Conservatives Lose a Third of their Support from Evangelical Christians

The Huffington Post has this story Christian Support For Conservatives Drops By A Third, Evangelical Alliance Report Says. It reports that forty per cent of British Christians are changing their electoral allegiance. It begins

Conservative support among Christians has dropped by a third since the last election, in new research that will lend weight to the Tories allegations of a left-wing allegiance in the Church.

Almost 40% of Christians surveyed by the Evangelical Alliance said they intended to change who they vote for in this election, and both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats have seen significant drops in support from a community where almost double the national average intend to vote.

The Faith in Politics? report follows a survey of 2,020 evangelical Christians, conducted by the Evangelical Alliance between August and September 2014, shows that poverty and inequality is the single most important issue for evangelicals, compared to only 4% of the general population saying the same.

The article states that this will lead to fresh accusations about left-wing bias in the churches after the Anglican bishops’ 52 page letter to prime minister, which included topics such as the European Union, Trident and welfare. Indeed, Nadine Dorries has attacked the bishops’ letter for its supposed left-wing bias. Christian support for the Greens and UKIP has increased massively, while the Tories have lost a third of their support and the Lib Dems half. The party that now has the largest Christian support is the Labour party, according to the Huff Post.

The articles at http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/02/19/christian-conservatives_n_6712218.html.

This will doubtless enrage the Tories, who have since Thatcher’s administration attacked the archbishop of Canterbury and any other cleric for being ‘left-wing’ whenever they criticised the government since Maggie Thatcher. The Cranmer blog for Conservative Christians, mostly Anglicans, was deliberately set up to muster their support for the Tories.

If this latest attack on the Tories’ attitude to poverty follows previous criticisms from the churches, you can expect the Tories, in addition to moaning about left-wing bias, to start ranting about how the clergy should keep to preaching Christianity, and if they did, their congregations might start going up. That’s the line they used to take under Thatcher.

It isn’t about simply preaching Christianity. It is about living the Christian life, and manifesting Our Lord’s concern for the poor and marginalised.

I am very much aware that some Tories are deeply religious, and give generously to charity. A survey in America found that politically Conservative Christians gave far more to charity than secular liberals. Surveys have also shown that, in contrast to the popular perception of theologically conservative protestants – Evangelical Christians, half of them are left-wing, with many being much more Left than American Roman Catholics.

Part of the change in political attitude amongst British Evangelicals may well come from experience working for charities and especially food banks. Many churches have started collecting food for them. This experience brings you face to face with the poor and starving in Britain today, as the blog Diary of a Foodbank Helper documents.

The Tories, however, have consistently denied that such grinding poverty exists, and, indeed, the need for them at all. A succession of Tory MPs and apparatchiks have opened their yaps to claim that people are only using food banks, because they’re offering free food, not because they’re starving.

This is an egregious lie, as you have to have a chit from the jobcentre stating that you are absolutely poor in order to go to them. Such lies are an effective slap in the face to the people, who give to food banks, and who work there. As a result, many Christians are rightly turning their backs on the Tories and their Lib Dem collaborators, and seeking out other parties with better attitudes to poverty.

Tags: 'Faith in Politics', Archbishop of Canterbury, Bishops, Conservatives, Cranmer Blog, Diary of Food Bank Helper, Evangelical Alliance, Food Banks, Green Party, Huffington Post, Labour Party, Lib-Dems, Maggie Thatcher, Nadine Dorries, Protestants, Secular liberals, Trident, UKIP