Conservative or Liberal?

Good Morning and Welcome to this week’s Gospel and Culture update, by Alan Vink

Monday 5th October, 2020

Conservative or Liberal?

Former MP and Political Strategist, Heather Roy offers an interesting analysis here as far as the ‘Political Spectrum’ conversation is concerned. In fact if this topic interests you google the words ‘Political Spectrum’ and you will land on some very interesting reading.

POV. Notice the overlap of Labour and National. Both are centrist as to Economic Policy….more or less. It certainly is no longer clear cut. On moral/social issues it isn’t clear cut anymore either. This is recently evidenced by the fact that both Jacinda Ardern and Judith Collins supported Decriminalisation of Abortion, Decriminalisation of Euthanasia and both of them oppose marriage as one man one women. In fact what is particularly interesting is that New Zealand First is by far and away the most consistent with what we might refer to as the Christian (or traditional) ethic. Act on the other hand is far right when it comes to less Government and free market Economics yet as liberal as the Greens on social policy. It’s quite conceivable that some Christians, maybe many Christians are conservative on moral/social issues and, dare I say it, leaning toward liberal even socialist on economic issues.

The net result of all this is that we now have a ‘murky middle’. As a Christian voter I’m finding it very challenging as to how to vote. I’ve noticed more and more Christians saying the same. That said, it is true that the New Conservatives (not listed above) have policies that most align with Christians and traditional family concerns which, all things equal should give them at least 10% of the Party vote because that is how many New Zealanders regularly attend church.

All of this makes the upcoming elections in 12 days’ time all the more interesting.

There are NO copyright restrictions on this email update. Got some feedback about this Update, or anything in the news? Would you like us to cover a story then drop me a note at alan.vink@leadershipworx.org.nz Alan is Executive Director of LeadershipWorx and blogs here.

Alan Vink is currently the Executive Director for LeadershipWorx. Prior to this role he has been the Executive Director of Willow Creek Association NZ (WillowNZ), a Baptist pastor (23 years), Bible College teacher, and church consultant.