Sunday 24 July 2011

Hallelujah, give us a handout/Revive us again

From this week’s local press (see http://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/isle-of-man-news/churches_facing_crippling_costs_1_3603130 ) it seems the largest local myth retailer wants more public cash to prop up a business selling produce hardly anyone has a use for.
I particularly liked the casual misdirection of:
“At St German’s Cathedral in Peel, the maintenance bill was £100,000 a year and urgent work to repair leadwork, gutters and downpipes, at an estimate cost of £80,000, needed to be carried out within the next year.
‘The big problem is that while congregations are holding reasonably well, the financial burden of maintaining ancient buildings is becoming too much,’ he said.”
This argument loses allure if you know that St. German’s, far from being ‘ancient’, is the charmless Edwardian equivalent of a Barrett Home, that it was extensively internally redesigned within the last two decades, and that a couple of years ago the Synod set up a new committee which – outwardly at least – includes business expertise and other denominations and whose sole task is to excuse massive government subsidy of parts of the building and grounds under the slim pretence of using it (or more accurately abusing vulnerable kids and adults) as an ‘educational resource’.
And just a thought, but, logically, should not at least economically minded Christians accept Adam Smith’s ‘invisible hand of the market’ concept (which presumably in Christian form is attached to an invisible arm, somewhere beyond the knowable universe), and agree that what the market cannot support has passed its sell-by date and so it is time to restructure, scale down, and close unproductive retail operations?
Or am I just following the reductio ad absurdum which dogs all religious ‘thought’ through to its inevitably illogical conclusion again?
I also worry at:
“Bishop Paterson told the Manx Independent that Mr Brown was surprised the grants for ancient buildings were a one-off and had assumed that the £20,000 would be paid annually.
He promised to investigate the issue.”
Considering how many superstitious numpties advise him, I bet he will too.
And I would also bet that (unless forcefully prevented by a public outcry which I dare not bet will follow) at the same time as the Government is drastically reducing what little remains of public services, the Government will (under various pretences) drastically scale UP public outlay on buildings currently only used by two men and a dog on Sunday mornings (always providing it isn't raining).

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