Are Britain's Christians a Constituency?
When I was young the cool thing for Christians to do was to wear WWJD (What Would Jesus Do?) wrist bands with pride. It was a mark of devotion, as well as hopefully a reminder of how one should strive to live. I never wore one - I was not that cool - but vividly remember a friend returning to Britain from the United States with a bag full of bands and assorted WWJD paraphernalia.
During this election season in the United Kingdom, one question that has been doing the rounds is ‘What Would Jesus Vote?'
Surveys by the Evangelical Alliance have shown a very high level of political engagement among evangelical Christians, nine out of 10 plan to vote in May's election. But there is absolutely no Christian consensus on which party to support. So what factors determine the way Christians vote in Great Britain?
The differences between the United Kingdom and the United States when it comes to religion in politics are even greater than the relative appetite for low-brow Jesus-themed merchandise: My friend failed to offload the goods he returned with - maybe it was not so cool after all, at age 17, to own a battery-powered WWJD fan. In a like manner, political debate in Britain does not rally the Christian faithful to the banner of any one party, in the way the Republican Party have managed over the past few decades in America.
Party leaders in the United Kingdom tend to come across a bit awkward when they try to talk religion; when Prime Minister David Cameron takes to the stage in front of 45,000 Pentecostal Christians you can almost smell the discomfort. Neither of his fellow party leaders, Ed Miliband or Nick Clegg, declare to have a Christian faith, so they almost have an easier ride. For them, Christians are just another group in society to whom they must explain why their party and policies are best. Cameron tries to show that he is one of us, so to speak, but when he fails to explain the meaning of Easter, it is as excruciating as when the supposed Aston Villa fan slips up and appeals for voters to get behind West Ham.
In the United States, four-fifths of white evangelicals voted Republican in the 2012 presidential elections and the 2014 midterms. Furthermore, this group constitutes over a quarter of the electorate - and is growing. It is worth noting that this analysis categorizes black Pentecostal Christians separately, under a general "black Christian category" that overwhelmingly voted Democratic. In the United Kingdom, however, evangelicals' voting intentions tend to reflect the general public. The most recent findings, from a survey taken April 16-21, show the Conservatives with a slender lead, on 31 percent opposed to Labour's 29 percent - reversing a similar small lead shown for Labour in September 2014.
What Christians care about, and what they do about it
It is beneath the surface, once we look at the issues Christians care about and what motivates them to vote the way they do, that we see significant differences.
Over the last year, immigration and race relations topped the UK public's concern in 11 out of 12 months. Far fewer evangelicals cite this as the most important issue facing the country, however. Poverty and inequality stand out clearly as their top concern. When deciding who to vote for, Britain's evangelicals want, in this order, policies that will protect religious freedom; help the poorest; eliminate human trafficking; oppose same-sex marriage; and stop efforts to introduce euthanasia or assisted dying.
This diverse list of policy concerns includes traditional morality issues, but it is not dominated by them. A small number of evangelicals who voted Conservative in 2010 - 6-7 percent - now back the United Kingdom Independence Party, and for many of these, the introduction of same-sex marriage was a key motivating factor. For most, however, disagreement with government policy does not translate into voting behavior.
A few factors stand out in explaining the lack of a political alignment in the United Kingdom between evangelical Christians and any single political party. First, no party provides a policy platform that distinguishes itself from other parties as lining up with evangelical concerns. This is perhaps both a reflection of the lower level of religious adherence in the United Kingdom relative to the United States. In a cyclical turn of logic, some suggest that if only there were more politically engaged evangelicals, political parties would pay more attention.
As it is, political parties pay little more than lip service to evangelical concerns, or they find issues on which there is broad societal agreement. For example, Christian groups have been at the forefront of campaigns on overseas aid and on the prevention of human trafficking, and their pressure has been welcomed by politicians seeking to push through legislation and ensure a sustained policy focus on these areas. This dynamic is seen especially on overseas development: Even in the face of substantial spending cuts, money going to those in greatest need overseas has increased.
For a further understanding of why evangelical Christians have not been tied down as an electoral block, it is only necessary to talk to them about their concerns and the role of government. When asked what the most important issues facing their community and the country are, Christians usually cite poverty or point to local concerns. When asked what that means for their politics, they often talk about helping out at local food banks or debt advice centers. Politics are often ignored as a way of tackling the problems Christians want to see addressed - they prefer to take practical and direct action in response.
The issues that evangelicals say will determine their votes do not actually divide the parties; on religious freedom the parties all say similar things, and each party has a plan to tackle poverty. As concerns human trafficking, there was widespread consensus behind the legislation introduced in the last days of the most recent Parliament.
So out of the panoply of issues that concern evangelical Christians, only some affect their vote; others motivate them to practical action; and some issues are left to one side because Christians see no impact in their vote on issues where the political consensus has moved away from them.
This can mean that when entering the voting booth, evangelicals often look to other aspects of their identity to determine how they vote - family, class, party. It is partly because of this reticence among evangelicals to weaponize their chief concerns via the ballot box that there is little incentive for politicians to go after their votes on these measures.