Christian Institute: Invite your MP to church this Christmas

The Christian Institute has been entering into the Christmas spirit early this 12 months by calling upon supporters to ask their local MP to church.

The organisation is usually among the many first to encourage supporters to write down to their MP on issues reminiscent of abortion, assisted suicide and free speech, and indeed this 12 months has perhaps been busier than others on this front.

However, the group has also expressed its desire to construct friendly relationships with MPs and tell them about Jesus.

In an email to supporters, The Christian Institute said that a Christmas invite for an MP represents “a straightforward solution to try to construct a constructive relationship with them” and “a probability to make friendly contact away from the pressure of a selected political issue”.

Such invitations are more likely to be taken up, the group says, as MPs are themselves keen to construct relationships with local institutions and, similar to regular folk, are sometimes more inclined to go to church at Christmas.

The Christian Institute said that such encounters would allow MPs to get to know the concerns and views of Christians first hand and provided opportunities to hope for elected representatives, that they might come to know Christ and be granted wisdom in the choices they make.

Churches haven’t all the time had smooth relationships with their local MPs.

In June of this 12 months Liberal Democrat MP Chris Coghlan was informed by his local Catholic priest that he can be barred from receiving communion attributable to his vote in favour of assisted suicide.

Father Ian Vane, of St Joseph’s Catholic Church warned Coghlan prior to the vote that this may occur as under the Catholic Church’s Code of Canon Law, communion can’t be granted to those that “obstinately persist in manifest grave sin”.