A charity pop single raising money for African relief has done a better job than the church in spreading the Christmas message, a Church of England bishop admitted on Thursday.
Band Aid, the collective of pop stars gathered together by Irish musician and charity organiser Bob Geldof, have done what organised religion ”was not able to or did not want to carry out”, said the Right Reverend Carl Cooper, Bishop of St Davids.
”Geldof and his colleagues did what the Christian church either couldn’t or wouldn’t do,” Cooper said in his Christmas address.
”God came to Earth in Jesus to identify with the poor and outcast. He told us that the care of those in need is not an optional extra. When we fail to do this, we fail to be the body of Christ.”
The Band Aid song Do They Know It’s Christmas — featuring among others Robbie Williams and Bono of U2 — is currently number one in the British pop charts, with the proceeds going to Sudan’s conflict-wracked region of Darfur.
It is a re-recording of the song that topped the charts in 1984 in aid of famine relief in Ethiopia. That single, and the vast Live Aid concert of the next year, raised millions of dollars for charity. — Sapa-AFP