A word or two also about the minority parties after the elections, though in the case of the BNP, clearly not the party of the minorities. Their performance deserves to be mocked after yet another election where they promised to make a breakthrough, but didn't come close. Proportional representation is meant to be their harbinger, but they polled a paltry 1%. Even in the council vote (also PR) they got not a single councillor across Scotland. Things are so bad for them here that they had to put English based candidates on their lists in order to qualify for an election broadcast. The irony of the BNP using flexible immigration rules to their benefit should not be lost.
The Christian parties also did not make any headway. The Christian Peoples Alliance made great play of their Muslim candidate in Glasgow. They decided not to draw attention to their hateful campaign against the proposed mosque in London's Newham area though.
As someone of faith myself, I was seriously turned off by their campaign along with the other Christian parties. I've never been taught that the way to win friends to your views is by chastising them. Great faith leaders are those that have provided hope to the people. Railing against homosexuality, abortion and more is going to get you booed, and that is what happened. I found myself siding with many other parties that stood for the big moral issues of the day - Iraq, nuclear weapons and so on. The churches did stand up on these to varying degrees in the last few years, but they interestingly did not ally themselves with these political parties who have hitherto been nowhere to be seen on the ground.
You can't just tell people to behave a certain way because the Bible says so if the people don't read or follow the Bible. In the absence of blind belief, policies need to be argued on their merits, and then we come to the question of whether there's any point in faith based parties at all. Their campaigns ended up unbecoming to the conduct of Jesus or Muhammad (peace be upon them), so back to the drawing board.
Have never heard of, nor encountered the Christian People's Alliance, Osama. Unfortunately, I have encountered bnp candidates.
Para 3, like what you are saying here and agree wholeheartedly. However, the difficulty that some people of faith seem to have, and some Christians in particular, is that the moment you mention "moral" issues, their minds immediately veer toward the concept of "sex" and all related issues. The big moral issues that you mention affect the entire planet. The moral issues some dwell on ad nauseum, are related to control, of populations, women and general sexuality.
And as can be seen from even the most fleeting reading of the gospels, the message was about humanity, integrity and hope.
Nice post.
Posted by: aineliva | 11 May 2007 at 11:09 AM