For example, lets take the issue of sex - too often the church has been “Don’t” rather than offering a positive vision of a loving marriage or celibacy as a positve choice.

I guess it does leave the question where the churches role is to critique society. People free to choose, but do we have a role in saying in society there is better way to live?

thanks guys for the comments. I can really relate to your voting actions Paul, and would have some similar voting actions … of course i would frame it as voting for the party who would be most likely to to a good job with the economy, which would mean everyone is better off (especially me!)

I don’t think i would vote for a Christian party either. I pretty much agree with Tony’s analysis of the law and imposing laws on others. I suppose the caveat i would add is that i think law is important when it affects other people who have no choice. So i think it is good that we have a law that makes murder, sexual abuse, rape, slavery, stealing etc, all illegal.

As we have seen with slavery for example, making it illegal doesn’t mean that we stop it happening. Unchanged human hearts continue to see other people as a way of making themselves money, so slavery just morphs into something slightly different (eg. selling people into the sex trade). Here the church and the gospel comes into its own. We do have answers to how people can change. But in the meantime it is good to have the laws to protect people.

I think Christians need to move from thinking our job is to critique society to shaping society. One means we can stand on the sidelines and lob some stones. The other means we need to get involved. For me that is why I want to see Christians involved in mainstream politics, rather than setting up a Christian party. Do Duncan, if you are reading this, my vote for you would be one of the mainstream parties …

Anyone else got anything to add? There must be someone who would vote for a Christian party? Why would you do that?

Thanks for the link. I realise my views may not agree with everybody, but would encourage people to comment - I’m always up for a bit of debate and its good to really test out what we think about these issues.

Wanted to add a few thoughts on christians in politics generally - which I think is a great idea and I think history is littered with examples of believers who have been able to influence the political mainstream around issues of justice and righteousness. The one who springs instantly to mind, because he’s been celebrated recently is Wilberforce, but there have been many others before and since.

I guess where I have a problem is where seems to be an attempt to use law to almost control people’s behaviour and enforce christian values on others. In some ways I think this is maybe an old covenant way of working - law imposed from the outside, top-down, changing the rules to change society to change the way people act and even in Bible the effectiveness of that in producing a change in the behaviour of the people was questionable at best. I think the way God usually works is more bottom up - starting with working in a changing the hearts of people, which then starts to change society and the law then becomes an irrelevance as peoples hearts are more in line with God’s will. Of course this requires us as believers being out there, sharing our lives and God in us with others in various ways, which is much more demanding on us than trying to change the law, but maybe ultimately more effective.

I also wonder whether the family values agenda is also symptomatic of a tendancy in some aspects of the church (probably since the reformation) to individualise things, thus making morality a largely individual (and mainly sexual) concern. Of course, sexual morality is important, but it is not the sum total of morality/sin - there are also wider social responsibilities. Just some thoughts.

What do others think?

Personally i don’t think voting for a christian party because they were christian would be that effective - voting for them cos they have what sounds like effective policies might help but i can’t see a party that advertises itself as christian storming the polls - then again maybe if say the party was more like U2 that Delirious? in its approach people would find a christian view point in action as well as word.

Probably the best bet is people who care/do for their communities so much that they become the natural choice to represent them…