Make The Cross Work

The Chritian group Care has come up with the slogan, "Make The cross Work" for the General Election Campaign and we have to ask ourselves, as Christian voters, as evangelical Christian voters what does that mean for northern Ireland? There are a number of candidates who claim the name of Jesus Christ and profess to be Christians but what differance does it make to them and to us? Do we give them our vote just because they are Christians? How does a Christian make the cross work by voting for secular political parties and we need to remember that when we vote we are voting, by and large , for the parties and not just the individual. There are some MPs who are very good at representing the community but is that a good reason for voting for them? There are a number of politicians who seem happy to slate the other side just to get the party tag and the votes that go along with them. I believe that we have a civic duty to use our vote but that may mean destroying the vote because we have no one we feel we can vote for or we may even vote for someone who is the least of evils or even vote for someone even though we know that they will not get elected because of the electoral system used in the Westminster elections. How important are the national and international issues-e.g. The Irag War and the Makepovertyhistory campaign and the environmental isuues when all we can think of is the constitutional position of Northern Ireland, when to everyone else in the world we are , pure and simply, Ireland?? How can we use our electral muscle to unite instead of dividing and to create harmony instead of division- I have issued 10 political questions to some of the political parties and have only received an acknowledgment form one and no answers from any. What would the parties do if we had real issues to worry about? Who is speaking up for the ordinary man and woman? The uniuonist parties are middle class parties with tory values and expectations but the people of both protestant and Catholic Belfast and Derry/Londonderry are ordinary working people- who speaks for them? Once the battles are over there will be real politics to worry about- the water charges, the educatucation and the health service etc and is anyone preparing for that day or are the nationalists the only people who have people who will fight for them? Does anyone else have these questions?