A SIXTH-FORMER hopes to “promote Christian policy in the public sphere and to influence the existing [political] parties” with his new pressure group, Christian Democracy UK.
Seventeen-year-old Max Stenner, who is studying politics, modern history, and religious studies at a Dorset school, said this week that his group had already written a manifesto, which would be published at the end of the month and promoted on social media. After that, the group, which included “good names” and “people who are very knowledgeable in their areas of interest”, would begin work on writing more precise and detailed policy documents.
He defined Christian democracy as “a political ideology and a series of beliefs that blend Christian principles with modern democratic ideals; it’s weaving that traditional Christianity into modern light without trying to set the clock back.”
“It advocates for a balance between individual rights and social responsibility while emphasising traditional values and a social market economy,” he continued.
“The biggest thing that drove what I believe in politics is my Christian faith. My beliefs are generally driven by both my Christian values and my belief in the Bible, and that leads me to something that is beyond Left and Right, but, rather, what my Deputy Chair dubbed as ‘sensible centre’.”
Christian Democracy UK has members from various political parties, but Mr Stenner said that there were no ideological tensions between them. The biggest dispute was Israel and Palestine: “there was a bit of a debate about that in our in our group chat yesterday.”
Mr Stenner believes that there is a need for new parties that express different views, because “the Tories, Labour and the Liberal Democrats, are the same party with different costumes.”
“I think that Christianity is something that’s a little bit scoffed at, to be honest, in this public world,” he said. “Britain cannot exist without Christianity, but I actually think that, if you take away the explicitly religious arm of Christian democracy, and just show policies, it would be very popular.
“Generally, the term often used is socially Right and economically Left, and many studies have shown that a very large amount of the British populace roughly fall under that category. So, I actually do think our policy would have some public appetite.”
Christian Democracy UK is to be launched at the New Culture Forum’s Politics and Christianity Conference on 30 September, in Woodhouse Gardens Pavilion, Blandford Forum, at 7 p.m.