From the Revd James Crockford
Sir, - In response to the issues raised by a reader with regard
to the attitudes among clergy to particular political parties (Letter, 26 June),
I wonder whether Michael Ramsey's mixture of confidence and caution
might be timely advice both to those clergy who wear their
political-party allegiances on their sleeve, and those who feel the
necessity to be timid.
Archbishop Ramsey's chapter on "The Priest and Politics" in his
widely celebrated The Christian Priest Today includes an
insistence that the priest speak in a political register, lest the
full breadth of implications of the gospel be neglected, and yet a
caution that the priest, as a public office-holder and pastor to
the whole flock, ought not to imply that any particular party is
ideally situated to bring the political ramifications of the gospel
to fruition.
The allegiance, perceived or real, of church powers with any
particular political body has a long and messy history, and should
encourage those who speak to and for the Church to offer the
broadest prophetic voice to all corners of political endeavour.
It is one thing to point out, as Ramsey commends, where the
trajectories and ideologies that one might find embodied in
particular parties go strongly against the grain of the gospel (for
instance, the 2004 General Synod motion with regard to the BNP),
but another to use one's public, pastoral office to rally support
for any particular party - be it UKIP's rhetoric of "Christian"
preservation, or your reader's experience of left-wing clerical
gusto.
JAMES CROCKFORD
1a Iron Mill Place
Crayford
Kent DA1 4RT