It’s sometimes been said in recent years that the Church of England is still used by British society as a stage on which to conduct by proxy the arguments that society itself does not know how to handle. It certainly helps to explain the obsessional interest in what the Church has to say about issues of sex and gender. It may help to explain just what has been going on around St Paul’s Cathedral in the past fortnight.
The protest at St Paul’s was seen by an unexpectedly large number of people as the expression of a widespread and deep exasperation with the financial establishment that shows no sign of diminishing. There is still a powerful sense around – fair or not – of a whole society paying for the errors and irresponsibility of bankers; of impatience with a return to ‘business as usual’ – represented by still-soaring bonuses and little visible change in banking practices.
So it was not surprising that initial reactions to what was happening at St Paul’s and to the welcome offered by the Cathedral were sympathetic. Here were people – protesters and clergy too, it seemed – saying on our behalf that ‘something must be done’. A marker had been put down, though, comfortingly, not in a way that made very specific demands.