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Good morning. There were some startling figures in yesterday’s report from an independent think tank, the High Pay Centre. In the 1990s executive salaries were approximately 60 times average pay, today nearly 180 times. Or – to put it another way – the average CEO now earns more in three days than an average employee earns in a year. I was amused to hear a report on Sunday that the Church of England was about to open its ‘top jobs’ to women. When I was a student a friend of mine congratulated one of our lecturers, a clergyman, on being appointed to a prestigious clerical post – ‘preferment in the Church of England is not a matter for congratulation’ was his rather pompous reply. His remark did, however, make the point that senior positions in the church are not ‘top jobs’ as usually understood. They do not carry much in the way of greater rewards – most Bishops get paid only about twice as much as the average worker in the church – only far greater responsibilities. A vicar is said to have the ‘cure’ – or care - of souls’ in his or her parish, but a bishop has the care of the souls of a whole diocese. Being responsible for one’s own soul is difficult enough; to be accountable for all these others is to be undertaken only with fear and trembling, certainly not for the sake of the dosh. Augustine, who understood these things, had to be dragged to the bishop’s seat against his will. The church is not a business, and businesses are not churches – and I doubt that the way the church deals with rewards and responsibilities for those in senior positions would be the way to create the incentives needed in the world of business. But that said, the seemingly increasing gap between executive pay and the pay of average workers ought not to be regarded as inevitable – although according to some recent analysis, inequality will increase unless explicit action is taken to address it. And I think that is why it is not only the churches and the usual suspects who are concerned about these trends – certain major companies, business leaders, and shareholders, are themselves trying to find a way to do business on the basis of the principle that the success of a company is something in which all workers should have a fair share. That sounds like good ethics to me – but also perhaps good business as well. For how secure and confident can a company or country be about the future, if its success is not broadly shared, but rather increasingly confined to fewer and fewer privileged individuals?