Politics

There are some topics of conversation that are best avoided. Or so the saying goes. One is generally thought to be religion. (Which of course makes proselytising difficult.) Another is politrics.

I don't understand politics. Gradually I have come to a vague idea of what Left and Right mean. I have an idea where the political parties in the UK are on the Left-Right continuum, and how it's possible to win elections by covering more of the spectrum than your opponents.

I've heard it said that the Houses of the Church of England tend to vote as follows:
Laity: Conservative
Clergy: Labour
Bishops: Lib-Dem
So there is no straightforward mapping between faith and politics.

Perhaps I'm politically moderate because one of my grandfathers was a labour councillor, whilst the other was chairman of the local conservative club.
To be honest, I often don't bother to vote - yes i know of the sacrifice of previous generations so I could, so not voting is a bad thing. But I never know exactly what I'm voting for in a general election: is it a particular local MP, the makeup of a town council, or the national government? How can it be all of them?
And why do I have to walk round to the second-closest primary school to scribble on a bit of paper? And why are there no proper checks on who I say I am when I vote?
I might consider voting next time - if they tell me where the website is. It's completely absurd that we can't vote online when half a dozen companies are trusted with things like my credit card details. no wonder the turnout is so low.

There was something about American politics on the radio when I woke up. As I understand it, the choice there is limited to the Right-wing Democrats, or the extreme Right-wing Republicans. I thought it most odd to discover that there was a strong connection between the Christian vote and the Republicans. I would never have expected that, as a UK Christian. I think that historically it's something to do with polarisation on the Abortion issue.

My idea of American Christians probably owes much to Billy Graham. I have a great deal of respect for him. So I was surprised to find a few emails going around recently claiming to be an American prayer of confession he'd written or spoken. It included lines like, "We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare". The US doesn't have the same welfare system as the UK, and it's been disturbing to see the reaction to Obama's healthcare legislation, which seems to be coming from the "Christian" right.
I thank God for the NHS.

(It turns out of course that the prayer was nothing to do with Billy at all - see the full story here).

Not all American Christians are Right-wing of course. I met Jim Wallis at a conference a couple of years ago. He runs an organisation called Sojourners that challenges their government to work by biblical principles, often disagreeing with other Christian voices from the Right.

This country owes much to Christian principles, such as we find in Jesus' teaching - which can be seen as some way to the Left on our political spectrum. And Jesus' comments on wealth in general seem to me to be more about giving and sharing than anything else.


Matthew 6 (NIV)
2 “So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 3 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

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