Virtual Methodist

I fully intend being as far away as I can be from a computer this morning, preferably with a nice cup of coffee and a book in my hand. But here's a quick link dump on related themes for those of you not in such halcyon surroundings: Wonga-World and Beyond Following on from my own piece earlier in the week, I came a cross a nuanced look at the regulation of pay-day loan companies by former head of Church Action on Poverty, suggesting that Credit Unions alone are an inadequate response to the banking needs of the poor. Then I came across this piece by Bishop Nick Baines responding to an editorial in The Independent written in the light of the AoC's pronouncements, ably defending the place of the church in the public square. Then there was a piece looking at the moral-murk behind ethical-consumerism - are companies getting more ethical about their production practices and effective use of slave-labour, particularly children - or are they just getting cleverer in cover...

And another thing... There was a distinct dearth of posts on this site last week... First because I had a backlog of boxes to empty following our house-move and I had a lot to wrap up before knocking off for a bit of a break... But just because I wasn't posting stuff, doesn't mean there wasn't a lot going on in the rice pudding that passes for my brain... So now that I am "off" and before I head away for a few days I thought I would catch up with a few of the issues that had been dominating the media over the past 10 days or so... With the notable exception of the Royal baby... My approach to that is best summed up in Andrea Mann's piece in the Huffington Post "BREAKING NEWS: Woman Gives Birth To Baby" . I began yesterday by offering some of my thoughts prompted by  Justin Welby's approach to the whole Wonga-world episode . But one of the things I didn't say was that what impressed me most about his approach was that it wasn't just ab...

For a few months there has been a story bubbling away concerning Papisse Cisse the Senegalese striker who was refusing to wear his club Newcastle's strip with the name of its sponsor Wonga emblazoned on it because of his Muslim beliefs, which strictly forbid the charging of interest. Not all Muslims take such a strict approach, and indeed Cisse's Muslim team-mates Cheick Tiote, Moussa Sissoko, Massaido Haidara and Hatem Ben Arfa didn't seem to have a problem with wearing the shirt (although early reports did suggest that Tiote had some reservations ). Cisse received a lot of unsavoury abuse for his stand ... although many suggested that it was more to do with engineering a lucrative transfer away from Tyneside than any religious scruples. This seemed even more the case when photographs appeared of Cisse gambling in a casino (also against strict Islamic law), and in the wake of the exposure of such seeming hypocrisy, it was predictable that he came to an agreement with Ne...