Virtual Methodist

Here's a quick question for you that comes from my morning reading... Is James a hypocrite? As in James the writer of the New Testament letter... I'm one of those who is fully signed up to the idea that in scripture we find a bias towards the poor (whether that significantly affects how I live my life is another question altogether, but I at least have accepted the principle). As a result I often speak about that, and in particular the implications of that for the ministry of my current church, which is in a relatively low-income public housing estate, set within a much more affluent suburb of Belfast, which in global and historic terms is part of the most prosperous societies in world history. Often when I raise this, one of my congregation challenges this analysis and reminds me that "God so loved the world" not just the poor and the marginalised. He is one of the more economically comfortable in my congregation, so it might be easy to write off his comments as defe...