Categories: evangelicalism, durham, election-2010
Date: 29 April 2010 07:47:23
Appeal is for progressive, liberal and mainstream Christians to get involved asking questions and attending this....to make it a husting where a diverse group of Christians are represented and where we use our freedom of speech.
Whilst this forum looks like it is going to be closely controlled it is asking people to submit their questions.. The FB page says, "PLEASE SUBMIT YOUR QUESTIONS to us ASAP by either replying to this message or emailing them to votingformyvoice@live.co.uk . We’ll notify you if we will be using your question." However, they say they are for free speech, so hopefully they will use the questions of "alternative Christian perspectives".
If you are a Christian in Durham and can be about on Friday I would ask you to (i) attend and (ii) to e-mail through the questions you have. Let us engage with this process rather than rejecting or marginalising those involved, aswell as showing that not all Christians are of the same view as them.
The FB page of the people organising say the debate is 7:30 at Elvet Methodist church, but the CCFON website says the debate is at the Town Hall at 7:30. I believe the Elvet venue is the correct one.
In the Anvil article by Andrew Marin I wrote about the other day he spoke articulately about the chance the UK has to do things a different way to the US and ensure that the debates about sexuality, (and indeed I would argue other issues), don't lead to a polarisation between two sides. He said we are at a crossroads. In many ways I think we have heard this alot on many issues over the last 30 years and to be honest I think, because of the different religious contexts between the US and UK it hasn't really appeared real, I mean over here the "Religious Right" are just a very small minority group of extremists.
However, as we have seen with the BNP in "mainstream" politics, when the climate is right and the right wing get organised they can have a disporportionate and damaging impact. Who seriously a few years ago would have thought Britain would have 2 BNP MEP's?
Whilst I don't want to over-emphasise the appeal of the religious right, because these groups are a minority (and I know even most mainstream conservative evangelicals don't come into this category), they should be taken seriously. After all they have organised hustings over the country where the mainstream politicians are engaging with them.
Whilst they have not, thankfully, included the BNP in this debate it appears that "Christian Hustings" elsewhere have and that they have even put their debate on Christian TV. Ekklesia has this article detailing that. This fits in their free speech agenda (which is related to their opposition for the Equality Bill).
In light of all this I think that it is important that mainstream Christians come along to these hustings and get involved asking the questions they want to. We need to show up and engage with alternative Christian concerns but also ensure the agenda and any media coverage is not dominated by the narrow "moral agenda" of the right. We need to ask the questions that concern us as Christians about how cuts in public spending will impact the projects that churches are involved in that depend upon grants and funding from local and national government. We need to ask questions about how the politicians intend to tackle the poverty which persists in part of this country. We need to ask questions about foreign policy and defence. We need to ask questions about how the politicians are going to ensure that asylum seekers and refugees have their human rights met and are not scapegoated and unfairly held in "detention camps". We need to ask questions about social justice and so forth. We also need to ask how politicians do intend to protect the rights of Christians, without allowing them to discriminate unfairly against those within and outside their faith who happen to be gay and without engaging in Islamiphobia.
Oh and in all this you wanted a good, sensible view on how Christians should approach the election the Cathedral has published this sermon by Michael Sadgrove. As it says, "love is a choice".
Ok, I know the whole "Christian Hustings" thing is dominating on here at the moment, but that's because it has made me potentially come face to face with a world I have so far avoided. I mean I've talked about it and I've known of its existence and I have friends who I've seen at various points hurt by it but I have never personally encountered it.