Jonathan Bellamy spoke with Christians In Politics

Andy Flannagan

Andy Flannagan is the director of the Christian Socialist Movement, which is the group of Christians, affiliated to the Labour party. The Conservative Christian Fellowship is led by Elizabeth Berridge and the Liberal Democrat Christian Forum has appointed Zoe Dixon to be its leader. Together they form 'Christians In Politics', which encourages Christians to stop merely shouting from the sidelines and get involved in party politics.

To dig a little deeper into their working relationship and vision Jonathan Bellamy spent some time with all three in a Cross Rhythms studio.

Jonathan: Tell us a little bit about Christians in Politics.

Andy: Absolutely, we're here because what we see happening across the nation is really quite incredible; Christians serving through churches and through community projects all across this nation. Sharing their faith, seeing transformations happening in places and it's just incredible. Part of being involved in society and transformation is getting politically involved and joining local parties; your local Conservative, LibDem or Labour branch. We need people getting involved, rather than doing that classic Christian thing that Christians have done for ages, shouting from the sidelines.

Together we're trying to bring a joint message saying Kingdom comes first, seeing the nation changed comes first and tribe comes second; party comes second.

Jonathan: So what you are saying is it's more important for Christians to get involved in politics because of the influence that they can bring than it is necessarily to be aligned to one specific party, even though you would have your own party preferences?

Elizabeth: What we would say is that Christians should join the main stream parties as a means of serving and contributing to their community. As Christians we are just basically saying that our Christian faith is obviously more important to us than the particular political allegiance that we all hold dear to different political parties. We really want to see that participation.

Jonathan: How do you three get along then?

Andy, Elizabeth and Zoe: Very well! Surprisingly well.

Jonathan: What do you agree on?

Andy: An awful lot. I just mentioned that Christians really have taken up the mantle in this country of being involved in their communities often when nobody asked and are often in areas and towns that nobody else is in. They want to be involved in people's internal transformations as well as external transformations. They're not going to leave their faith at the door when they get involved with people. Actually that internal transformation that happens with people is the key to seeing external transformation as well and I think that's something we definitely agree on.

Jonathan: It's interesting that you are talking like this, because I was watching Tony Blair last night being interviewed by Andrew Marr. When asked about his kind of politics, he actually used the word 'progressive.' I thought he was a little bit more cautious about just saying I'm Labour through and through. He also said that he didn't want to diss David Cameron. Do you think there is a sense that people are looking beyond the traditional perspectives of politics to try to find something that's going to have more value for a community?

Zoe: I hope that is the case. I think the coalition has marked a change and people bang around the phrase, a new politics. I hope that in five years time when people go to the ballot box again, we might be thinking in terms of working together and how that has actually brought benefits rather then being completely down one party side. I'm not quite sure what Tony Blair was getting at, but I do hope that it's something along those lines.

Jonathan: He used an interesting phrase, he said, 'There's right and left and there's right and wrong'. He was trying to draw a distinction that sometimes there are things that might be cross party in terms of whether it's seen as right or wrong. It's not necessarily holding to right and left positions.