Like millions of other people, I’m praying for Justin Welby as he prepares to take up his new job at Canterbury. I wish him all the best. As the media go over every detail of his life and beliefs, there is a danger that we put our trust in a new archbishop to save the Church. This would be a problem whoever had got the job. 

In the Church as in politics, real change comes from below and not from above. The Church of England and other churches began ordaining women a long time after Christians at the grassroots began inviting women to preach. Church leaders spoke meaningfully of unity between denominations some time after local churches had started to work together on the ground. Christian leaders in late eighteenth century backed the struggle against slavery decades after individual Christians had become involved in grassroots campaigns on the issue.

In the same way, I hope that the many Christians who thank God for loving, committed relationships – regardless of gender – will celebrate same-sex relationships without waiting for approval from church leaders. 

Nonetheless, I hope Justin Welby will go at least some way towards supporting those Christians who would like to see British churches taking a more radically progressive stance. Admittedly, this seems more likely in some areas than others. 

He could make a big impact by rejecting the obsession with church “growth” and showing he is more concerned with living out the gospel by following Jesus’ example of siding with the poor. Having made encouraging criticism of the banking system, he could take a firm stance against the government’s vicious cuts agenda and even go so far as to back alternatives to capitalism. While I’m disappointed that he is opposed to same-sex marriages, I hope he will reject the approach of certain other church leaders who are scaremongering about churches being forced to host them – something for which nobody is calling.

I’m keeping an open mind about the chances of each of these things happening. Whatever happens, many Christians will continue to campaign for peace, economic justice and equality. I hope Justin Welby will be among them. 

Every time that I think I can no longer be surprised by the behaviour of church institutions, I am proved wrong. Like many other Christians who campaign against cuts and war, I often find myself in conflict with church authorities as well as corporations and governments. I’ve been dragged from the steps of a church while praying, misled by the authorities of St Paul’s Cathedral, struggled with outright lies from homophobic Christian lobby groups and spent enough time looking into various denomination’s investments to leave me (or so I thought) with no illusions about the practices that they can sometimes engage in.

But even I was shocked to learn that on Thursday, a conference for arms dealers will take place in Church House, the Church of England’s administrative headquarters.

Since the story broke, church authorities have come up with frankly feeble excuses for hosting this event. First, they insisted that the conference centre was a separate entity from Church House. I have made some effort to look into this claim. The distinction is a legal technicality. The conference centre is a wholly owned subsidiary company of the Church House Corporation, whose president is the Archbishop of Canterbury.

The church authorities now seem to be relying on the rather obtuse argument that the booking had been made by the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), an “independent thinktank”. The CofE’s head of communications told me Church House would “probably” not have accepted a booking made directly by an arms dealer. However, “independent” does not mean “impartial”. Thinktanks have their own views and positions (including Ekklesia, who I work for). RUSI lobbies in favour of the arms trade and high military spending.

Church House are relying on a distinction between a booking made by an arms company and one made by a pro-arms lobby group to host a gathering of arms companies. This distinction is at best naive and at worst misleading.

The conference’s sponsors include some of the world’s largest multinational arms companies, such as BAE Systems, Raytheon and Finmeccanica, all of whom arm some of the world’s most vicious and repressive regimes, including several that have turned weapons on their own people. Many people now recognise that the arms trade is not a legitimate business. As arms firms move jobs out of Britain, the government could create far more skilled jobs in renewable industry if arms industry subsidies were reinvested. The National Gallery recently broke off a sponsorship deal with Finmeccanica in response to protests by artists and customers. So why is the National Gallery showing more moral leadership than the Church of England?

In recent decades, Christianity in Britain has moved from the centre of power and culture to being one option among many in a multifaith society. This is a welcome opportunity to turn away from Christianity’s collusion with wealth and power and look again at the radical life and teachings of Jesus. Many Christians – including several church leaders – are speaking out against the arms trade, Trident, homophobia and government cuts. Some of them will be praying outside the arms conference at Church House on Thursday. Sadly, other Christians cling on desperately to an ultra-conservative agenda, promoting homophobia and attacking Islam while overlooking the sins of economic injustice and environmental destruction.

