Deep Discernment

How does John Key an atheist get off with praying at the Te Tii Marae? This is another sign of his political pragmatism (to put it in its best light) and absolute hypocrisy (to be real about it). In one foul swoop he denigrades Marae protocol and the Christian faith. Of course there is a tradition for doing such for politcal expediency but surely this should help those Christian i love with key to see what he really is about! I wrote to my FOCaL (Forum of the Christian Left) egroup in response to some discusion about whether Christian should vote based on a politican's policy and ability to delver or on their stated beliefs...


Political decison making in a democracy requires deep discernment. Lables are often misleading, especailly the "Christian" label. You've noted well that many 'christian' politicians have espoused and implemented very unethical policy. While we can and should decide to support politicals leaders wit stronmg personal credentials; it may be more imprtant at times to support the politician that can within the party system that they are in deliver the outcomes that we are looking for on behalf of the poor and disadvantages. Politics is the art of compromise, I suppose, and while we may have high ideals at times we have to be prepared to compromise on some of our ideals in order to make gains in others. And when confronted with possibility of John Key gaining power and the thought of loosing so much ground, the stakes are even higher. I'm sure the Kingdom of God is bigger than the church and when we see politicans and parties and potentail coalitionsthat have a vision that resembles the KoG (Esp Luke 4:14-17) and the credentials to deliver on their promises I'm sure we are justified in giving them our (sometimes qualified) support.I'm intrigued (but not suprised) that many people within the social democratic stream of politics are motivated by Christian faith or at least have had their poltical theory nurtured by their previously held religous belief and or Christain upbringing. I recently meet a number of young labour people, some still at high school, passionate about their crusade for a better world. Some of them told me stories about their parent's faith and how it shaped their world view and aspirations. What causes me some grief is the fact that many of these people see no relevance for christian faith at all. It doesn't fit into their world view, some of them have been burned by the church and or seen their parents burned by the church. At the same time I also meet some labour people with very mature and vital Christian faith. I long that the church would do a better job at nurturing people who think outside the box. From my perspective the gospel of Jesus is very consistent with the social democratic cause, as has been said before I'm sure, "The Labour Party is Christianity without God." A little exagerated I'm sure - the church isn't that good and well I think the LP has a lot to learn from other left leaningparties especially the greens.