Over the last few weeks I’ve been looking at recent and forthcoming elections in the UK, France, South Africa and the United States. I want now to place all of that in perspective by quoting a newly published mini-pamphlet being distributed in churches in the UK and titled The Cross that Counts. Its authors are Roger Carswell and Vinny Commons and I’ll be quoting the pamphlet at length—more than one should with another type of publication—because their driving purpose is to spread the “Word”. And I shall round off by introducing and —I hope—carefully worded qualification to what the authors …
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Carswell and Commons begin by noting that “2024 will be the biggest election year in history with more than 60 countries—representing half the world’s population—going to the polls.” These countries range from massive ones (India, with a population of 1.44 billion) to tiny ones such as the Pacific island country of Tuvalu (population less than 11 thousand).
“2024’s elections will include many polls that are, we hope, trustworthy. Then there are countries like North Korea where there isn’t any real choice at all and elections are a mockery. Yet even if our elections are free from fixing and fraud, it has become increasingly hard to trust political promises. The cynics ask: “How do you know when a politician is lying?” Answer: “Their lips are moving.” (Of course the latter observation could not possibly be applied to a country such as Lesotho).
The authors continue to allow themselves some humour, quoting former French President Charles de Gaulle (who was leader of the Free French in the Second World War, opposing the Nazis from his base in London while his own country was occupied—a history that Le Pen’s current National Rally, the thugs I wrote about two weeks ago, find it convenient not to discuss). In the 1960s de Gaulle asked in exasperation “How can you govern a country that has 246 varieties of cheese?”
Nonetheless, as Carswell and Commons observe, “the X on the ballot paper is important: it affects our families, our freedoms, our finances and our future.” Then they come to the turning point in their pamphlet, with the following: “And yet we know that in time, there will be a sense of disappointment no matter who is elected.
There is only one person we can have total confidence in. He has never disappointed anyone who have trusted Him. His good intentions have never failed. He is not a let-down. His manifesto is clear: He came to seek and to save those who are lost. These are not just words: Jesus, the Son of God, showed His sincerity by actually going to a cross to die for us.”
They continue: “Politicians may try to change the environment and culture; Jesus changes the heart of a person. Politicians may, as it were, put a new coat on a person; Jesus puts a new person in the coat. Politicians come and go; Jesus not only forgives those who trust Him but stays with them for ever.”
In a lovely imaginative move (remember all the things an X can signify) they then include an illustration of a treasure map, with an X marking the location where treasure is to be found, and conclude the main part of their pamphlet with the message “X marks the spot! Today, make the cross of Jesus the place where you ask God to forgive you your past, be with you in the present, and then take you to be with himself for all Eternity.”
That, though, is not quite all. They conclude “The Cross that Counts” with the following: “As William Wilberforce, the MP responsible for pioneering the abolition of the slave trade in Britain, said; ‘If there is no passionate love for Christ at the centre of everything, we will only jingle and jangle our way across the world, merely making a noise as we go.’”
This is where, up to a point, I part company with the authors, or at least with Wilberforce as quoted by them, my problem being that final comment of his, with its dismissive “jingle and jangle.”
I fully accept what Wilberforce says about Christ being at the centre of everything, about His being the paramount end and reason for being. But we are, for our time being, stuck on planet Earth, and we have a responsibility to make life on earth wholesome and safe for ourselves and for others. This is why, in my review some weeks ago of Lindsay Brown’s Shining Like Stars, his book about the International Federation of Evangelical Students, I focussed especially on those testimonies that featured evangelical students who were also political activists. We have a responsibility to those around us—and wherever else in the world—to act with Christlike qualities such as love, compassion, charity, and a happy embracing of diversity. Part of this responsibility involves putting an X in the right place on an election ballot paper, to obstruct a coming to power of monsters such as Marine Le Pen, Jacob Zuma and Donald Trump.
Chris Dunton is a former Professor of English and Dean of Humanities at the National University of Lesotho.
