At a meeting organised by the Evangelical Alliance in Canterbury on Dec. 13th, Thomas said, “We wouldn’t have made the progress we have made if Christians had not been interested.”
Thomas, who is the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Department for International Development (DFID), also asked Christians to “stay engaged and stay interested in development”.
Christians were urged by the MP to continue their passionate campaigning and to apply persistent pressure on the government “because an awful lot more progress needs to be made”.
The minister of Canterbury Baptist Church, Rev David Stedman hosted the question and answer session with Thomas, which saw many local Christians as well as representatives from over fifteen Christian relief and development organisations attend.
The DFID was the first to call for the conference to be held, and has come about due to the increasingly significant role Christians are playing in the campaign for relief and development issues.
Being questioned at the session also was Peter Grant, the International Director of Tearfund, a Christian relief and development charity.Other panel members included: Julia Wensley, Campaign Co-ordinator for Micah Challenge UK and Ben Gilchrist, Director of SPEAK, a student campaigning group on issues of global justice.
After a full range of questions on debt relief, climate change, fair trade and smaller NGO’s in disaster relief, Grant said, “I really welcome this initiative. It provided a useful dialogue on a range of development issues. The next step is to focus down on some of the specific contributions to the debate.”
Gilchrist added, “I don’t think the minister really answered the questions on debt and trade in terms of specifics. However, it was good to have this face to face dialogue and for those at the grassroots level to be able to ask their questions. It was also good to work with other Christian organisations and I am grateful for this opportunity provided by the Alliance.”
The chair of the event was the Public Policy Director for the Evangelical Alliance, R. David Muir, who said, “This has been a very useful meeting but it has also flagged up serious issues that the Government need to address. It also highlighted that we need an ongoing dialogue between Government, evangelical Christians and Christian NGOs on international development issues. It is my hope that DFID will continue to want to work with evangelical Christians to help deliver social justice across a huge range of global needs.”
