Rev Jan Rushton

REV Jan Rushton will no doubt face some criticism for her sermon on Sunday, (The prophets on profits, August 25).

Some have the view that the Church of England should stay out of politics.

There have been run-ins before at high levels, the Archbishop of Canterbury was criticised because he dared to raise “serious ethical questions” about the government’s Rwanda policy.

Margaret Thatcher clashed with one of Justin Welby’s predecessors, Robert Runcie.

Multicultural and secular Britain can no longer be said to have a state religion. And so surely it follows that the church and its leaders can legitimately criticise policies and politicians.

Churches often run food banks and homeless shelters. At the frontline of the voluntary sector they see first hand the fall-out from government policies.

What is the point in the church if it does not call out injustice or criticise those in power?

It may not be comfortable for those in parliament, but the church has a right to have a view.

“Love thy neighbour as thyself”, perhaps one of the Bible’s most famous lines, is an expression of the realisation that things are better if we all try and look after one and other.

During the pandemic, there seemed to be a genuine sense of people looking out for one and another. Banging saucepans for frontline workers, the mutual aid groups, and even the government seemed to begrudgingly accept that paying people to isolate made sense for the wider good.

Fast forward two years and we have the story of monkeypox emerging like a frustrating replay of the first months of the pandemic.

Testing took too long to get launched. Data hasn’t revealed the full extent of the outbreak. The spread wasn’t stopped quickly enough.

We have been told that monkeypox is different, because it is much harder to transmit, treatments and vaccines were already available, much was known about a virus, and so many lessons were supposedly learned from Covid-19.

Back in March 2020 we were told by Boris Johnson that the pandemic would be over in 12 weeks. The figures may seem trivial now. But a window is closing to prevent monkeypox from becoming a permanent fixture if we don’t react more aggressively in the next couple of months.

It seems painfully obvious that anyone asked to isolate to stop the spread of a dangerous virus should be supported financially to do so.

Hopefully the authorities will see sense on this, and sort out the vaccine shortages before it is too late.