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We offer daily services and a creative programme of talks, events and concerts. We seek to be a welcoming space for people to reflect, create and debate.
Come and celebrate the hope and light that Christmas brings each winter
St James’s hosts inclusive services and a cultural programme. We seek to be a welcoming space for people to reflect, create and debate.
St James’s is a place to explore, reflect, pray, and support all who are in need. We are a Church of England parish in the Anglican Communion. This is a place for everyone who’s wondering about life’s big questions and striving for a better world.
We host a year-round creative programme encompassing music, visual art and spoken word, drawing on St James’s rich cultural history including artists, writers and musicians Mary Beale, Mary Delany, William Blake, Ottobah Cugoano and Leopold Stokowski.
We try to put our faith into action by educating ourselves and speaking out on issues of injustice, especially concerning refugees, asylum, earth and racial justice, and LGBTQ+ issues.
We aspire to be a home where everyone can belong. We’re known locally and globally for our unique history and beauty, as well as faith in action, creativity and the arts, and a commitment to social and environmental justice.
We strive to be a Eucharist-centred, diverse and inclusive Christian community promoting life in abundance, wellbeing and dignity for all.
St James’s Piccadilly has been at the heart of its community since 1684. We invite you to play your part in securing this historic place for generations to come.
It costs us £3,500 per day to enable us to keep our doors open to all who need us
Your donation will help us restore our garden in Piccadilly as part of The Wren Project, making it possible for us to welcome over 300,000 people from all faiths and walks of life seeking tranquillity and inspiration each year.
St James's Church 197 Piccadilly London W1J 9LL
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As newly elected governments across the world roll out their policies for the next four years, there is near universal agreement on the top priority: economic growth. But for good reason there are increasing challenges to this broad consensus. In part 1 of this two-part reflection for the Season of Creation, Penelope looks at the state we’re in.
The state we’re in. In the 19th, 20th, and early 21st centuries western-style industrialized human activity has brought enormous wealth to many – but also fundamental change in the biochemistry and large-scale cycles of our planet. While many individuals of the last centuries have been aware of the effects on the wider earth community of our evolving consumer-driven way of life, society has generally failed to recognise the profoundly negative implications of those effects for all life on our planet. Climate breakdown is accelerating, faster even than the predictions from earlier scientific models. Humanity has already breached six of the nine sustainable planetary boundaries (for climate; biodiversity loss; freshwater and land-system change; biogeochemical flows; and novel entities*1). Crises have become normal in this global system that depletes nature and undermines the stability of all life on earth. The latest announcement from the UN’s climate chief warns that we have only a two-year window in which to avert irreversible ecological catastrophe2.
The problem with economic growth. This existential crisis is largely driven by the seemingly axiomatic belief that each generation of human beings should strive for ever greater ‘standards of living’ and that growth in gross domestic product (GDP) is the only way to bring this about. This argument holds weight for low-income countries in the global south that have been most affected by climate and ecological collapse – and have contributed little or nothing to its causes. Where populations lack the most basic amenities such as safe drinking water and sanitation and are facing extreme poverty, mass unemployment and poor-quality infrastructure, economic development is critically needed.
But the call for more growth in wealthy nations raises important questions. The riches gained from the extraction and burning of fossil fuels to drive growth have benefited an increasingly small proportion of the population while impoverishing the vast majority. The richest 1 percent took nearly two-thirds of all new wealth created since 2020, valued at $42 trillion – almost twice as much money as the bottom 99 percent of the world’s population3. The same proportion generated twice the percentage of the world’s carbon emissions as the poorest 50%. The problem with the excessive consumption arising from wealth is not simply the energy burned and the emissions generated during production. Municipal waste is set to rise by two thirds and its costs to almost double within a generation, with the toxic pollution of air, land and water that come with poor disposal practice4.
Perhaps we should not be surprised that economic growth has failed to help us all to flourish, for it was never designed to measure societal or planetary well-being — only market production and consumption. Even in wealthy nations, many in full-time employment are unable to pay rent and must take on extra jobs to make ends meet, while levels of anxiety, depression, addictions and burnout are rising. Runaway inequality and political polarization are eroding societies’ sense of cohesion, leading to escalating conflicts and violence across the globe. As vast tracts of the global south become uninhabitable due to extreme heat, drought, storm and flood, the populations of entire continents will be forced to migrate. Threats to peace, water and food security, to democracy and life itself will be magnified. This economic model is evidently unsustainable. And the crippling future costs of mitigation and adaptation have been largely neglected. Latest estimates reported by the World Economic Forum indicate that climate change will cost the world 12% in GDP losses for every 1°C of warming5.
Some urgent questions. How is it that growth in GDP is still declared, mantra like, by classical economists, governments and politicians the world over as the only panacea for all our problems? Can we not see how far it has failed to bring about human and planetary flourishing and the glaring injustices the model has embodied? The prophets of all the major faith traditions and Jesus himself frequently warn of the corrupting effects and dire consequences of appropriating and accumulating wealth at the expense of the poor and the earth. In a culture which tends towards excess, profit-maximising and ceaseless consumption, the virtues of moderation, sufficiency and seeking the common good find no favour. Where is our sense of ‘holy outrage’ of the kind that Jesus frequently demonstrated, that might call us to action against such manifest wrongs? And even without these higher motives, why does a species that prides itself on its capacity for reason fail to act rationally to avert such absolute existential threats?
Possible answers will be addressed in Part 2 next week. Can new technologies, new ways of thinking, or a spiritual metanoia help us to live in harmony with Creation?
*The “novel entities” planetary boundary encapsulates all toxic and long-lived substances that humans release into the environment — from heavy metals and radioactive waste, to industrial chemicals and pesticides, even novel living organisms — which can threaten the stability of the Earth system.
