BRITAIN’S churches are to announce a pre-election conversion by declaring for the first time they are in favour of wealth creation.

Until now they have been seen as deeply suspicious of free market economics, arguing for strong state intervention against debt and poverty rather than entrepreneurship. But a pre-general election report for Christians to be launched later this month says making money is good.

The report, Prosperity With a Purpose — Christians and the Ethics of Affluence, concludes: “Under the right conditions, economic growth can serve God’s purposes.”

An umbrella group of mainstream Christian denominations, Churches Together in Britain And Ireland, has been preparing the document for the past year. It has the backing of the Archbishops of Canterbury, Westminster and Glasgow and each of the main churches.

The report, however, does not sanction unbridled greed. It says wealth creation and the pursuit of social justice should be inextricably linked and that advancing prosperity should leave no one behind.

The report quotes the famous gospel passage that has been interpreted as meaning Christianity and wealth are incompatible. In the passage, Jesus tells his disciples: “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” But Christ then adds: “With God . . . all things are possible.”

While the overall thrust of the report is that wealth is good, many of its sections contain a plea for social justice. It says: “Christian ethics have to ask what sort of people do we need to be to bring about this state of prosperity and to share its fruits justly. That shifts attention from economic considerations to moral ones.”

Clifford Longley, its author, said: “This is the first visible sign that the churches have rethought their attitude to wealth creation and market economics. This has captured a new consensus within the churches.”

For years the churches criticised Conservative governments and Baroness Thatcher. Now their views more closely reflect her famous comment that “no one would remember the Good Samaritan if he only had good intentions. He had money as well”.

Before the 1997 general election, British churches issued Unemployment and the Future of Work, attacking all the political parties for doing little to alleviate poverty. It said: “When so many are living in poverty and unemployment it is wrong to give priority to the claims of those who are already well off. None of the political parties has put forward a programme which offers much real hope of improvement for those in the greatest need.”

The document was widely seen as left-leaning, as was The Common Good, published in 1996 by the Roman Catholic Church. The latter condemned the “unlimited free market” and said the decline in trade union membership was “not necessarily a healthy sign”.

News of the change in church thinking was welcomed by one of Britain’s most overtly Christian multi-millionaires. Robert Edmiston, the chairman of car importer IM Group and a prominent evangelical, said he saw no problem with profits.

He warned, however: “The church should not change its values. God is interested in character and in the attitude of our heart. In past centuries, poverty was elevated because Jesus himself was poor.

“In earlier times wealth was seen as the blessing of God and many great Old Testament figures were wealthy and did great things with their wealth, so we need to recover the balance. It’s what we do with the wealth which really counts.”

Edmiston is planning to give £300m to charity before he dies.

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