Others simply carry on as before, ignoring the change and chaos around them and operating more like businesses or government departments than the followers of a radical messiah. A senior official at the Church of England told me that if an anti-arms group made a booking, Church House would host them as readily as it has hosted the arms conference. I think this was supposed to be an argument in their favour. It implies that they will host both sides, that they are neutral.

Jesus advocated love for all people, including enemies. But he did not teach his followers to be neutral. There can be no neutrality in the face of injustice. If I saw someone being killed and I did nothing, I would not be neutral, I would be siding with the killer. The government is cutting services for the poorest people in society while promoting the arms trade and ploughing billions into nuclear weapons. Churches have no business being neutral.

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This article appeared earlier today as my latest column on the Ekklesia website. Please see http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/news/columns/hill. 

There will be an act of prayer and witness outside the Church House arms conference, from 7.45am on Thursday 1st November. It will bring together concerned Christians of many backgrounds. It has been backed by the Campaign Against Arms Trade, Christianity Uncut, Pax Christi and Christian CND. For details and to join in, please click here for more details, or to join in. 

In 1967, a year before his assassination, Martin Luther King preached a sermon about the parable of the man who knocks at his friend’s door at midnight to ask for bread. He said, “Millions of Africans, patiently knocking on the door of the Christian church where they seek the bread of social justice, have either been altogether ignored or told to wait until later, which almost always means never.”

He added, “And those who have gone to the church to seek the bread of economic justice have been left in the frustrating midnight of economic privation”.

A year ago today, the Occupy London Stock Exchange camp came knocking on the door of St Paul’s Cathedral. They were there because the police had prevented them from camping any closer to the stock exchange. After an initial welcome, the door on which they knocked was shut in their face. The cathedral staff were split and three clergy resigned, but the cathedral gave evidence in court in favour of evicting the camp. On the night of the eviction, occupiers retreated to the cathedral steps, which were not covered by the eviction order. The police insisted that they must leave the steps too.

Along with four other members of Christianity Uncut, I was dragged from the church steps as I knelt in prayer. The cathedral authorities dodged journalists’ questions about whether they had given permission for this. Then the City of London police commissioner stated in writing that they had indeed done so.

I have long been angry with the failure of Church leaders to follow Jesus’ example of siding with the poor, especially at a time of austerity measures that punish the poor for the sins of the rich. As a Christian, I seek to love my opponents. But I had generally not counted church leaders among my opponents. That all changed on that cold February morning, when it became clear that the leadership of St Paul’s Cathedral had finally taken sides in the economic crisis. They were siding with the rich.

Even then, members of Christianity Uncut were keen not to be diverted into attacking St Paul’s Cathedral. In internal discussions, we reminded each other that we should focus on challenging government, corporations and the systems that uphold them, and not put our energy into attacking the church. Any challenge we made to the Church must be about challenging them to join us in our struggles, not condemning them for the sake of it. The five Christians who had been dragged from the steps asked the senior staff at St Paul’s for a meeting “in a spirit of love and respect”. Our letter was counter-signed by twenty clergy. Michael Colclough, the cathedral’s Canon Pastor, wrote back, refusing to meet us.

Meanwhile, the cathedral broke its own promises about engaging with economic issues. They had appointed Ken Costa to lead an investigation into financial ethics. The fact that he was an investment banker undermined their claim to share many of Occupy’s views. But Costa has produced nothing in all that time. Nor has the leadership of St Paul’s managed to make clear statements about any specific aspect of economic transformation. To mark the first anniversary of Occupy London Stock Exchange, they allowed one occupier to read out one prayer in an afternoon service, a gesture whose tokenism speaks for itself.

In short, the act of witness that was carried out yesterday at St Paul’s Cathedral followed a year of intolerable behaviour from the cathedral’s leadership. It was organised jointly by Christianity Uncut and Occupy London, with a commitment to active nonviolence and a rejection of verbal abuse and personal hatred.

Yesterday, I joined with other Christians, and non-Christians, to display a banner on the steps of St Paul’s, depicting Jesus throwing moneychangers out of the Jerusalem Temple. Inside, four women – Siobhan Grimes, Alison Playford, Josie Reid and Tammy Samede – calmly and peacefully chained themselves to the pulpit and read out a statement about economic injustice and the need for the Church to challenge it.

