This is a task wherein many pitfalls and stumbling blocks are to be found and there is a danger that rather than lead those around us into a balanced, and hopefully Christian and Bible based, direction we merely peddle our own political views.
There are some of my colleagues who seem to think that the pulpit is a place for their own particular campaigns and prejudices to be aired and it does sometimes seem that we preach more about the world as we see (and want or don't want) it to be than we do about the Gospel of Jesus and the reconciliation of the human race to God through His (Jesus) atoning act on the cross.
And election time is no different - for it provides us with an opportunity to bring Micah's call to us of living as people of justice, mercy and humility to the fore and to remind us of the service and servanthood, the caring for the weak, the poor, the marginalised and the downtrodden that following Jesus, and being a tune disciple, demands; it brings a call to care for the native and the alien in our midst.
Over the next few days I will be trying to encourage and inform with regard to the parties with candidates in the area I live and minister in. I hope this will prove to be as useful for you as it will hopefully be for me.
Below are links to the manifestos of the parties standing in Tamworth - they are the same for every constituency so rather than wonder, why not click on a link and have a read- and when you have, talk to others and see the candidates questions - something essential because party politics aside, you are electing someone to speak for you, so find out whether they would before you vote.
I have often found the best candidate doesn't always come from the party you might naturally support and so asking questions about issues that matter and hearing their response is an important part of the voting process. Perhaps you could organise a hustings event where you are (there's still time if you hurry)?
THE MANIFESTOS
Conservative
Labour
Liberal Democrat
Green Party
UKIP
2 comments:
I won't be voting in Tamworth, but I am getting a bit fed up with the pressure to vote - from all sorts of sources. Please don't take this personally - it isn't meant that way, because your advice is always far more nuanced and well-thought!
But I object to being told that I have a duty or responsibility to vote. If there is any responsibility, it is for the candidates to demonstrate that they and, by extension their parties, warrant my vote (or anyone else's for that matter.) Being expected to vote is, as far as I am concerned, anti-democratic - if they can behave however they like (and so many seem to do just that) and Still demand votes, what incentive is their for decent behaviour from our politicians?
But I think that there is much more for the Christian. I think that Screwtape touches on this twice. Firstly, in letter 7, originally written about the war:
"Let him begin by treating the Patriotism or the Pacifism as a part of his religion.
Then let him, under the influence of partisan spirit, come to regard it as the most important part.
Then quietly and gradually nurse him on to the stage at which the religion becomes merely part of the “cause”, in which Christianity is valued chiefly because of the excellent arguments it can produce in favour of the British war-effort or of Pacifism.
The attitude which you want to guard against is that in which temporal affairs are treated primarily as material for obedience.
Once you have made the World an end, and faith a means, you have almost won your man, and it makes very little difference what kind of worldly end he is pursuing.
Provided that meetings, pamphlets, policies, movements, causes, and crusades, matter more to him than prayers and sacraments and charity, he is ours—and the more “religious” (on those terms) the more securely ours. I could show you a pretty cageful down here."
Substitute "Political affiliation" for "Patriotism or the Pacifism" and I believe you have a major warning for the Christian who wants to place too much faith in political answers of any colour:
"I put my faith in politicians,
thought they would bring about my vision,
I went and preached the message door to door.
But vested interests bought my dream,
sold out the brave new world I'd seen.
I couldn't tell the party lie no more."
A related warning from Screwtape is in letter 25:
"What we want, if men become Christians at all, is to keep them in the state of mind I call ‘Christianity And’. You know—Christianity and the Crisis, Christianity and the New Psychology, Christianity and the New Order, Christianity and Faith Healing, Christianity and Psychical Research, Christianity and Vegetarianism, Christianity and Spelling Reform. If they must be Christians let them at least be Christians with a difference. Substitute for the faith itself some Fashion with a Christian colouring."
So can I make a plea for caution?
You can indeed make a plea for caution - always welcomed :-)
The hustings is an opportunity for people to ask questions about issues that matter to them and for those with a faith there is an added lens by which we are called to examine the parties and test the candidates.
I go so tired of Christians telling me how they either didn't vote or felt they'd been lied to or misunderstood the parties and the like that the last election we did a hustings event and for many it was the first time that they'd seen the candidates and so it proved a positive experience.
The problem is that those who fail to vote really do seem to get the party they deserve.
the other problem is that some use the privileged position they have to influence people to vote for their choice rather than that which might just be the right choice - and so choice is what all of this is about.
The fact remains that whilst no longer of this world we are still certainly in it and should be seen to be acting rightly in the democracy in which apparently we live.
Hey ho - let you know if a few days
thanks,
V
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