Sir Paul Marshall’s £28m donation to churches deserves our praise, not condemnation

Sir Paul Marshall, the owner of GB News, has apparently committed the unforgivable sin.

Instead of seeking to save the planet from global warming, he has contributed money to the seemingly lesser cause of actually seeing people saved by coming to faith in Jesus.

The co-owner of GB News, a British TV channel accused of broadcasting climate change denial, has donated £28m to influential Church of England institutions.

This raises “serious questions”, say Christian leaders, given that Sir Paul Marshall’s views on the climate crisis and those frequently broadcast on the TV channel are “in direct opposition” to the Church of England, which believes that “responding to the climate crisis is an essential part of our responsibility to safeguard God’s creation and achieve a just world”.

Rev Dr Darrell Hannah is chair of Operation Noah, a leading UK Christian climate charity. He commented in The Guardian: “Marshall’s views are in direct opposition to those of the Church of England. Given his outsized influence on our country – and in light of his problematic views on the most significant moral and practical challenge of our time – serious questions need to be asked about Sir Paul Marshall’s donations to faith groups, and specifically to the Church of England. This cannot go unchallenged.”

There is quite a lot here which “cannot go unchallenged” - not least the projection of what Sir Paul actually believes. The same Guardian article actually cites his position: “Sir Paul generally agrees with Christian and Anglican teaching on the environment and climate change. Like many people, including many Christians, he just doesn’t subscribe to net zero by 2050 due to the serious negative impact on poor people, their communities and the economy. Instead, he prefers to allow human innovation to adapt to and to limit climate change. This is a perfectly reasonable position held by millions of people, including many Christians.”

GB News (the other villain of the piece here) might well have challenged some of the dogmatic approaches to climate change; presenters have accepted that the climate is changing, but they have challenged claims about the rate of change and the costs of ‘net zero’ - as have many others.

And it is not true to claim that Paul Marshall has donated ”to the Church of England.” He has only contributed, as far as we know, to HTB and The Church Revitalisation Trust. All congregations are separate legal entities from the central Church. For those making sweeping ideological comments, it is just too easy to lump everyone together and call them “the Church of England” rather than take time to understand what is actually going on.

The Church of England is indeed a broad church, not in the virtuous sense of tolerating a wide range of views, but in the sometimes problematic sense of being a collection of different entities who often don’t agree with one another.

This more complex reality means that Marshall’s views are not “in opposition to the Church of England”. General Synod did indeed pass a rushed motion on net zero in 2020 - but many are now challenging this, as Synod did not think through the costs and implications for local churches, particular those with historic buildings. Many now consider that the hasty measures are damaging to local ministry.

An analysis undertaken in 2022 of a series of church court rulings, and comments made by ecclesiastical judges, has shown that green heating systems, such as electric boilers or heat pumps, are either too expensive for parish churches which are buckling under financial pressure, or that they cannot be fitted in historic buildings. Of course, Synod did not allow such realities to dent their climate change virtue.

It is worth reflecting on Dr Hannah’s own situation, and how these matters affect his congregation in Ascot Heath. As it turns out, his parish is part of one of the most expensive towns in England. The top five wealthiest streets in Berkshire are all in Ascot. At the pinnacle is Titlarks Hill — known locally as “Millionaires’ Row” — which sits next to Sunningdale Golf Course and has an average property value of around £9 million. His congregation is drawn from one of the wealthiest postcodes in England. So perhaps questions of affordability are not something they need to worry about.

But they might worry about church attendance. Many dioceses and individual churches, including Dr Hannah’s, are sadly in decline. On his own church’s website, I could not find a single mention of mission, how to learn more about the Christian faith, or anything like an Alpha course for outsiders.

There is a kind of inverted ideological idiocy that would rather see money invested in a heat pump for a medieval building as it empties of people, than actually see people coming to faith and filling it with the warm of lives made new in Jesus.

I think it is wonderful that someone like Sir Paul Marshall is putting money into serious efforts to see more people come to know the good news of Jesus for themselves. In the light of continued decline in Church of England attendance, I think we would be wise to welcome this rather than criticise it.