When nuns held up a bank

A community fearing being left behind, takes novel action to help change its economic and social fortune. Ryan Gilfeather tells the tale.

Ryan Gilfeather

Ryan Gilfeather explores social issues through the lens of philosophy, theology, and history. He is a Research Associate at the Joseph Centre for Dignified Work.

A pile of coins in focus at the bottom of an out of focus glass tube.

Small value coins were at the heart of the nuns' actions.

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash.

Days before Christmas 2001 a mob of nuns and priests held up a bank in Oxford Street. They were not stealing money but rather paying it in. The Nuns of St Antony’s Forest Gate, a 2000-person strong Catholic parish saved their collection money until they had a staggeringly vast quantity to deposit. On the day, they took the money in a van to an HSBC branch in Oxford Street, wheeled it in on trolleys, where they proceeded to deposit every single coin.

At the same time priests in their clerical collars, and worshippers from a range of congregations in East London queued up at the other desk to slowly and repeatedly enquire about opening savings accounts. All the while, other members of these institutions stood outside holding banners accusing HSBC of exploiting low paid workers, saying “Give HSBC a Living Wage for Christmas.” The entire branch was brought to a standstill. Anxious Christmas shoppers stood helpless and astonished as this spectacle frustrated their attempts to withdraw money.

They heard that wages were so bad that workers needed to take on multiple jobs, forcing them to choose between feeding their kids and seeing them.

These nuns, priests and other Christians planned this action to secure a liveable wage for all who work at HSBC, but they also had broader ambitions. The East London Communities Organisation (TELCO), a broad-based coalition of citizens from churches, mosques, and other faith and community groups began to organise for a pay rate which was enough to live on, the amount which is now known as the Real Living Wage (currently £11.95 in London; £10.90 everywhere else). Each of these citizens had been listening to the people in their institutions. They heard that wages were so bad that workers needed to take on multiple jobs, forcing them to choose between feeding their kids and seeing them, and preventing them from praying and worshipping. Motivated by the belief that all human beings are of equal value and dignity in the eyes of God, these Christian communities, alongside the other groups in TELCO began campaigning for a fair and just rate of pay.

The new neighbour

As these discussions were ongoing they could see the new HSBC tower slowly ascending above their East London skyline. Considerable amounts of government money had been spent on the infrastructure of Docklands, which would serve this tower. TELCO citizens discerned that if it was going to benefit those who lived in east London, there would need to be a living wage for everyone who would work in that building. Therefore, they decided to ask the bank to make contracts for cleaning and security at the new tower on the condition that workers be paid enough to live on, in East London (£6.30 at the time). A number of religious and civic leaders had written to the HSBC chairman, Sir John Bond, to request a meeting to discuss these poverty wages. However, they had heard nothing back.

At this point, the nuns at St Antony’s came up with their plan. Visitors and members of the 2000 strong congregation would leave coins in the collection when they light candles in church, and the nuns were accustomed to depositing them every Tuesday. However, they decided to keep hold of them for several months until they managed to fill that small van. Eventually, on 19 December they set out in it to Oxford Street, with priests and parishioners in tow, and brought this branch to its knees.

The action worked. Within an hour Sir John had agreed to meet with TELCO members at St Philip's Church, Plaistow, to discuss their demands that cleaning and security contracts pay a living wage. Negotiations continued until 2004, when HSBC agreed to the campaigner’s demands, ensuring that every contractor pays a living wage, sick pay, pension and free access to a trade union. This victory built great momentum for the movement for a Real Living Wage, which is now voluntarily paid by over 12,000 UK employers. Therefore, this life-giving campaign for economic justice finds its origins, in part, with a group of nuns saving up their small change, because their faith led them to believe in the inextinguishable dignity and value of all human lives.

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America

Change

Politics

Trauma

7 November 2024

3 min read

How America reckons with its fractured reality

The first thing is always to listen. To sit. To feel.

Jared Stacy

Jared Stacy holds a Theological Ethics PhD from the University of Aberdeen. His research focuses conspiracy theory, politics, and evangelicalism.

Two people sit at the table, one dictates as the other types. Behind a banner reads: write a postcard to the next president.i

Artist Sheryl Oring types messages to the president.

instagram/usf_npml

Yesterday, the day after the election, I preached a funeral. I heard the name of our President-elect only once. But I did speak on Jesus and Lazarus. About pain and loss.

I named our enemy, death, that robber, cheat, and swindler. And I spoke about grief—we all grieve in so many different ways. And then about tears. I shared about the man from Nazareth, whose public grief before the tomb of his friend drew hushed whispers from onlookers.

It was, you may remember, a tomb he was about to open. He knew, Jesus did, what he was about to do. And did it so that those who were there would become witnesses to precisely what God is about: defeating death. “Come out, Lazarus!” says Jesus, and he does.

The Christian faith, I told the grieving, would have us believe that even in our grief, there is a hope that hems it in. That Jesus enters our darkness and comes to rob death of its finality. I love too that Jesus says next— “Unbind him!” —turning onlookers into witnesses and participants.

This was how I spent my day. I’m not sure I could have spend it any better. Not because it was an escape from the election, but it forced some perspective on me. Because T.S. Eliot is right: “we cannot bear much reality.”

Here, political autopsies are everywhere. Some talk of the Democrat’s conceit, of denying President Biden’s liability as a candidate, bypassing the primaries, refusing to meet economic concerns. There’s talk of Trump’s genius and what looks to be the end of his legal troubles. There’s talk of the downfall of America, of ascendant and aspiring authoritarianisms. Perhaps. Especially if we take Trump at his word.

But as the funeral ends, I’m weighed down by the messages I’m starting to read. Not about the results alone. Not questions about political strategy and futures. No, these are pained voices from a Christian community in America betraying itself.

My phone messages are filled with stories of pain and loss. Friends and strangers alike, enduring the same loss, the same betrayal. The communities that taught us the faith now distort it. And none of this is new.

Howard Thurman, who mentored Martin Luther King Jr., said it back in 1946: “the tragic truth is that the church permits various hate groups in our common life to establish squatter’s rights in the minds of believers because there has been no adequate teaching on the meaning of the faith in terms of human dignity.” This loss has been with us for generations. But these fissures and fractures are ours to bear today. And they are not unconnected from the social and political chaos of America.

Martin Luther once said, “living, dying, and being damned makes one a theologian.” This has taught me to welcome, rather than despise, accusations that question the validity of my faith. It’s also made me suspicious of the misplaced messianic hope from which such questions emerge. It’s a false hope not easily displaced.

Before I returned to the States from living in Scotland these last few years, a good friend told me honestly: “perhaps America will have to ride it out, all of it, until it’s done.” The thought seemed a far-off scenario then. But I think he’s right.

When Israel built the golden calf in the wilderness, Moses made them grind it up into powder, mixing it in their drinks. The Christian community in America, whether we realize it our not, will soon be drinking our idolatry down to the dregs with consequences beyond Christian community itself.

And people ask, “what should we do?” And I think that time is near for that question. But the first thing is always to listen. To sit. To feel. And to remember that it’s not for nothing that Jesus, who pronounced so many woes over Jerusalem, also wept over it.

This article’s image is of Sheryl Oring, an artist who invites the public to write to the next president. She has typed and sent thousands of messages to the White House every election since 2004 as part of her performance series I Wish to Say. Read more about her and the letters: Artist Invites the Public to Write Letters to the Next US President