Seventy Seven Days and counting

There are eleven weeks to the General Election.

This week the Evangelical Alliance released results from its research into the views of evangelical Christians ahead of May's General Election. What issues are important? Will you be voting for the same party as last time? (Read the detail here).

Also this week the Church of England has attracted attention for writing a letter in which it encouraged all of its members to take part and vote in the forthcoming General Election. This has received a range of responses - from those supporting all involvement in the election process to those criticising the Bishops for their apparent left wing stance. (Read the full 52 page letter here). (Read the BBC's report here).

There have, no doubt, been those whose view is that the church should stick to doing what the church does and stay out of politics. Such a view is nothing new, and goes hand in hand with those who think that 'faith' is something that is fine for the individual but should be practised at home, behind closed doors. It is a private matter - and has no place in the public sphere. But such thinking displays a total misunderstanding in the way that genuine faith works.

True faith is not something that you can switch on and switch off. It is not, for example, something that you do in church, but outside of church you do something different. Of course, that describes how many people treat church, but it cannot be made to fit genuine faith.

What we believe affects the way that we behave - in every area of life. When there is a difference between our Sunday faith and our Monday-Saturday behaviour we should probably ask whether our Monday-Saturday actions demonstrate what we truly believe and Sunday is just a routine that we go through.

So what is the role of the church in the forthcoming election? Is it to tell people how to vote? Should I start wearing red, blue, purple or green on Sunday mornings to send subliminal messages to my congregation? 

Or is the role of the church to equip people with the confidence to read the Bible and prayerfully come to their own conclusions as to how they should vote? As a Christian what should I think about...or...or...? What are the issues that God has created me to be passionate about? 

And therefore, I'm going to vote for ...

Of course there will be a variety of answers to that last statement. And that is the way it should be. We each have a little under three months to prayerfully reach a conclusion, so that on May 7, we vote, and our decision is based upon our understanding of God and his world.