Christians and the Election - survey
Christian voting patterns 'unlikely to have been influenced by moral issues' reports major new survey by Focus Radio.
23%
say 'there is no such thing as one truth for everyone'
Full results of survey
Traditional moral issues such race, third world debt, and asylum were unlikely to have influenced the way most Christians cast their votes at the General Election. That is the keynote finding of the largest and most authoritative survey of the voting patterns of believers carried out since 7 June, which is published today by Focus Radio to mark the publication of its new Facing the Challenge training course.
1,092 Christians from 20 churches in and around the Southampton area responded to the survey. Their priority issues at the Election, namely health, education and the family, mirrored those of the electorate as a whole; Europe, the economy and crime had only average influence.
Said David Couchman of Focus Radio: "These results come as rude shock to those church leaders and others who fondly believe that their flocks' voting patterns are driven primarily by concern for other people.
"Our survey shows that, far from embracing 'altruistic' issues such as the environment and those that mainly affect people outside the UK such as asylum and debt, churchgoers were as likely as secular voters to support the party that would best further their own self interest. Also, more than 23% of respondents - a staggering amount - agreed with the proposition that 'there is no such thing as one truth for everyone.
"This view suggests that right and wrong are no longer absolute truths but are rather nothing more than individual lifestyle decisions. If that is now the position of a substantial minority of UK Christians it is hardly surprising that regular churchgoers are less concerned about the problems of other than one might expect them to be.
"Facing the Challenge has been designed to deal with these outworkings of postmodernist thought processes. The all-new six part course seeks to challenge churches, small groups and individuals how to understand and get to grips with post modern thinking - and how to respond to it in line with traditional Biblical teaching. We hope it will play a key role in helping Christians develop a better understanding of the attitudes and priorities of the world they live in".
89.5% of the respondents claimed to have cast their vote; a figure 25% higher than the average turnout across the UK of 56%.
In addition, over 72% claimed that the way Tony Blair and William Hague were portrayed on television had no impact on the way on the way they voted. This is surprising - even nave - given the power the mass media is acknowledged to exert over all our lives.