Religious Right v. Liberal Left US Style in UK???

Categories: uncategorized

Date: 18 April 2012 17:12:34

"Bible Bashers Busted" was the title of an interesting article in Schnews this week. It outlined how Brighton based pro-choice activists had demonstrated outside the school where a New Frontiers congregation were meeting for worship. The Church is according to Schnews article the base of "Abort 67" a pro-life group who are taking non-violent direct action outside an abortion clinics, and who describe themselves as "a non-religious organisation".

It is worth pointing out that Brighton Pro-Choice have put up on their blog a post indicating that they have been contacted by individual members of the church who wish to disassociate themselves from Abort 67 and that Jubilee Church have put a statement on their website which clearly states the two groups are separate organisations and apparently the leadership of the church has no influence over Abort 67. Now I'm not disputing what the church say, but I am familiar enough with the way in which New Frontiers operates to know that accountability is something which is seen as an important feature of the way they implement discipleship training. Thus to say the church leaders have no influence over the organisation may be correct, but if the Schnews article is right in saying that the church contains a number of Abort 67 supporters - including the leaders of the organisation then the church leaders at Jubilee will have influence over the individuals who are operating Abort 67.

What is interesting is the way that the conservative religious right appears to be professionally taking on the use of non-violent social movement tactics as well as the more traditional lobbying techniques at the same time as their visibility within local and national politics seems to be increasing. At the same time the liberal left seems to be mobilising directly on the issues which the religious right are trying to gain ground through.

I did write a whole lot more but I came back and edited/deleted it though because whilst I believe I was right in the links I was making I got cold feet about publishing what I was saying and didn't think it was actually the best stuff to be talking about. Wishing all this would go away and we could just focus on the gospel without the distraction, but then I guess this is life and the gospel is all about life - for everybody. Only problem is both the terms "life" and "everybody" are open for debate and some people are trying to hijack them for their own ends.