Well, next they'll be taking bets on threading a camel through a needle's eye.

The only thing interesting about this is that the bankers feel they have to try to justify egregious sins by speaking in churches. This is a PR campaign, and inept at that.

Mr. Varley needs to brush up on what Jesus Christ and his followers had to say about "self-interest" and wealth in the Bible before he speaks:

"Do not store up treasures for yourselves on earth, where moth and woodworm destroy them and thieves can break in and steal. But store up treasures for yourselves in heaven, where neither moth nor woodworm destroys them and thieves cannot break in and steal. For wherever your treasure is, there will your heart be too." (Matthew 6:19-21)

"No one can be the slave of two masters: he will either hate the first and love the second, or be attached to the first and despise the second. You cannot be the slave both of God and of money." (Matthew 6:24)

"Yes, I tell you again, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for someone rich to enter the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 19:24)

"Make it your goal to live a quiet life, minding your own business and *working with your hands.*" (1 Thessalonians 4:11, emphasis added)

"We brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it; but as long as we have food and clothing, we shall be content with that. People who long to be rich are a prey to trial; they get trapped into all sorts of foolish and harmful ambitions which plunge people into ruin and destruction. 'The love of money is the root of all evils' and there are some who, pursuing it, have wandered away from the faith and so given their souls any number of fatal wounds." (1 Timothy 5:7-10)

"Those who are rich in this world's goods... should not be proud and should set their hopes not on money, which is untrustworthy, but on God who gives us richly all that we need for our happiness. They are to do good and be rich in good works, generous in giving and always ready to share -- this is the way they can amass a good capital sum for the future if they want to possess the only life that is real." (1 Timothy 5:17-19)

"Keep your lives free from the love of money, and be satisfied with what you have." (Hebrews 13:5)

"Well now, you rich! Lament, weep for the miseries that are coming to you. Your wealth is rotting, your clothes are all moth-eaten. All your gold and your silver are corroding away, and the same corrosion will be a witness against you and eat into your body. It is like a fire which you have stored up for the final days. Can you hear crying out against you the wages which you kept back from the labourers mowing your fields? The cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord Sabaoth. On earth you have had a life of comfort and luxury; in the time of slaughter you went on eating to your heart's content. It was you who condemned the upright and killed them; they offered you no resistance." (James 5:1-6)

Indeed, we don't really own anything, because "to the Lord belong the earth and all it contains" (Psalm 24:1). Whatever and how much we do have during our brief visit as guests on his earth is borrowed from his providence, and he expects us to use for the good of others, since he command: "You must love your neighbor as yourself" (Mark 12:31).

Gregory Orloff

(Editor's note: Gregory, if you could remember to sign your last name, it would save us some work. Thanks.)

Do these I bankers expect to be believed with a PR campaign that would make Chevron blush? Trickle down from I bankers to blindsided home mortgage owners is more of a category five hurricane where only the bankers win.

I do, however, admire their boldness in trying to put a virtuous gloss on their inherent and structural rapacity. They are not lukewarm.

Pardon me while I puke.

These guys' Jesus? "Go die for your OWN sins, losers!"

Re today's Gospel: I'll listen to the bankers, when they go and give "ALL that they have" to charity (and that doesn't mean their heirs, or favorite/self-named foundations!).

JC Fisher

This is so transparent, it is laughable.

When the banks were doing well, they had to pay their people high salaries because they were "paying for performance". Now that profits are in the tank, (and presumably, performance wasn't so good) they are "paying to retain quality people". I couldn't get away with this kind of reasoning at my own performance review.

Let's look for why the banking system failed. It failed because bankers and their investors knew that if a catastrophe occurred the government would bail them. The reason is that given the failure the government would have no choice but to do what it could, for the good of all, to get the system functioning again. The bankers lacked the proper incentives to perform properly. Barring a conversion they will always behave self-interestedly, the question is how to turn it to good.

But bankers are not unique. Think introspectively about the inequality statement. If your take-home pay is the same regardless of your effort, how much effort will you expend? It is about stewardship -- you tell the farmer how beautiful the farm is that he and the Lord have created. You should have seen it when only the Lord was in charge.

It does sound to me that the Barclays CEO put his foot in his mouth, but it's true that to have something to share with those less fortunate there must have been a motive to produce in the first place.

Everyone seems to claim that Jesus is on their side.

Is Jesus a capitalist? Probably not. Is he a socialist? Again, probably not. Jesus had some very harsh things to say to governments.

Is Jesus a communist? Well again, probably not in the Marxist/Leninst model.

What are Jesus' economics? I would say that he is more concern with how people share their wealth and with how people create their wealth than he is with systems.

Any economic system will work if the members of it are committed disciples of Jesus Christ. Likewise all systems are unjust when some (I'm not sure of the percentage) are not committed disciples of Jesus Christ.

Instead of us being concerned with Jesus being on our side, we need to be concerned with us being on the side of Jesus.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder