I'm not the most political of people, but I do try to keep abreast of what's going on in the governance of the country I live in. I read a few political blogs and I've noticed something that I'm increasingly finding irritating. It seems you can't be a lefty/liberal/etc and a Christian.
This is patently not true, but increasingly I'm finding left leaning political writers seem to assume their audience are atheists/agnostic/anything other than followers of Christ.
Meanwhile at the last election there was quite a lot of noise around suggesting that Christians should support prospective parliamentary candidates who were Christians themselves; 'we need to have more Christians in government' was the justification.
Now I agree with that, however it's a poor approach to how faith should influence one's politics.
I'm part of a large church with some 800 people floating around. We talk about the 'church family' and like a real family, you don't get to choose who they are. Within that number are many people I fundamentally disagree with on many things. We're united in Christ, but not necessarily in views on the welfare state, for example.
In short, I'm always going to base my voting decisions on policy and track record rather than what I may have in common with the person who's name is on the ballot paper.
However I think there's a more fundamental issue for the 21st century church.
Faith should, nay must influence all aspects of our lives and that includes politics. In reading the Gospel I find in Jesus a man who deftly avoids being drawn on political issues; more concerned with the attitude of people towards others than their political affiliation. That the right seems to have claimed Christianity is as much nonsense as the left's rejection of faith.
I regularly read two blogs, Liberal Conspiracy and Cranmer. Both well written, challenging, insightful, heavily biased and frustrating. I admire and value Cranmer's analysis of all things religio-political but oh how I wish it wasn't laced with such heavy political bias. Liberal Conspiracy draw together fantastic insights from the left of the political arena, but how I wish they weren't so hostile to Christianity.
The reality is these two blogs both exist precisely because of their various political and religious affiliation. They're not attempting any sort of balance.
These are difficult times for the UK. It seems the large state apparatus of the last Labour government is unaffordable. But the cutbacks and small state ideas of the current coalition seems to offer poor support for those who've relied on the state for so long.
I'm not interested in the rights and wrongs of this. I am interested in how the church of Christ across the UK challenges both the left and right to do better for our nation. Something we'll struggle to do if we allow political affiliation to inform and compromise our faith.
I guess were stuck somewhere between the church not wanting to be a political organisation (though at times individual churches may have a fairly clear leaning) but equally wanting an indiviual's politics to be informed (or even driven) by their christianity.
ReplyDeleteThis means practically the church best operates on a local level dealing with issues more individaully. It also requires churches to approach issues honestly rather than with political bais. But really this is no easy task. If the church reacts on a national level it risks becoming more of a party political organisation. Non of this is helped by the fact that every time you look at America you see one corner of conservative christianity (or it's allies) suffocating lots of nation debatesand destrying a lot of good.
In regards to the media question, it occurs to me how few good 'left-wing christian' writers I'm aware of in the UK. We don't the likes of Shane Claibourne, Brian McLaren or Carl Mederis writing in national newspapers (as far as I'm aware). Mr Williams seems to so his best, but his role as an Archbishop limits him from being truely radical I suspect.