Mapperley Monday Mail, 4th May 2015

By -

Greetings all!

I thought it would be good to share a few thoughts on the General Election this week.

Some people seem to think that the church should stay out of politics. Certainly the way it's involved in the US isn't always helpful – culture wars between the church and society are a bad idea and tend to twist the Christian message into being about Law rather than about Grace.

But even so, the Christian message is profoundly political. The first Christian profession of faith was "Jesus is Lord", but that was in a world where the normal affirmation of citizenship was "Caesar is Lord"; worshipping Jesus as God meant that many Christians could not take part in the standard political-religious ceremonies where they worshipped Caesar. One of the big reasons Christians were persecuted in the first few centuries was their stance against Caesar's political claims to absolute authority. And one of the big reasons they won in the end was their care for the poor and needy who were often neglected by the Roman state and society.

Or take the Old Testament. The biggest picture in the Old Testament that points forwards to Jesus was the picture of the Exodus - where God took a group of people who had been slaves in Egypt, and gave them political freedom. The books of Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy are largely taken up with rules for how the laws and economy of the nation of Israel should work. The Christian message isn't just about politics – it's much more important than that, but it does significantly overlap with politics.

What the Christian message isn't is party political. There isn't a neat correspondence between God's priorities and the priorities of any political party, whether they claim to be Christian or not. Sometimes there is a local candidate or even a party leader who is a committed Christian; I'm certainly not aware of that in the General Election this time round, though one of the candidates in the Local Elections in Mapperley is a member of St Jude's, and even that doesn't compel us to vote for them.

I've voted for 5 (I think) different parties in my time, and I'm not sure who to vote for this time round either. But I think it's very important that I vote, and I want to encourage you to vote too.

Here's a helpful summary of some things to think about from the Church of England booklet Who is My Neighbour?

At this election, we can sow the seeds of a new politics. We encourage voters to support candidates and policies which demonstrate the following key values:

  • Halting and reversing the accumulation of power and wealth in fewer and fewer hands, whether those of the state, corporations or individuals.

  • Involving people at a deeper level in the decisions that affect them most.

  • Recognising the distinctive communities, whether defined by geography, religion or culture, which make up the nation and enabling all to thrive and participate together.

  • Treating the electorate as people with roots, commitments and traditions and addressing us all in terms of the common good and not just as self-interested consumers.

  • Demonstrating that the weak, the dependent, the sick, the aged and the vulnerable are persons of equal value to everybody else.

  • Offering the electorate a grown up debate about Britain's place in the world order and the possibilities and obligations that entails.

All the best,

John

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Any Questions?

By -
There is one sermon slot free in the Autumn service rota, and I'd like to use it to answer a question that we have about Christianity - a point of doctrine, how to respond in a certain situation, anything along those lines. If you've got any ideas, just post them as comments on this post - completely anonymous!
Read more

Book of the Year?

By -
Image
I read quite a lot of books. The best book I've read this year is probably The Good God by Michael Reeves. It's a book about the Trinity. The big point is that the Trinity is central to understanding who God is, to understanding the difference between Christianity and other religions, and to understanding how we can be saved. Reeves doesn't say anything new, but he explains the theology very accessibly and clearly, quoting and explaining "big name" theologians like Athanasius, Augustine, Luther and Richard of St Victor in a way that is accessible to all, and he does it very well. It would be my top recommendation for anyone wanting to understand the Trinity and why it matters, whether they were a new Christian or training for ordination. My one criticism of the book is it could be very good for ecumenism as well - building links between evangelical theology and the Roman Catholics and Orthodox, but the end lets it down in that sense. Trinitarianism is tru
Read more

Monday Morning Mail, 7th April 2014

By -
Image
Good Morning! Yesterday morning, we looked at John 12:1-11, which is the story of Mary anointing Jesus' feet with perfume that cost a year's wages. We saw that Mary's grateful, responsive, loving, extravagant, disgraceful love was exactly the right response to Jesus, even though it left her with no money, no provision for the future and her reputation in tatters. In contrast, Judas was shown to be hiding his real sin behind trying to look pious. One of the ways we applied it was by thinking about whether we hold back from worshipping God for fear of what other people think, whether that's when singing at church or when speaking to our friends at work or at the pub, or even whether we're sometimes, like Judas, people who sit on the sidelines and snipe at those who are putting their hearts into worshipping God. We also saw how Mary's action predicts what Jesus is about to do – that she becomes the servant who washes Je
Read more