Dr Sentamu, the Archbishop of York, is no stranger to controversial statements or actions. You will remember that, on television last year he cut up his clerical collar as a protest against Robert Mugabe’s regime of terror in Zimbabwe. Recently he has pleaded at the United Nations on ‘Education for All’, speaking against a background of 75 million children in the world who are deprived of education.  Not for him the idea that politics and religion do not mix, though his critics have called him misguided, naïve and warned him to stay out of things he doesn’t understand.

The idea that Christianity should be a cosy religion that doesn’t rock the boat is a far cry from the Gospel itself.  Dr. Sentamu stands in a long tradition of the Church challenging the powers that be. Very often it is when Christians take a stand that things change, injustices are righted and fair deals are brokered for the oppressed.  William Wilberforce, a skilled parliamentarian, used those skills to promote his Christian belief that slavery was wrong and evil.  The Church of England has long fought for the disadvantaged in society.  The Fairtrade movement, of which St. John’s is a part, challenges those who exploit the world’s poor by paying under the odds for commodities and foods so that supermarkets can make huge profits and we can have food far cheaper than its true cost.  We all collude with this whenever we demand things at knock-down prices.  We challenge it when we refuse to do that.  That’s a political act.

Dr. Sentamu believes that if we were driven by morality rather than greed we would be concerned to improve “not just our own lot” but that of our neighbour also.  When the market calls the tune, the weakest go to the wall.

The Archbishop has argued that the role of religion was to ensure that Governments maintained a broader vision for society beyond its economic well-being.

“The trumpet which was once the herald of this nation’s greatness was the imperative of moral responsibility, of doing the right thing, where what was right was informed by a faith based understanding.  The moral imperative of doing the right thing is in danger of being replaced by the consumerist imperative to buy the right thing.  And to buy it now, whatever the cost.”

So says Dr. Sentamu.  He believes that the Church must speak up for a better society, a more moral and just society.  It’s all there in the Bible, of course.  In the Gospel set for today, Jesus challenged those in authority.  The Church has a duty to do the same.  Even if we are called naïve when we hit a nerve.