in the banking industry seem to have become the scapegoat for everything that isn't right.

But if there is one thing we have all learnt in recent times, it is that no-one can predict the future.  What we must all learn to share is that Christ-like faith in a better tomorrow, based on a rediscovered sense of shared trust, responsibility and compassion.