They did not, however, do many of the things inaccurately reported in the media. They had not “stormed” into the cathedral, as the Daily Express alleged (storming would be hard, as you would have to get past the counters at which you have to pay for entry). Nor had they “invaded” St Paul’s (Daily Mail), as they peacefully joined evensong at 3.15pm. They did not prevent anyone praying or otherwise engaging in worship. They certainly did not interrupt a wreath-laying for a dead soldier (as the Daily Telegraph reported). Indeed, some of the soldiers who were at the cathedral for the wreath-laying – which took place later in the day – told the group of women that they were supportive of many of the Occupy’s movements aims. To be fair to the Daily Telegraph, they did at least point out that two of the women concerned belong to the Church of England. Much coverage did not mention that most of the protesters were Christians, nor that the action was organised by Christianity Uncut as well as Occupy London.

Alison, Josie, Siobhan and Tammy endured six hours in cramped positions, without eating or using a toilet. Their smiles to encourage and comfort each other were used in photos to illustrate “smirking anti-capitalists” (the Sun) and the claim that they regarded the protest as a joke (Daily Mail).

This was no joke. The economic crisis is no joke for the thousands of people made homeless by government policies (according to homelessness charities). It is no joke for unemployed people forced to work for their benefits rather than a proper wage, or for those who find it harder to find work because these workfare schemes reduce real vacancies. It is no joke for the hundreds of disabled people who have died shortly after being declared fit for work by Atos, for working class people priced out of higher education or for future generations who will reap the consequences of the environmental devastation sown by multinational corporations and the worship of economic growth. It may be more of a joke for the top one percent of the population, whose income tax has been cut, and whose tax-dodging practices have drawn nothing more than empty words from ministers.

In this situation, thousands of Christians are seeking to follow Jesus’ example of siding with the poor. Church leaders are amongst them. Sadly, other church leaders either defend the cuts or seek to remain neutral. But there can be no neutrality in a situation of injustice. As Desmond Tutu put it, if an elephant is standing on the tail of a mouse, and we say that we are neutral, it is the elephant and not the mouse who will appreciate our neutrality.

David Ison, the Dean of St Paul’s, responded to yesterday’s protest by suggesting that we should have engaged “constructively”. Our request for a constructive meeting was refused seven months ago. He said we were pursuing an agenda of “conflict” with St Paul’s. The cathedral had already pursued an agenda of conflict with us when it called in police to drag us from its steps. He accused of abusing the cathedral’s hospitality, as if a church belongs to its leaders rather than to Christian people as a whole. That magnificent building was, after all, built with our ancestors’ tithes.

In his sermon yesterday, the Dean said that people should work together to achieve economic change. I agree. But this cannot involve an alliance with people who are themselves driving exploitation, inequality and environmental destruction. I do not want to hate the rich, or to pretend that I am any less sinful than they are. I want to talk with them and listen to them. But if they are exploiting the rest of us, I will still resist them.

Jesus said he had come to “bring good news to the poor”. He challenged the rich to share their wealth. He did not encourage hatred for the rich and powerful. He talked with them and listened to them. But when the time was right, he used other tactics too. He was arrested and crucified following a protest in the Jerusalem Temple. His protest was against those who exploited the poor and justified it with religious hypocrisy.

Martin Luther King’s words of 45 years ago continue to resonate down the years. Millions of people are still knocking on the door of the Church, seeking social and economic justice. If church leaders such as those at St Paul’s Cathedral refuse to open the door, then other Christians must do it for them.

The ethics of capitalism is this year’s topic for the annual Bishop of Salisbury’s Debate, which will take place this evening (Wednesday 19 September) in Marlborough. I’ve been asked to be one of the speakers.

The title is “Can capitalism be made good?”. My answer will be “no”.

I’m very pleased to have been asked to participate in the debate, which I hope will relate general issues of ethics and economics to concerns that affect everybody’s daily lives. Other speakers will include Stewart Wallis of the New Economics Foundation. Arguing in favour of capitalism will be Will Morris (chair of the CBI’s tax committee, tax policy director for General Electric and a Church of England priest) and Hugh Pym (BBC’s chief economics correspondent). Nicholas Holtam, Bishop of Salisbury, will be in the chair. I hope there’ll be plenty of time for audience engagement and discussion, as that tends to be the best part of any debate.

