British politician defends Christianity in government life, tells ‘tolerant’ liberals to respect other views

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British politician defends Christianity in government life, tells ‘tolerant’ liberals to respect other views

Tim Farron said that liberals should respect the views of Christians and that Christians in positions of power, likewise, should respect people of opposing views.

Christian Member of Parliament Tim Farron argued that genuine liberals should respect Christians for holding a different world view. 

The British politician made waves online after he spoke out in favor of Christians who allow faith to affect their politics, arguing that "every single human being has a worldview," including Christians.

He doubled down on his defense of Christianity, especially in public life, during an interview with Fox News Digital.

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Farron doubled down on his defense of Christianity, especially in public life, during an interview with Fox News Digital. (Screenshot / Premier On Demand)

"I think people are in effect tolerant of people of other faiths so long as your faith is only cultural. The minute it starts impinging upon your world view, then that is something that we don’t like, and we’re against that." 

"And that is a problem," Farron said. "It’s a problem for people who are genuinely liberals," he continued, adding, "If you’re a liberal you should understand that we’re not all going to agree." 

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Farron argued that in the West, there "is this assumption in public life that there’s no God, or at least that there’s an absence of faith," which some consider to be a "neutral" position.

But Farron took issue with considering the lack of faith in God a "neutral" position in the first place. 

"The real intellectual failure here is to think there is a neutral place. There isn’t a neutral place. There is no neutrality."

Farron said that liberals in the United States and in the U.K. should practice tolerance for all faiths, even the ones they don’t agree with.

"If you believe in freedom and tolerance for your faith, you have to apply it to others too." 

It was a lesson that he also applied to Christians in any position of authority. "Some Christians in the public square think their job is to legislate, to make people who are not Christians live as though they were." 

"By changing the law, you don’t save anybody," Farron said. 

"That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t govern without any reference to morality, of course, you should, but at the same time, let’s not think that our role, if we are Christians in politics, is to impose a morality on others." 

"By changing the law, you don’t save anybody," Farron said.  (Screenshot / BBC)

Farron also discussed the recent attacks against Kate Forbes, a Christian politician and one of the leading candidates to become first minister of Scotland. 

He said that while he did not agree with Forbes’ position on Scottish separation from the UK, he did respect her forthrightness about her Christian faith. 

"I really disagree with Kate, but I like her and I respect her," Farron said. 

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When asked about Christianity in American politics, Farron leveled some criticism against conservative politicians in the States. 

"My criticism of some conservative politicians in America who are described as Christians, is that their rhetoric is without curiosity, it’s not seasoned with grace."

"You can be faithful to what the Bible says without allowing nearly everybody under 40 and half of the electorate in general to stick their fingers in their ears. There are people, therefore, who are not going to hear the Gospel because of how you conducted yourself," Farron told conservative lawmakers in the U.S.

"I myself will have said and done things that were hostile sometimes, for which I need to repent," Farron said. 

"The greatest service you can bring about, if you are a Christian in politics, is to point someone to Jesus."

Farron also summed up his recent book, "A Mucky Business: Why Christians Should Get Involved in Politics," as holding two big lessons for Christians interested in public service. 

"Don’t panic and do care, in that order," Farron said. 

"Get involved. Do what good you can, while you can, and serve your Lord by loving your neighbor, and your neighbor includes people you’ve never met and people you don’t like," Farron said. (Photo by: Godong/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Farron said that while the war in Ukraine and other catastrophic world events may be genuine cause for alarm, Christians know from the book of Revelation that the story "ends well." 

That’s because no civilization lasts forever, Farron said, except for the kingdom of God that "will last forever," according to the Christian faith. 

But that doesn’t mean that Christians should just wait for the world to change, Farron said, citing the story of Jesus Christ. 

"Get involved. Do what good you can, while you can, and serve your Lord by loving your neighbor, and your neighbor includes people you’ve never met and people you don’t like."

He said that one of his hopes for the U.S. was that young people would experience a renewed interest in Gospel teachings. 

"I would love to see that people in the United States who count themselves as liberals listening to the Gospel again, younger generations of people who discounted it as old-fashioned and hateful, hearing it again." 

But no matter what, Farron said that Christianity has found a way to survive. 

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"Over the last 2,000 years hundreds of different world views have mocked Christianity as being either old hat or irrelevant. The irony is nearly all of those worldviews are in dust now and Christianity survives, which is what you’d expect if it was true."