I am deeply disturbed by the treatment of SNP leadership candidate Kate Forbes. I have read some of the articles she has written and listened to various interviews she has given. She comes across as an able, articulate, passionate politician and a committed Christian. Yet her honest articulation of her Christian values are put forward as disqualifying her from high political office.
With a Hindu as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and a Muslim as the mayor of London, it would seem that the UK is at last fulfilling the promise of a multi-cultural society. Yet events in Scotland suggest that there is one group who are in effect banned from meaningful political leadership – Christians who actually believe what Jesus says!
Why do people who champion the right of people to hold diverse views and live life as they choose, have a blind spot for Christians? How can people claim that not having a faith at all is somehow neutral? How can people fail to see that politicians with moral convictions enhance public life rather than undermine it?
Tim Farron writes, Western progressives lack curiosity as to why a Christian might take a different, jarring position on issues such as refugees, sexuality, poverty, abortion, greed, and gender.
The idea that private faith should be kept private and not expressed is nonsense. Faith impacts everything we do. We live in a society that claims to respect people’s views, which is also Christian teaching. However, it seems that Christian views are not allowed in public debate. This is all deeply disturbing and deserves the debate and reflections that are taking place around Kate Forbes candidacy. It is potentially a defining moment for British democracy, how tolerant are we?
Encouragingly there are many voices speaking up for Ms Forbes, e.g., Kevin McKenna; Ms Forbes’ views on the sanctity of all human life from conception until death is a fundamental pillar of both Christian and Muslim belief. As is her belief – based on science – that sex is binary. The treatment that she’s already beginning to receive offers further evidence of the poison now circulating at the top of the SNP. That you’re free be whoever you want to be, just as long as you’re not a Christian.”
Or this from AN Wilson, forget for the moment what she believes about Christian marriage. Be big-minded and big-hearted enough to consider, just for a moment, what it might mean to elect someone to high office who is a committed Christian. We are still feeling bruised by having lived through the Boris Johnson years, and having experienced what it is like to have a prime minister who does not distinguish between truth and falsehood, and whose sleazy money dealings leave an extremely unpleasant taste in the mouth. If questioned about gay rights, he would sound like a liberal, but which would you prefer in Downing Street? A pious Christian who was the spouse of one other person, or Johnson, whose army of exes make him seem like a character in a seedy Feydeau farce?
I close with Forbes herself, “I will defend to the hilt everybody’s right in a pluralistic and tolerant society to live and to love free of harassment and fear, and in the same way I hope others can be afforded the rights as people of faith to practise fairly mainstream teaching. That is the nuance we need to capture.”
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