Church hustings helping people engage in politics

The church is playing an important role in helping people engage with the political process in the run up to the general election, according to one charity.

CARE said 113 churches had registered hustings on the charity’s election website, makethecrosscount2010.net.

The website features resources and gives practical guidance on how churches can hold a hustings event in their premises. It also provides a list of affiliated hustings taking place across the UK.

CARE’s director of parliamentary affairs Dan Boucher said the charity had never before had so many church register their hustings events.

“With just a week of the campaign gone, we expect more hustings to be announced in the coming days,” he said.

“At the moment we aren’t aware of any larger single source of confirmed hustings in the UK and even then the point must be made that we don’t pretend to represent all church hustings by any stretch!

“It’s great to see the church facilitating such a crucial process in the public square.”

The hustings are organised and run by individual churches but facilitated and supported by CARE. Its chief executive Nola Leach said the hustings were helping people to get involved.

“In the context of widespread voter apathy and public disillusionment with politics, these hustings demonstrate the dynamic and important role that the church is playing in helping people engage in the political process,” she said.

Other Christian initiatives in the run-up to the election have also garnered strong responses from the church. The Westminster Declaration calling upon Christians to vote according to their conscience and beliefs has clocked up more than 22,000 signatures.

The document also upholds the sanctity of marriage and the right of religious people to live according to their beliefs.

Church leaders to have signed the document include the General Director of the Evangelical Alliance, Steve Clifford, the head of the Catholic Church in Scotland, Cardinal Keith O’ Brien, and the former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey.

On the web: www.makethecrosscount2010.net/hustings