Faith in the City: A Call for Action by Church and Nation was a report published in the United Kingdom in autumn 1985, authored by the Archbishop of Canterbury Robert Runcie's Commission on Urban Priority Areas.
[1] The report created a large amount of controversy when it was published, as one of its conclusions was that much of the blame for growing spiritual and economic poverty in British inner cities was due to government policies.
It was to pay attention to clergy staffing levels; to adequate training programmes for ordained and lay leaders; to liturgical needs; to styles of work with children and young people; to the use of its buildings.
Jakobovits argued that the Jewish contribution to eradicating poverty "would lay greater emphasis on building up self-respect by encouraging ambition and enterprise through a more demanding and more satisfying work-ethic, which is designed to eliminate human idleness and to nurture pride in 'eating the toil of one's hands' as the first immediate targets".
He argued that they should learn from the Jewish experience of working themselves out of poverty, educating themselves and building up a "trust in and respect for the police, realising that our security as a minority depended on law and order being maintained".
[5] The report triggered extensive public and media debate regarding Thatcherite ethics, urban decay, the modern role and relevance of the church, and the perceived growing divide between rich and poor in 1980s Britain.