Aaron Edwards writes here about Evangelical attitudes to right wing politics and those on the political right.
I have some sympathy in terms of the issue of attitudes. I grew up in Bradford in a solidly working class, staunchly Labour area. I ended up Conservative, partly as an act of rebellion! I joined the Conservative Party and ended up as Chairman of the Yorkshire Area Conservative Students. I got to the end of It university however knowing that I had to make a choice about life direction and that choice meant saying goodbye to politics.
From that perspective, I’ve certainly picked up on the suspicion that exists amongst many evangelical Christians about right wing politics. That’s not been exclusively the case. Transport back 40 years and many Christians believed that you must not vote Labour because they were seen as soft on moral issues.
It is however not a new phenomenon for people to be suspicious of centre right, especially Thatcherite social and economic policy. This was of course not helped by some of the language of Thatcherites including Maggie’s own , much misunderstood and out of context statement that “there is no such thing as society”.
Incidentally, I’m not sure Aaron is quite right in his claim that conservatives/right wingers have been much maligned in the media. It depends what you mean by “media”. News channels have tended towards a more liberal/left wing default however the print media and tabloid press have long leaned right. However, we have seen a substantial decline in that side of the media in recent years.
I suspect that a significant factor has been that both education and culture tend towards a liberal/left position. That more people go through University means there is greater and longer exposure to that culture. Art’s leftward bias partly reflects protest against the establishment. Even when Labour held power through the noughties, long enough to become the establishment, the perception of Tony Blair as right wing meant that critique was still mainly from the left.
In church terms, I wonder if a factor has been that left wing church leaders are more likely to wear their politics on their sleeve. For example my friend, Steve Kneale writes openly about his socialist politics whilst pastoring a church. Perhaps it is trickier to be openly right wing and more likely to be seen as creating obstacles to the Gospel, or perhaps it is that those inclining right have tended to hold more to the view that pastors shouldn’t be political over the years but it seems that church leaders are more likely to be overtly left wing than right wing, more likely to be public about Labour party membership than voting Tory.
I still believe there is a strong case for not being party political and my preference is for church leaders not to make a thing of how they vote. In fact my leaning is that it is best for church elders not to be members of political parties. That’s a preference not a hard and fast rule though. At the same time, we cannot ignore the political dimensions to much of discipleship. That’s why I talk about public theology to a reasonable extent here.
The other thing to consider, is the extent to which certain things have been increasingly associated with being right wing, especially sexual ethics. This is primarily because the distinction isn’t so much between a socialist left wing paradigm and a right wing one but between those who are socially/ morally liberal and those who are socially/morally conservative. My friend Steve would be highly frustrated to see things like abortion/euthanasia, gender and sexual ethics identified as right wing.
And part of the challenge perhaps is the way that politics presents a comprehensive all or nothing package. Don’t we fall for the same trap when. We insist that the right wing offering is about sexual and beginning/end of life ethics, strong defence, small government, border/immigration. control, low taxes, free markets, private education and such like. We might also add in climate change scepticism and Brexit.
Just as there are those in the left who are frustrated when Brexit, sexual morality and right to life are made into right wing issues, so there are plenty on the right who would be similarly frustrated about things like climate change and immigration control. After all, Margaret Thatcher was an early adopter of green policies and whilst right wing parties have often built there platforms on anti immigration policies, arguably you can’t have freedom of movement for goods without freedom of movement for people.
A final thing to consider is that much of what I listed above is less to do with right wing/left wing politics and more to do with perceptions if being left behind/ignored. It’s as much about class. Indeed, those old red wall working class communities probably tended to be solidly Labour because of the “labour” thing not because of the socialism thing. Indeed, I’m not convinced you will find many Corbynites on northern council estates. It’s a class thing not an ideology thing.
So I think the question is less about whether or not the church is disinterested in evangelising The Right as it is about evangelising working class/estate/northern/inner city people. After all, our big charismatic and conservative evangelical churches in London have happily filled the pres with those who benefited most from Thatcherite economics.
With that in mind, I would make five observations whether it’s about reaching working class people or right wing people.
- We should seek to get to know and understand people, whatever their back ground. This means taking time to understand both their views and their reasons when it comes to things like immigration
- We treat them as people, whatever their politics or class. This means with respect and dignity. It also means without presumption. We don’t assume what they believe or why, we allow them to speak for themselves.
- We don’t have to agree with them. We are not required to take on their political views.
- They don’t have to subscribe to our politics. We are not trying to clone people in our image
- Politics ideology can become idolatry. This means that there will be times, whether a political position is right wing or left wing where we will want to challenge political beliefs.
Faithroots 