Elizabeth Berridge from the Conservative Christian Fellowship

As the political discourse spirals down into claims, counter-claims, attacks and personality politics, there are at least some members of the three main parties who are still working together across party lines and calling other Christians to join them! The Join the Party Campaign from Christians In Politics is a pioneering initiative supported by the Archbishop of York and Steve Clifford, the General Director of the Evangelical Alliance. To find out more Jonathan Bellamy spoke with Elizabeth Berridge from the Conservative Christian Fellowship.

Jonathan: You'd better tell us first of all what is the Christians In Politics group all about?

Elizabeth: Well Christians In Politics is an exciting initiative where the three Christian groups that are based in the headquarters of the three main UK parties have got together under an umbrella called Christians In Politics. So that is the Conservative Christian Fellowship, the Christian Socialist Movement and the Liberal Democrat Christian Forum. All three are membership organisations that are trying to encourage Christians to join the party and join the Christian groups in each of the parties.

Jonathan: How did you all get together, because it's great to see all the parties working together on things? I presume the common factor is your Christian focus?

Elizabeth: Absolutely. If I can quote Andy Flannagan who runs the Christian Socialist Movement; it's Kingdom first and that's really important. There's a lot of cross party initiatives that go on within parliament that bring together the Christians, whether it's for prayer or worship or training. So it's really important that we put our faith first and our politics second.

Zoe Dixon from the Liberal Democrat Christian Forum

Jonathan: Tell us a little bit about the campaign then. What are you trying to achieve at the moment?

Elizabeth: Well we're trying to achieve awareness amongst the Christian community that, although there's been quite a lot of activity lobbying and writing to MPs and protesting, which is a valid activity, we really need Christians joining the Christian groups within each of the mainstream parties and getting involved in the parties. The decisions are made within the party - within decision making structures within the parties and the councillors in the local area. Unless Christians actually stand up to take the decisions, we're really not going to see the change that a lot of Christians write to me about saying, look I don't like this, I don't like that. We seem to be very keen to be involved protesting from the outside, but not actually stepping up to the mark to take these decisions. So we really want to see more Christians involved in politics and we've got a special downloadable video for use at any church hustings of the three party leaders plus the Archbishop of York, talking about the involvement of Christians in politics and particularly in the political parties.

Jonathan: Tell us a little bit about that because I know you've got the three main party leaders who are commenting on this campaign. What are they saying about it?

Elizabeth: Well basically they are just trying to encourage the Christian involvement that is welcome in the informed political engagement, but is also welcome in each of the parties. You know, I obviously know David Cameron's portion better than the others; but he talks about the fact that all across the country there's the Church of England vicar, there's your Street Pastor, there's the Cardinal Hume centre; there's lots of engagement in the community. As a Christian I would say the next step often from community engagement or social action or that kind of outreach is to actually get involved in the civic square and make the decisions. Recently at an event I heard Les Isaacs who is the founder of Street Pastors and his work obviously involves a lot of contact with the civic or public forum locally; again he said we as Christians, we're just not there. What often happens is we complain and complain and complain and actually won't take the responsibility. We really are trying to encourage people that one of the ways to take responsibility is to get involved within the political structures, the political parties and the decision making structures within our country and within our communities.

Jonathan: One newspaper columnist recently said that 'dogmatic secularists want to drive religion from the public sphere.' Do you think that without Christians engaging more with politics that is likely to happen?

Andy Flannagan from the Christian Socialist Movement

Elizabeth: I think there is an increased danger, yes, unless we have more Christians who are able to talk in a calm, in an informed, in a persuasive way to woo people. One of the reasons secularists are trying to push us out is partly because we've really not been there. We left a lot of the public space and now we have to reclaim ground, partly because we took a step back. I think yes one of the gravest dangers to the involvement of Christians in the public space is the secularists, who are very illiberal and want everybody who shares their ideology and their world view, in the public space, but not people who are informed by the Bible and having their world view. So it's very important for Christians to be aware that they shouldn't withdraw from the public space, but neither should they come into the public space arguing, in some cases for what looks, or feels like, or is, theocracy. We need Christians who can really stand their ground and be very persuasive in the public square.

Jonathan: Now one man who's not backward in bringing his voice out is the Archbishop of York, John Sentamu and I notice he's behind this campaign. What's his motivation?

Elizabeth: His motivation and the message that people can hear are on the video; it's about engaging and participating and particularly voting. Most of the commentators are talking about there being a low turnout at this election. Actually as Christians, as citizens, we must vote. It really is a part of our discipleship and part of our citizenship to vote. Archbishop John Sentamu is talking very strongly about voting. You only have to look in very recent history at countries like South Africa when people got the vote; how they dressed up in their Sunday best and walked miles to vote. We mustn't even in light of the MPs problems etc, we mustn't fail to vote at this election. Otherwise we will see potentially what happened at the European elections, which is that parties which are totally contrary to the Christian world view like the BNP, actually pulled less votes in Yorkshire and the North West, but they got in because turnout fell. As Christians if we don't go out and vote and something like that happens, we are responsible and accountable for not having cast our vote.

Jonathan: If somebody listening thinks actually I would like to get more involved or I'd like to at least explore this more; what are the first steps they should take then in terms of getting involved in politics?

Elizabeth: Well one of the first places to go is to our website
www.christiansinpolitics.org.uk and we're working in partnership with Churches Together in England, with Premier, with the EA and with CARE. The Bible Society has got a very good presence in parliament. So go on that website; you can hear the video and maybe download it for hustings. It will point you to the three party Christian groups and also to other websites where you can get resources and become informed and involved.

Jonathan: Thank you very much Elizabeth.

Elizabeth: Thanks very much for your time.