Volume 17.3

In this issue…

.. There are three main themes. The first is fitting in the light of the recent climate change conference in Paris. We focus on the recent encyclical written by Pope Francis, Laudato si’, mi’ Signore. John Weaver summarises its contents, highlights its implications for business and responds to criticisms that have been notable for their superficiality.New contributor Fadeke Oyoola makes an equally impassioned plea for environmental sustainability, showing why Christians should be concerned about this. She praises the work of the organisation Farm Africa in making land more fruitful and Africans who use the practices they have introduced more prosperous. The second is the ethical behaviour of companies. David Parish describes how and why the Corporate Social Responsibility movement has developed. While it can become an exercise in box-ticking and invites cynicism among some, there are positive examples of it in action and good reasons for Christians to embrace it. Meanwhile Phil Jump analyses a wretched recent example of a major company behaving badly – Volkswagen faking emissions tests. This in turns sparks the age-old debate about capitalism and whether greed is its creed, which is astutely assessed by another of our regular contributors, Peter Heslam. Sir Hector Sants weighs in with an up-to-date report on the Archbishop’s Task Group, the initiative encouraging credit unions and savings groups designed to counteract the payday moneylenders. Thirdly, we carry reviews of three important books. Mick Lumsden finds much to praise in On Rock or Sand?, the collection of essays advocating a more collective approach to Britain’s problems edited by Archbishop John Sentamu. Peter Warburton agrees with much of Eve Poole’s lively unveiling of Capitalism’s Toxic Assumptions: Redefining Next Generation Economics, but is not persuaded on every front. David Henderson admires the passion that has gone into David Clark’s The Kingdom at Work Project, but disagrees with the wedge that Clark appears to drive between ‘discipleship’ and ‘kingdom’ models. There is plenty of food for thought in all three books and all three reviews. Do keep reading, writing and sending us your comments!