The event is free and open to anyone. There are details here. I’ll blog tomorrow about how the discussion went. Many thanks to people who have encouraged me so far!

A week ago, I returned from BiCon, the UK’s national Bisexual Conference. I’d been meaning to go for years and it was brilliant. In particular, I was delighted by the reponse I received to a workshop on Queer Christianity. I’ve blogged about the experience at the Queer for Jesus website. You can read it by clicking here.

Have you been involved in an Occupy camp, the Indignados movement or campaigns in support of Occupy? If so, please take a moment to answer a few questions (mostly multiple choice) to help with a book I’m writing about activism. The questions can be found here. You may be quoted in the book, but only if you give specific consent.

The book will be called Digital Revolutions: Activism in the age of the internet. It will be published by New Internationalist in spring 2013.

Please pass on the questions to anyone you know who might be interested. If you’d like to share your experiences of Occupy/ Indignados at more length, you’re welcome to email me at symonhill@gmail.com.

Thanks very much!

Have the leaders of the Russian Orthodox Church got no sense of irony? Jesus was arrested after leading a protest in a religious building.

Members of the band Pussy Riot briefly sang a song in a cathedral, attacking Putin and the Orthodox Church’s subservience to his regime. Amongst other offences, they have been accused of inciting religious hatred. In this context, this seems to be a euphemism for “having a go at the dominant religion”.

While the trial has been criticised around the world by civil liberties campaigners, politicians and singers, there’s been a marked lack of comment from the world’s religious leaders. Many of them doubtless regard the Russian Church’s reaction as ridiculously over-the-top, but probably don’t want to be seen to be attacking another faith group. They could avoid this by giving their backing to those members of the Russian Orthodox Church who are speaking out against their leadership.

Sadly, the Church of England might not be in much of a position to offer criticism, given its role in the eviction of Occupy London Stock Exchange. It is now clear that the authorities at St Paul’s Cathedral colluded with the police to remove peaceful activists from the church steps in the final hours of the eviction. Along with several others, I was dragged from the steps as I knelt in prayer. But horrible as that experience was, it’s very different to the prospect of three years in prison, which will await the Pussy Riot singers if Putin and the Russian Orthodox leaders have their way.

The Church’s leaders have been criticised by Russians who say that a Christian response would be to forgive the singers, or at least to call for more lenient sentences. There is some truth in this, but it understates the Christian case against the prosecution. The reality is that the Pussy Riot singers followed the example of Jesus far more than the Russian Orthodox Patriarch they were challenging.

Jesus’ protest in the Jerusalem Temple was a key event in his life. Historians differ over the various events described in the gospels; there are a range of views on the historical accuracy of particular incidents. However, the protest in the Temple is regarded by most scholars as one of the events most likely to be historical. It seems to have led, either directly or indirectly, to Jesus’ arrest and crucifixion.

In protesting against the commercialisation of the Temple, Jesus was not resisting a one-off misuse of a religious building. Commerce was central to religious buildings in a number of cultures (and still is).

He was attacking those who exploited the poor, particularly those who benefited from religious hypocrisy. For example, the gospels say he turned over the tables of those selling doves. Doves were the cheapest animal to sacrifice in the Temple. Poor people were spending money they could ill afford on ceremonial sacrifices. Jesus knew very well that the prophetic traditions in the Hebrew Bible declared that God wants lives of love and kindness, not religious ceremony.

Similarly, the moneychangers, who exchanged Roman money into Temple money at exploitative interest rates, were benefiting from the actions of those religious leaders who colluded with the Roman occupation and were prepared to ignore the oppression in return for their own position and privileges.

In short, Jesus was attacking political oppression, exploitation of the poor and a religious leadership that colluded with both. He staged a protest in a religious building in a way that would have shocked those who heard about it. If you’ve been reading about the Pussy Riot trial, this might sound familiar.

Jesus refused to go along with oppression and hypocrisy, living by the power of God within himself and free from the powers of the world. They killed Jesus because he was too free. One of the Pussy Riot defenders, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, said at the trial yesterday, “We are freer than those who are prosecuting us. We can say everything we want, and they have their mouths shut and are puppets.” Every Christian in the world should be cheering her on.