The House of Bishops has written a Pastoral Letter on the 2015 General Election to the people and parishes of the Church of England, to urge Christians to consider the question how can we “build the kind of society which many people say they want but which is not yet being expressed in the vision of any of the parties?”
The letter encourages church members to engage in the political process ahead of the General Election and to put aside self-interest and vote for ‘the common good’: “The privileges of living in a democracy mean that we should use our votes thoughtfully, prayerfully and with the good of others in mind, not just our own interests.”
Please do read this letter in full here.
A study guide has also been produced to promote discussion about the Letter. The online document, aimed at individual and group study, includes a short summary of each section of the Pastoral Letter and offers questions for consideration and conversation. The guide also suggest passages from the Bible for study included in the Letter and prayers for the General Election. You can find this online here.
So, if your church wants to get involved in the 2015 General Election, what can it do?
Hustings
For the past 40 years churches across the country have joined together to run General Election Hustings meetings: public meetings where people can listen to and ask questions of the candidates who hope to represent them in the UK Parliament. Meetings sponsored by the churches provide opportunity for genuine political debate on neutral territory. Churches Together in Britain and Ireland have some good resources on this here, as do the Evangelical Alliance here.
Encouraging people to get involved
We can’t influence anything if we’re not involved as individuals. Christians in Politics have created a campaign called “Show Up” to encourage people to become involved in the election. Could you share this in your church? Find out more here.
A positive vision
Churches can help sharing a positive vision of the kind of society we want to help create, locally, nationally and globally over the five years of the next parliament. It is this vision that the Bishops’ Pastoral Letter addresses. Additionally, a broad coalition of Christian denominations and agencies – including Churches Together in Britain and Ireland, Church Action on Poverty, Church Urban Fund, the Children’s Society and Housing Justice – are encouraging churches across the country to take up the theme of a ‘2020 Vision of the Good Society’ with MPs and prospective candidates in the run up to the General Election. Their 2020 Vision focuses on five key areas – wealth and inequality, home, children and young people, livelihoods, and the environment and climate. Find out more at www.churcheselection.org.uk.
A reminder on neutrality
Whilst hosting of open hustings is permitted within the guidelines above, PCCs are restricted under charity law from giving support to individual political parties or candidates, particularly during election campaigns – it is not appropriate, for example, for individual candidates to be granted use of the church or its buildings for political purposes during the campaign period, as it could give the appearance that the church supports a particular party (and you would need to be able to demonstrate that all the candidates had been offered equal opportunity to use it).
Your church and community is made up of people with a broad range of political opinions. It’s not appropriate for church leaders, lay or ordained, to use the pulpit or similar channels to endorse a particular party or candidate. Whilst we would want everyone to engage with the key issues in the Bishop’s letter and in exercising their democratic responsibility to vote, it is important that our churches remain publicly neutral with regards to specific parties and candidates.