Choose you this day...

 

After a long campaign Election Day has dawned and by Friday the result of the only poll that ever mattered will be known.

For all its faults it’s surely a cause for thanksgiving that government changes hands peacefully in the United Kingdom.

At my school we had our own Student Parliament and I stood (and won!) in the 4th Year Elections.  However, my career in politics did not last long as I gave it all a miss by the 5th Form!

Elections, during the Edwardian years at least, were never covered impartially by the Baptist Times. There was never any doubt in those days that the only party the Baptist Union supported was the Liberal Party.  All the personal failings of Lloyd George and Asquith were forgotten as ministers such as The Revd Dr John Clifford of Paddington urged the readers of the denominational journal to mobilise and fight for the return of a Liberal government.  By the middle of the 20th century such partisan reporting ceased, and the Baptist Times became a tamer and more neutral publication.

Pictures from South Africa in the 1990’s showing the first election in which citizens of every colour had the right to vote probably stick in all our minds.  Archbishop Tutu danced as he waited in line to vote, whilst many shed tears of joy that such a day had come in their lifetime.

Ministers, from both the Baptist and URC traditions, know from personal experience what it feels like to be on the other side of an election because we are chosen by ballot by the congregation, rather than imposed upon them.

Joshua challenged the people to choose you this day who you will serve…Today many of us will exercise a civic duty to make a different sort of choice.  To choose a person or a party that we hope merits our cross beside their name.  Perhaps too, as we make our mark, we will also remember that scriptural injunction to pray for those in authority over us whoever they are.