Sinners?

Tim Farron, the new Lib-Dem leader seems to be getting a lot of stick for being an evangelical Christian. In particular, he has been quizzed on his views on homosexuality and been seen as evasive because when asked if homosexual sex is a sin he would only answer that "my firm belief is that we are all sinners." It doesn't help that he has apparently abstained on an earlier vote affecting gay marriage.

I know very little about Tim Farron except that he was one of the minority of Lib-Dem MPs who actually kept their promise to vote against tuition fee rises.

I also know that Christianity, even evangelical Christianity, is a broad church with a wide range of views concerning homosexuality and gay marriage. The commonest view, certainly in my experience, is that peoples' private sexual behaviour is their own business. As Jesus (and Paul) said, "Do not judge."

One would certainly expect that a Christian who self-identifies as an old-style social liberal would be strongly in favour of equal rights for all minorities, including LGBT+ individuals. Indeed, Farron claims that he abstained from that gay marriage vote because it didn't go far enough.

What got me thinking, though, was the link between "we are all sinners" and the sinfulness, or otherwise, of homosexual sex.

Jesus was often asked questions as a 'test' or a 'trap', and refused to go along with the underlying assumptions. That's often the difficulty with these binary, yes/no, challenges - either answer affirms an invalid viewpoint. Jesus often replied with a question or a story, but he's rather better at that than I am, and probably than Farron is. So what might Farron be getting at?

I think that the problem with the "is homosexual sex sinful" question is that it ignores the relationship. In effect it reduces two people to their sexual organs and nothing else, which is a terrible, reductionist thing to do with people who are made in God's image.

When you look at a couple who claim to love one another in terms of their relationship, then you have some sort of basis for talking about Jesus and about sin. Jesus spoke about lustful thoughts, and anger as internal equivalents of adultery and murder. Paul spoke about greed and selfishness as being idolatry. And Jesus is clear that, as far as he is concerned, it is these things which come from within which are defiling, sinful, rather than the externals.

'Sin' is a tricky word to fling around, but it is reasonable to suggest that any relationship which involves lust, anger, selfishness or greed is a relationship of sinners. I hope that my own marriage also includes a lot of positive stuff, but there is no doubt that these elements are there too. We are sinners. Maybe there is a homosexual couple out there who are able to avoid these traps: if so, their relationship is clearly less sinful than mine.

In a Christian context what matters is God's grace and I see nothing anywhere in the Bible to suggest that God lavishes his grace any less on sexual minorities than on anyone else. God deals lovingly with people and relationships, not labels and prejudices.

There is an ugly, intolerant wing to secularism, just as there is an ugly intolerant wing to the church, but it would be terribly sad if the Liberal party, of all parties, were to turn against Farron because of his faith. They should give him time and see how he grows into his role. By his fruits shall they know him.

Boris: Bucking The Trend?

Muggers beware!

So, Boris Johnson narrowly wins the London mayoral elections, supposedly offering a ray of light to conservative politicians worried about local election losses. To be frank, this is total nonsense.

Firstly, the local election losses for the Tories weren't that bad for mid-term. They had some really good results when these seats were last fought over, now those gains have been partially restored. The results were encouraging for Labour but only to be expected for the Tories, especially since they have just had a run of gaffes and bad publicity.

The party for whom the results genuinely were bad was the Lib-Dems, who - I hope - will continue to get wiped out electorally until they ditch the leadership that led them into betraying their personal pledges after the last general election. A lot of results I looked at didn't just have Lib-Dem candidates beaten, but had them thrashed into fourth place. Here in Reading, if the same sort of thing happens next year, we could find ourselves with more Green councillors than Lib-Dems.

But the other reason that the Boris victory doesn't say anything significant about national politics is Boris Johnson himself. He is a charismatic, controversial, lively, highly-intelligent character who says what he thinks and genuinely seems to try to live out his beliefs. The exact opposite of the political clones in leadership at Westminster. In many ways like the 'Red Ken' of yesteryear.

London seems to like larger than life figures for its mayors; maybe Ken Livingstone could have won again this year if he had been a bit younger and sparkier - he seems more 'Grey Ken' than 'Red Ken' these days, and rather more inclined to toe his party's line.

In summary, I don't think Boris won because he is more 'authentically conservative' than his party's leadership; I think he won because he is seen as being simply more 'authentic'. Maybe London's voters value authenticity rather more than voters across the nation; or maybe national party managers just don't want to give us that option.