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AN IMMANENT CRITIQUE OF UK CHURCH ETHICAL INVESTMENT

While the literature contains a number of studies of ethical investment funds, relatively little is known about church investment processes and practices. This paper attempts to address this lacuna by studying the ethical investment programmes of three UK churches: the Methodist Church, the Church of England and the Church of Scotland, The paper initially explores the relationship between the Judeo-Christian church and the development of the ethical investment movement across Europe. This history reveals an engagement both at the institutional and individual level that challenges the assumption of a sacred secular divide now commonplace within the literature (see for example Laughlin, 1988; 1990; 1991; Booth, 1993; 1995; Parker 2000) and the more recent guardianadvocate dichotomy (Lightbody, 2000). Secondly, the paper delineates both the forms this engagement has taken in the three churches in our sample and its theological bases. The final section of the paper provides an immanent critique of church investments both at a performative and theological level. The objective of the final section is to contribute towards our understanding of the practice of accountability within the religious context of church ethical investment programmes (See Laughlin, 1988).