Thursday, May 06, 2010

A Christian Manifesto

I was heartened to read the Evangelical Alliances' Open Letter to Party Leaders today, as it reflected the views of British Evangelical Christians on Facebook and Twitter, and refreshingly not a single reactionary idea amongst them!

  • Encourage the importance of marriage as the best environment to bring up children
  • A change to the voting system so that it is more representative of the votes cast
  • For politicians to act with honesty and integrity
Other suggestions that make up the top ten ideas include:
  • Foster social entrepreneurship in inner city areas that have suffered from long term deprivation
  • Fully worked out plans for supplying water and sanitation to those currently without in developing countries
  • An immigration policy that ensures we provide proper sanctuary for those fleeing persecution in their own country
  • Cap the interest rate that can be charged on loans and credit cards
  • Reform the House of Lords
  • Work to set up an international tax on financial transactions
  • Take hard choices to tackle the national debt
This is just a sample of the many ideas that were submitted to the Facebook group and via Twitter, and show that Christians are passionately committed to all areas of society. Which ever party or parties form the next Government we call on them to listen to these suggestions and engage with the Church. Across the country churches are an integral part of local communities and work for the good of all society. We ask that you work with the church as a key partner as you begin to govern.

The thinking is refreshingly global, focussed on justice, fairness and community - values at the heart of a Christ Centred, Biblical world view. I doubt that the party leaders will have listened that much (judging from most of their manifestos), but whatever government we find tomorrow morning, we have here some of the issues that Christians at least would like it to address - issues that will have a wider benefit rather than simply fulfilling sectarian interests.

2 comments:

James said...

Hi Steve,

fret not, there are still places where clergy are doing their level best to downplay the message of hope to the poor in favour of "freedom from the oppression of sin". (This is what we got for Liberation Day in Jersey this morning)

ElFouch said...

James, it seems to me that modern day Christians polarise between an individualised Gospel of personal liberation or a social gospel of political liberation. We seem incapable of seeing that both go hand in hand. The Evangelicals of the 18th & 19th Centuries seemed to have had no such polarisation.

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