My most famous predecessor as Rector of St Nicholas, Sevenoaks, was the seventeenth century poet and preacher John Donne. Whilst Rector, he was also Dean of St Paul's Cathedral. If I had also occupied both roles in recent weeks, would I have acted differently to Dean Knowles who has just resigned from this position?

It's a difficult question to answer because, like many others, I am unaware of the full complexity of the current situation and the way that so many different issues have become entangled together. There are certainly important issues of public policy at stake but intertwined there are concerns about church investments, the rights of demonstrators, the property rights of the church and health and safety concerns. The staff at St Paul's and the Bishop of London have been caught in a media maelstrom not of their own making and I can well understand the stresses and strains this has caused within the Cathedral. I cannot imagine that I would have handled the situation any better.

Leaving aside the very difficult practical issues, perhaps it is worth thinking about the deeper issues that led to the encampment in the first place. The demonstrators have simply been pointing out things that we know are largely true within our society and they have acted as our conscience. There does appear to be growing economic inequality within Britain and there is plenty of evidence of greed within the City and our society. Further, there has been a fair amount of hubris amongst politicians and economists over recent years about their plans for growth. Yet for all their forecasts and policies, we have been steered into very stormy economic waters with no immediate prospect of an end in sight. Greed and pride are at the root of our problems.

However, we need to recognise that most of us are complicit with this system and have prospered in it. Even the demonstrators themselves are largely those who have benefited from growing up within a relatively prosperous country. In other words, the problems of greed and pride are not the preserve of others. All of us need to examine ourselves. So if we are to have a public conversation, none of us can take the moral high ground. We all need the humility to recognise that as a society we have acted far too selfishly and independently in recent decades. We will need to ask hard questions.

John Donne famously said 'No man is an island', reminding us that each of us is part of a society where we need one another. We need to rekindle a similar vision for a compassionate and caring yet productive and purposeful society. Ultimately, Donne's vision as Dean was of a society centred on God through coming to know Christ as Lord and Saviour, finding its purpose in living for Him and seeking to show care to all His creatures. When God is marginalised, things begin to unravel and the remedy is for us as a society to return to Him.

Angus MacLeay