Christians engaging in politics
The European Evangelical Alliance and CARE are just two of several Christian organisations engaging with the European Parliament on issues as diverse as religious freedom, climate change and trafficking. We asked Julia Doxat-Pursar (EEA’s Socio-Political Representative) and David Fieldsend and Anca Bulica (CARE for Europe) for their perspectives on ‘faith in politics’.
Julia Doxat-Pursar
David Fieldsend
VISTA: In your opinion, what are the biggest issues for Christians to engage with in European politics today?
J.D-P: Loving the “other”, be that Muslims, refugees, Roma or whoever. There is so much fear. There are big political challenges. But Christians have a vital role to play to stand against intolerance and to reach out in love.
Offering a fresh and broad vision of Kingdom values, in contrast to those who champion Christian values and Europe’s “Christian heritage” but who generally have a very restricted agenda.
And religious freedom, both the “traditional” issues and also the new problems arising from a redefinition of human rights. Freedom of religion is being restricted to freedom of worship, and freedom of expression is restricted by a new right not to be offended.
DF & AB: North-South relations: the EU is the world’s largest donor of overseas aid and has bilateral multi-lateral trade and aid agreements throughout Latin America, Africa and Asia. Christians need to engage with the degree to which these agreements put the interests of the poor and disadvantaged in the southern hemisphere first, or prefer the vested interests of people back home in Europe or the ruling elites elsewhere.
We also need to consider the degree to which the human rights clauses included in these agreements are taken seriously, and whether there is a form of cultural imperialism being pursued which seeks to promote Western individualism and sexual libertarianism at the expense of traditional family and community values.
Religious Freedom: the promotion of a new secular morality and a view of church/state separation which goes beyond neutrality to trying to create religion-free public sphere is leading to some areas of European legislation to potentially diminish the freedom of individual Christians and churches to follow their consciences and have freedom of expression for their faith-based views. In most cases this is only following where UK legislation has already led, but we are concerned that other countries should not be forced to follow our bad examples.
Organised Crime & Modern Day Slavery: these issues have to be tackled on a continent-wide basis as mobsters do not recognise international borders. However, the advance of EU legislation to strengthen the prevention of these crimes, punish offenders and afford greater protection to the victims of human trafficking is being hampered by the unwillingness of some states to give enough priority to this.
Vista: What do you see as developing issues in the medium to long term?
DF & AB: I fear the same issues will be with us for some time! There will probably also be new bioethics challenges as medical technology makes possible enhancement of human faculties, not just healing of diseases and defects.
J. D-P: The impact of climate change, especially climate refugees. I fear that increasing nationalism and intolerance could lead to real problems. I’d also love to see Christians making a difference on issues such as promoting integrity in public life and business, plus fair trade
Vista: How can we pray for the politics in Europe?
J.D-P: My priority prayer topics would be those outlined above. People wanting to keep up to date with the issues can subscribe to EEA’s Impact newsletter, to Facebook and Twitter updates and a socio-political blog on tumblr by contacting office@europeanea.org
DF & AB: Our first focus should be on people. European politicians are humans with needs and pressures like anyone else. Get to know who your local MEPs are and pray for them by name. CARE also produces a prayer guide which gives you a name or two to pray for daily over the course of a month of the top leaders of the EU institutions (from kate.bertaut@care.org.uk).
There is also a regular digest of issues produced by EU Review and a call to prayer which can be found at http://euprayer.com/
Joanne Appleton