As always these days, I am slightly behind on the news response front.
It seems that the Church of England is apologising for having urged – in the recent Bishops' Pastoral Letter – that no one should be paid less than the living wage. The Church itself is accused of 'hypocrisy' (how original…) as examples have been found where churches are advertising posts that do not pay the living wage.
For once, I don't think we should be apologising. To do so is to accept the premise that the Church is telling the rest of the country what to do – “preaching” is the word usually applied to anything we say or do.
But, I just want to put the obvious question: to whom was the Bishops' Pastoral Letter addressed?
The last time I looked, the church (and its thousands of separate charities that are individually responsible for “practising what it preaches”) was part of the world it is addressing. In fact, as the question assumes, it addresses itself first. The Letter was addressed to us.