Faith and Politics

I read a comment on Facebook the other day that annoyed me.  (I know - Facebook is not the place for reasoned comment in the first place!)

The writer was lamenting that there should ever be a link between faith and politics and believed that where there was, disaster followed.

I believe the opposite is true. Especially as regards the UK.

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Take a look at our last four Prime Ministers. Three have a faith. One does not. Three managed our nation with reference to our past, our heritage and our beliefs. One did not. Three tried to hold us together as a nation. One destroyed our nation.

Two of the four Prime Ministers are children of the manse. One is the son of a Presbyterian Minister. One is the daughter of an Anglican Vicar. The third has a clear Christian belief which includes reading the Bible every night.

The other has no such belief system. In two short terms of office, he destroyed our concept of Christian marriage and sent the nation into an isolationist and economic spiral that will take decades to recover from.

In attempting to deal with an unruly right wing in his party, he played politics with our future. He took an inappropriate referendum to an ill-informed people and with little fact and considerable rhetoric, the vote was for isolationism. More seriously, it opened us up to extreme right wing views and made them appear acceptable - something we are seeing in a number of nations.

The Prime Minsters that had a Christian faith kept us within the bounds of decency and applied their faith (knowingly or not) to the decisions they took. The Prime Minster without a faith played politics with the nation.  And we all lost.