St Paul's launches economics think tank

27 July 2010

In the first project of its kind, St Paul’s Cathedral launches St Paul’s Institute, a think tank that aims to explore the moral themes surrounding business, finance and global economics.

Located within the heart of the City of London, St Paul’s Institute seeks to foster an informed Christian response to the most urgent ethical and spiritual issues of our times: financial integrity, economic theory, and the meaning of the common good.

Visitors to www.stpaulsinstitute.org.uk can find theological commentary, video interviews, original research and analysis, as well as daily news aggregation. St Paul’s Institute will also host a series of lectures, debates and study days.

Dr Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury said;

"An ethical approach to economics requires us to move away from the illusion that economics can be considered separately from questions of the health and well-being of the society we inhabit. It also involves recognising that we exist in a world of materially limited resource – so that environmental degradation has to be taken into account in any assessment of the cost of projects or transactions. I suspect that getting this right would in itself introduce into the language of economics a sense that it couldn’t be only about the mechanics of generating money and might help keep issues of ethics, justice and trust in perspective. So I welcome the continuing focus the St Paul’s Institute brings to these issues by providing a challenging and well-resourced space for conversation and I wish the Institute every success in this new phase of its work”

Reverend Dr Giles Fraser, Canon Chancellor of St Paul’s Cathedral said;

"The right use of money is at the heart of the moral vision of the Bible. Given the world’s current financial troubles, a Christian moral perspective brought to bear on questions of finance and economics is as urgent now as it has ever been.”