Thursday 15 June 2017

Are Christians an endangered political species in the UK?

I found Tim Farron's resignation statement tough reading. The poor chap (I didn't agree with him on lots of stuff but he seems totally genuine and well intentioned) sounded traumatised:
"To be a leader, particularly of a progressive liberal party in 2017 and to live as a committed Christian and to hold faithful to the bible's teaching has felt impossible for me."

I said (Today's dose of political non-correctness, 15 April) "the only group that can now legally be discriminated against is old, white Christian males". Christians are truly an endangered species. As someone brought up in the Anglican Christian tradition, albeit agnostic bordering atheist now, I find that very sad.

Tim Stanley, writing in the Daily Telegraph (13 June, It has become politically toxic to be a Christian) debated the Farron problem before his resignation, saying that he is "constitutionally liberal" i.e. he doesn't want to tell others to live, he just wants the freedom for everyone to live in peace. "But that's not good enough now. You can't simply tolerate. You must celebrate. If you don't there's no place for you in politics." Stanley, a Catholic, said that the vilification of the DUP, who after all Gordon Brown tried to do a deal with in an attempt to stay in power only 7 years ago, is the latest sign that faith is viewed with hostility. He noted that far more had been said about the DUP's views on sexuality than their views on the Pope. "They have failed the modern religious test....they have the cheek to say they believe in God in 2017." He thinks that now, for any religious person, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, wharever, their faith will be on the ballot. I'm not sure about that - the signs are it's special treatment for Christians, as I will come to below.

It seemed elements of the media had it in for Farron during the election with a pre-planned blitzkreig aimed at what his innermost feelings really were about about gay sex, as he had abstained from a Commons vote on same sex marriage, although he did support the bill at all its key stages. Despite saying he did not think gay sex was a sin, this didn't kill off the questions, forcing him to say that he didn't want to get into "unpicking the theology of the bible". (As an aside this was just as well as any sensible person, though maybe not zealots,  would conclude that a 2000 year old text, mainly written post hoc rather than contemporaneously by lots of different authors and translated multiple times will be inevitably ridden with contradictions and doubtful propositions as well as being a product of its times).

Now I can see that this line of questioning can be argued to be valid, aimed at revealing the underlying value set of a political candidate as a way of understanding how that person may view future issues. But I still see it as an extreme example of the way we expect our politicians to be unrealistically perfect and blameless, some kind of higher life form than the general population. And it is partial and arguably racist as well because I don't see the equivalent questions being directed as persistently at adherents of other religions. Or they are quite reasonably allowed to gloss over the fact of their religious beliefs and deflect questions back to their core campaign messages, as Sadiq Khan successfully did in his London mayoral campaign. (I don't have a problem with Khan, who seems to be doing ok as mayor, but he was undoubtedly cut more slack by the media than Farron).

For the moment, if you are at the watered down end of faith, like Cameron or May, you can get away with it. Logically they could be asked about inconsistencies in the position of the Anglican church, but that isn't particularly salacious. And the current legal position, which is logically unsupportable as it discriminates against heterosexuals by denying them the opportunity of a civil partnership, doesn't seem to bother the people who get het up about the slightest discrimination against the EBS. (This is my new acronym. As I can't keep up with whatever the current LGBT+ jargon is, EBS means Everyone But Straights. If that's too pejorative for you, tough).

As Anglicanism continues its steady progress towards being a non-religion then maybe its toxicity will decline. I'm all in favour of this watering down process by the way. Now Anglicans are close to accepting women as full members of the human race all it needs to do is get rid of the mumbo jumbo - I've never subscribed to original sin, who could when you look at a newborn baby? Or transubstantiation - the communion ritual has always struck me as weirdly cannibalistic. I know it's symbolic but, basically, WTF? As most of the senior Anglican clerics probably don't actually believe any of this guff and neither do much of their flock, the process of focussing on the core New Testament messages of love, tolerance and helping others will hopefully accelerate, leaving a gentle, lowest common denominator faith focussing on doing good rather than feeling guilt that no-one could reasonably object to. (I realise I am at risk of ironic comment here, preaching tolerance while deriding the sincerely felt - if to my mind risible - beliefs of people with faith).

The only problem will be that, by the time it gets there, the congregation will have fallen to zero. As will the number of elected Christian politicians. An endangered species indeed.

Whatever happened to tolerance?




4 comments:

  1. You might expect an old Liberal like me to respond to this posting Phil. I too feel sorry for Farron. As an atheist I obviously in no way share his religious views and can't claim to understand them.

    But I have my issues with Farron particularly over 'right to die' which he will not support. Whilst he is quite clearly a true Liberal on virtually every other issue his stance on this matter is one I can't reconcile. Surely any Liberal starts from a position of backing the rights of others. On that basis what's wrong with Tim backing the principle of right to die? No one is asking him to adopt that view himself just to accept that people like me should be supported in wanting that right for ourselves and our wider society. And yes I fully realise that the detail of such a policy is complicated but all I am talking about is the principle here.

    Of course Tim got himself into a right old tangle when questioned about his religious views but even he now concedes he handled the matter badly. The media kept going for him over this matter because he could not give straight answers. Cruel but you could say he brought it all on himself. Having said that the media went far to far but then again should we be surprised; there must be few Liberals in that business.

    Having said that what we have clearly demonstrated in 2017 is that we very far from being a liberal tolerant society and we have allowed a very decent man to be hounded out of his job. In employment law terms this would be an open and shut constructive dismissal claim with a huge compensation package.

    My great worry now is that Lib Dem Party grandees will be looking to pull the party back towards the right where it was under Clegg. Those of us in the Lib Dems refer to those on the right of our Party as the Orange Booker's.

    Farron was of the left and folks like Ashdown were never happy with him. The battle now is for the soul of the Lib Dem Party and I for one will be fighting for it to be a party of the left. After all Farron referred to himself as 'a bit of a lefty' and so do I.

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  2. The main question you posed was regarding Christians being an endangered species in politics which in hindsight I did not address.

    I think the problem that all people who hold a religion face is when they see their faith being relevant to society in general rather than just the followers of that particular religion. Indeed some will want to impose their religion on others and of course we have an imposed religion, c/o Henry 8th, here and now i.e. the Church of England.

    I don't think Farron is able to address this satisfactorily in his own mind in either a Liberal or a religious way, hence his excruciating answers to straight forward questions. I assume he sees his religion as one that conflicts with his liberalism and vice versa.

    So in my view the answer is quite simple religion has nothing to do with anyone other than those who follow it and as I said in my original response a Liberal should be able to vote for anything that protects or promotes the rights of others even though they might not want whatever it is for themselves.

    Having said all that I am sorry that he is going as LD Leader.

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    1. I agree and also see religion as predominantly personal, though unobjectionable provided it is a template for living a good life and treating others well rather seeking to impose a way of life on people. Farron clearly struggled to reconcile his religious and political beliefs and his tormentors could see that. You can see why Alistair Campbell chose to say "we don't do religion" even though his boss actually did.

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