Time to form a Christian Mobilisation Front!

With census figures suggesting that having a Christian faith now places you in a minority across many parts of the UK and Ireland, perhaps the time has come for the Christian Churches to mobilise their flocks to get voters registered. 

   In the past, I have suggested that Christians of all denomination may become so disillusioned with the liberal and secular drift of existing political parties, that evangelicals and fundamentalists may consider forming their own cross-border Christian Party in geographical Ireland to represent what is steadily becoming a theological minority across this island.

   Obviously, mention the words Church and State, and Politics and Religion in the same context, especially in Ireland, north and south, it is bound to spark one heck of a heated debate between those who want the Christian faith to have an even bigger say in democratic politics, versus those who think the island has suffered too much from the Christian Churches having a say in political life.

   Perhaps in this debate on the role of Christianity in politics, we Christians - especially from the born again theological perspective - have been our own worst enemies. 

   Ironically, it was the famous Indian Hindu nationalist leader Mahatma Gandhi who best summed up the political dilemma we Christians have now found ourselves: “I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”

   Whilst the Christians Churches have helped many people over the centuries, how many people have abandoned their Christian faith because of their experiences in the Christian Churches? 

   The clerical abuse scandals in the Catholic Church and the Puritan interpretations of Scripture by fundamentalist Protestant denominations and halls have inevitably contributed to the decline in the attraction and influence of the Christian Churches. 

   Sunday attendances have been dwindling over the decades and even the denominations themselves are having difficulty recruiting clerics. 

   Ironically, one of the best political manifestos for any party was Christ’s Sermon on the Mount as outlined in the New Testament Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 5, also known as the Beatitudes. 

   Indeed, I remember the storm of criticism which befell me for suggesting when I was Ireland columnist for Tribune magazine that Jesus Christ was the first communist and the link was carried on a former loyalist prisoners’ website.

   My assertion was that Karl Marx, the founder of communism, merely took the ethos of the Beatitudes, removed God, and ‘hey presto’, there was Marxism in a nutshell! 

   Naturally, among hardline fundamentalism, to suggest a link between Christianity and socialism is tantamount to theological heresy. Indeed, it was not uncommon for some fundamentalists within the DUP to refer to the Left-leaning Progressive Unionist Party as the ‘Shankill Soviet’!

   Just as the influence of the Holy Orders within the Catholic Church, such as Opus Dei, the Jesuits, Passionists or Redemptorists, has declined since the turn of the new millennium, so there is equal weight to the suggestion the pressure groups within Protestantism, such as the Evangelical Protestant Society, Caleb Foundation, or Evangelical Alliance, and even the Loyal Orders, such the mainstream Orange and Black institutions, as well as the Independent Orange Order, have also witnessed a decline in their sphere of influence. 

   Perhaps what is needed is not another political party, nor realignment of Christian thinking, nor even a new pressure group, but a mobilisation of the Christian voter base within Northern Ireland. 

   At one time, the Free Presbyterian Church - founded by the late Rev Ian Paisley in 1951 - was dubbed ‘the DUP at prayer’. Indeed, given the steady growth in support in numerous opinion polls which North Antrim politician Jim Allister’s Traditional Unionist Voice party has gained, there have been allegations that some fundamentalist churches have become ‘the TUV at prayer’. 

   In the republican community, the pro-life party - Aontu- which evolved from Sinn Fein has made very little inroads into the nationalist vote on an anti-abortion ticket. Likewise, within the pro-Union community, there is little political appetite for a Protestant Reformation Party as existed in mainland Britain several decades ago. 

   So how realistically can the Christian Churches have a voice in modern day politics? The answer is to copy the example of the civil rights movement, especially in southern American states, in the 1960s - mobilise, get registered and ensure you vote on polling day!

   Realistically, too, Christians are so theologically divided on issues, such as the role of women, baptism, definitions of marriage, musical tastes, fashion, how to get to heaven, what is hell, and Bible translations, to name a few that probably the first item on the agenda of the inaugural meeting of the Christian Mobilisation Front would be - the split!

   However, if there is one issue which Christians of all theological shades could agree on, it is the importance of Christ’s teachings in the Beatitudes. 

   A Christian Mobilisation Front (CMF) could campaign to challenge candidates where they stood on the Beatitudes and only those candidates who supported the content of Christ’s Sermon on the Mount would get the CMF’s vote. What a difference that could create in the make-up of our political chambers. 

Dr John Coulter has been a journalist since 1978.