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It is the age old argument: should the church get involved, or to what extent should the church get involved, in politics? This is an issue which will divide many Christians, often along party lines. When the church is critical of something you don’t like then the church is right and its intrusion into the murky world of politics justified but when the church criticises something you support then the church is wrong, it should not express its opinion on an issue which would be better left to individual consciences or to the government. However the issue is not simply as straight forward as it might seem for whether we like it or not the politicians regularly use religion and the church in an attempt to win those few extra votes.
Politicians using the church for their own political ends is not a new phenomenon and we should not be surprised by it. In the last century the Liberal party gained electorally by its link with the non-conformists while the Conservatives tried to capitalise on this by suggesting that the Church of England was under threat, helping to create the well known saying that the Church of England was the “Tory Party at prayer” (though recent surveys of congregations suggest that this is no longer true). In more recent times both parties have tried to appeal to the Christian vote by trying to uphold family values and talking about the need for more moral education in our schools. In the United States this is taken even further with the ‘religious right’ being very powerful in the south and regularly putting up candidates looking for the republican nomination.
The farce of the government’s ‘Back to Basics’ campaign and the recent criticism of Tony Blair over abortion has again highlighted the issue and many Christians will be horrified at the politicisation of such important subjects and shocked by the various political parties trying to use them for their own ends. However as the Bible tells us before we judge others we ought to have a look at ourselves. Political parties only make use of such things because their research has told them that the electorate is interested in them.
Morality and family values are important to Christian and non-Christian alike and as long as we continue to see a break down in traditional values and as long as we continue to care then so will the politicians. Politicians don’t make the agenda; they respond to it. When BSE is important to the public then it is important to the politicians, when or if family values cease to be important to the public then they will cease to be important to the politicians; and ‘Back to Basics’ will be quickly forgotten.
The pundits are saying that Bill Clinton got re-elected because he was so good at reading and judging the public mood, a master at saying what the American public wanted to hear and because of this many of them voted for him even though they often didn’t trust him. In this there is a warning to us all, politicians are all masters of the sound-bite, that short pithy quote which will get onto the ten o’clock news and into all the newspapers the next day and you can be sure that with an election on this side of the great pond only five or six months away we will be hearing more and more of them. Don’t be fooled by them, they all sound good and appealing but look behind them to see what they are really saying, politicians all want to be elected and are very good at forgetting those promises until they next have to face the electorate.
Returning to where I started, the church. Whether or not the church enters into the world of politics, politics will enter into the world of the church and we as Christians should not be afraid of this. A specifically organised Christian Party is one that I hope we will never see but Christians who are involved in any of the political parties should not be afraid of proclaiming their Christianity and bringing a Christian perspective to political issues. Christians who are not members of any political party should also not be afraid of trying to shape the political agenda, for this will make sure that those pithy sound-bites turn into more than empty promises.
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Last modified: 25th November 2005