It is just two years since the fateful Friday (October 10) when Britain nearly went bust. I remember the eerie feeling I had around cashpoints in that tense week - would the moment come when they no longer paid out, when any savings we might have, along with what we thought was in our current accounts simply drained away into the black hole of global debt?

The Church’s response to the economic crisis has been mixed. It has been relatively easy to moralize about the problem, less easy to minister to the underlying anxiety that haunts so many lives. ‘Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors’, we say in the Lord’s Prayer. But if all our financial debts were forgiven all the banks really would go bust overnight. For better or worse the world economy depends on credit and debt, spending and saving. The Church as an institution is thoroughly implicated in the financial system. So it is not the most productive response to join the chorus of disapproval at those who have led us into this mess. We were all there behind them after all, sometimes urging them on as we hoped for increasing prosperity.

What we can do, perhaps, is to look at the anxiety that we all have around material possessions. Most of us have become accustomed to the idea that economic growth is vital for our well-being. For decades we have expected to work our way through the debts of early adulthood and to arrive at a state of relative security. It is this assumption which has been fatally threatened by the ongoing financial crisis.

The New Testament does not promise us a life of increasing prosperity. What it does teach is the secret of contentment; it offers a life-long learning programme of thankfulness, hope and generosity. Perhaps Christian people should encourage our leaders to think less in terms of future growth and more in terms of managing better with what we have.

Perhaps we could try to retrain the desire for endless novelty which fuels our consumer society and slowly find our way towards the freedom that God promises. Sometimes there is no money to mend the church roof, but that need not stop us singing the songs of salvation.

The Revd Angela Tilby is the new Diocesan Canon of Christ Church Cathedral.