Gareth: Hello. Gareth McNab, Director of External Affairs at Christians Against Poverty. What a week the last week’s been.
We’ve had milkshakes on one party leader. We’ve had debates between another two. We’ve seen a real insight into the personal, caring life of another.
And I wonder what that’s doing for you. Is that warming your heart to politics? Is that hardening your heart to the hope that there might be change?
I know for me, It’s not easy guarding my heart. How do I make sure that I don’t become angry at other humans? How do I make sure I don’t become anxious about the future, or apathetic to the idea that things may be able to get better, that things may change, that we may see a kinder politics, that we may see a politics that takes poverty seriously?
But my faith compels me to hope for a coming kingdom, to hope for better in the future, to hope for now, that now doesn’t need to look like it does right now. And so I’m encouraged to re-read ‘Voting like Jesus’, the resource that our friends at Jubilee+ have put together, and to to read through those scriptures and adopt some of those practices as I seek to lead my own heart.
But one of the best ways to combat apathy is to act, isn’t it? One of the best ways to combat hopelessness is to become hopeful to become part of the change that we could see.
And so, as well as reading that ‘Voting like Jesus’ resource, this week I’ve been working with many friends and contacts to be able to encourage them to please write to their local candidates.
And the questions we’ve put together around poverty, alongside people who actually are experiencing it today, are designed to generate meaningful conversations with local candidates, whether that’s in response to the emails or whether that’s on your doorstep or at a hustings event.
[It’s] such an opportunity for us to follow Jesus well and to act now, demonstrating our hope that there is a coming kingdom, that there is better than this, and that the people we care about, who experience poverty right now, will be made a greater priority by politicians.
Poverty is clearly a matter of the greatest public urgency. And together we can help work to create the political will to solve it in our day.
