Each year Holy Trinity Brompton –
or “HTB” holds a high octane, big numbers show at the Royal Albert Hall. This
year three senior banking executives, and a nuclear weapons manufacturer show
that whatever the Alpha Gospel is about, it’s definitely about the bling.
Already this year we’ve heard
from the new Archbishop of Canterbury and his commitment to peace and
reconciliation among Christians and the line-up for the second day is no less
dizzying: the Chief executive at Serco and Brian Griffiths, the
executive director at Goldman Sachs are both invited to speak as is Benjamin
Grizzle Goldman Sach’s Executive Director.
Ken Costa, investment banker and Alpha’s
biggest funder, who wrote of the Occupy LSX camp as “naïve” and of “little
consequence” before being appointed by St Paul’s Cathedral to listen
respectfully to them (you couldn’t make this stuff up!) will – as ever – be
part of the conference this year.
Last year the big treat was Tony Blair. Tony
Blair is known internationally as someone who led this country into war on a
false premise after misleading many from both parliament and the nation into
believing that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.
Many Christians consider him to be guilty of
war crimes. He now spends a great deal of time making money from his
neo-liberal solutions to conflict in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
HTB didn’t listen to concerns about their ‘big
name’ in 2012 and they’re not listening today.
Along with Lockheed-Martin,
Serco manage nuclear weapons factory at Aldermaston which Christians from all
traditions have been protesting, lamenting, and blockading for six decades.
Nuclear weapons are designed to deliberately
target civilian populations, illegal under international law and immoral by
almost any standard. Yet here is HTB celebrating the man who oversees their
production and maintenance as a “Christian leader”.
Goldman Sachs meanwhile have been one of the
most fraudulent of banks in the world and were pivotal to the banking crisis.
To date their leadership have shown littler remorse or sign of a change in
culture.
I wonder if Brian Griffiths will get the same
robust Christian witness meted out to HSBCs Stuart Gulliver in February when he
said, “It seems to me that you are putting huge effort
into a values-based organisation and yet at the end of the day, particularly
for your most senior staff who are most important as regards setting values and
culture, you seem to be saying the only way you can motivate them to any
significant extent is with cash,"?
Probably not.
Well done to the folks of Christian CND who stood outside in the rain yesterday, banner in hand, to engage Alphanes in conversation about SERCO. Thank you!
