Can you be Evangelical and Vote Green? EN

I was asked by EN to write a response to an article written in support of the Greens by Andrew Mellen – they published a slightly amended version of the article below here. 

Can you be evangelical and vote Green?

en does not support any one particular party. However, we are interested in evangelicals within each of our political parties. Following the recent Green Party by-election win, en invited Andrew Mellen to set out why, as an evangelical, he chose the party as his political home. His article can be read here. Now, Scottish Presbyterian minister and religious commentator David Robertson responds.

I am not a fan of clergy telling Christians who to vote for – that is not our job. In my previous congregation of St Peters Dundee, we had Tories, Labour and SNP supporters, Liberal Democrats and doubtless people of other persuasions – and that is the way it should be. However, there are exceptions to every rule.

I would happily advise people against voting for either the Communist or Fascist (as in genuinely Fascist – not in the modern sense of “anyone who disagrees with me”) parties – given that they are ideologies which are specifically anti-Christian.

Even though I once voted for the Greens and indeed encouraged a young Christian to get involved as a Green politician, I have now come to the conclusion that I cannot see how any Christian could vote for a party which has, at its core, become fundamentally anti-Christian. Which is why I was somewhat surprised to see the en article from Andy Mellen on why he is both a Christian and a Green council leader. I don’t doubt Andy’s sincere Christianity – but it is inconsistent with his membership of the Green Party.

Allow me to explain why.

The silence was loud

The problem is not with what Andy says – it is what he doesn’t say.

Whatever one believes about climate change, it is possible to be a Christian and to argue from both sides. (Although I should say in passing that my observation is that the old Greens would be spinning in their graves at the way that the modern Greens are prepared to destroy the environment for the sake of “saving the planet” – witness the wind farms that have blighted my native Scottish Highlands and slaughtered thousands of birds, or the ancient native forests being cut down in Australia to make way for “green” pylons. But I digress.) Christians can disagree about these things.

My real problem is that he fails to mention the numerous areas where Green Party policy goes specifically against the teaching of Jesus Christ.

 I am pretty sure that Jesus would not want the destruction of the state of Israel;  I am sure that Jesus does not agree with killing babies in the womb, same-sex marriage, killing the elderly and sick through euthanasia, or stating that there are many genders and that men can become women…if they feel like it. I also find it difficult as a Christian to justify ending state funding for all faith schools and phasing out their ability to select pupils based on religion.

A political party, or ‘religious movement’?

Ah… but can’t we just be like in the good old days when parties perhaps had policies that Christians didn’t like, but we didn’t have to go along with them and were given a “conscientious” get out of jail card? Not with many modern parties. And certainly not with the Greens – who are much more of a religious movement than they are a political party.

One thing about those who self-identify as tolerant and diverse – is that they do not tolerate any diversity from their core doctrines.

It would be interesting to see how long Andy survived as a Green politician if he announced that marriage is only between a man and a woman, that abortion is wrong, and that men cannot become women.My friend the Green councillor was thrown out because she did not agree with abortion.Other Greens have been thrown out for being “transphobic”, just because they dared to suggest that biology matters and that men cannot become women.

‘Communism and Fascism’

But there is another even more disturbing aspect with the Greens in the UK. I said that I would warn people about Communism and Fascism – the Greens manage to square the circle of being both.

On the one hand, they are the most far-left party in the UK (I wonder why the Prime Minister and media are always warning about the far-right, but never the far left?); but they are also the party of Islamo-Fascism.

Witness the Green deputy leader posting immediately after the Hamas October attacks which killed over 1200 Jews “affirming the right of indigenous people to fight back”.

The Greens will ally with Islamic community leaders who would deny some of the Greens’ most basic social doctrines. Why? What do they have in common?

They both hate the West and they both regard the West as having been built on a Christianity which needs to be destroyed.

‘Why give the devil your vote?’

Andy stated that the Gorton and Denton by-election is the latest evidence that politics has radically changed over the past couple of years. He is surely right. But he then goes on to claim it is a cause for “jubilation”.Why?

In Gorton and Denton, the Greens played the sectarian card with full force. They made an election in Manchester about Gaza. They waved Pakistani and Palestinian flags. They featured publicity material with the Hindu Modi and the Jewish Netanyahu as the evil ones being photographed with Labour politicians. They put out leaflets in Urdu that somehow managed to leave out all their socially “progressive” policies, which they included in the English publicity.

As a Christian I cannot rejoice in the sectarian politics of the Middle East and the Indian sub-continent being played out on the streets of UK cities.

The Greens have changed from being an environmentalist party to being a far-left Islamic party in my view. I cannot conceive how any Christian would support such an organisation.

Why should Christians vote for the Greens? Why should turkeys vote for Christmas? Why give the devil your vote?!

Postscript. David Robertson adds: Just after writing this, the Greens announced that they would seek to remove the Church of England as the established church in the UK. It would I believe be replaced de facto with Islam – because Islam knows no separation between religion and state and requires all citizens to submit to its dictates. Again I ask, Why would any Christian vote for this?

If you are a member of another political party and would like to set out why you, as an evangelical, have chosen that particular allegiance, do get in touch. Or if you have views on anything expressed in this article, and would like to send in an email/letter to be considered for publication, get in touch with us via editor@e-n.org.uk