I AM surely not alone in thinking that there is something desperately lacking in politics today. I have found much of the output from the political parties in the current election campaign deeply depressing. They seem determined to treat voters as children looking for handouts of sweets, concerned with what’s in it for them, rather than as adult human beings who are interested in the kind of world we are making, both for our own generation and for those who will come after us.
For the most part I find it very difficult to work out what people stand for, and so much of the debate is couched in intensely negative terms, focusing on instilling fear about what the other lot might do if they get into power. It is divisive and it is corrosive ”“ and somebody needs to say “Stop!” and then to try and set us off in a different direction.
Christians cannot of course (thank goodness) impose their moral and political vision on the life of our nation. But we can and must seek to contribute to the formation of a new vision for our shared life and a new way of doing politics. This needs to happen right down at the level of every local church and parish ”“ and at the level of our contribution to political debate.
Churches must seek to become beacons of hope and communities of people who are learning to live differently and to refuse the culture of fear and suspicion which so characterises much of life today.
Read it all.
(Yorkshire Post) Jonathan Gibbs: Church must lead way to a new kind of political vision
I AM surely not alone in thinking that there is something desperately lacking in politics today. I have found much of the output from the political parties in the current election campaign deeply depressing. They seem determined to treat voters as children looking for handouts of sweets, concerned with what’s in it for them, rather than as adult human beings who are interested in the kind of world we are making, both for our own generation and for those who will come after us.
For the most part I find it very difficult to work out what people stand for, and so much of the debate is couched in intensely negative terms, focusing on instilling fear about what the other lot might do if they get into power. It is divisive and it is corrosive ”“ and somebody needs to say “Stop!” and then to try and set us off in a different direction.
Christians cannot of course (thank goodness) impose their moral and political vision on the life of our nation. But we can and must seek to contribute to the formation of a new vision for our shared life and a new way of doing politics. This needs to happen right down at the level of every local church and parish ”“ and at the level of our contribution to political debate.
Churches must seek to become beacons of hope and communities of people who are learning to live differently and to refuse the culture of fear and suspicion which so characterises much of life today.
Read it all.