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Tim Farron CF
MP's Norwich talk on politics, faith and integrity

On the eve of the US presidential election, former Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron spoke at an online event organised by Surrey Chapel in Norwich about the topic of integrity. Helen Baldry reports.

Tim Farron is currently MP for West Morland and Lonsdale and was leader of the Liberal Democrats for two years before stepping down at the 2017 general election stating that he had become "torn between living as a faithful Christian and serving as a political leader".

The event, entitled ‘The I Factor: How important is integrity in our leaders?’ was held on Zoom, hosted by Surrey Chapel and attended by around 100 people. Mr Farron introduced himself and described Norfolk as “A glorious place...flipping hard to get to!” His sister lived just outside Norwich so he is familiar with the county.

Mr Farron was first involved in politics at 16, became a Christian at 18 and is married with four children, owns two dogs and turned 50 during lockdown.

Mr Farron was not brought up in particularly Christian household. He remembers going to church once as a child. However, he did hear the gospel a couple of times in his childhood and there was a boy at college who was a Christian “a lovely guy, everybody liked him.” However to Mr Farron, his faith was “weird, prescriptive and unattractive.” Mr Farron’s commitment to follow Jesus happened when he was in Singapore as a young adult. The people occupying his room previously left their books on the shelves. Mr Farron said, “I ended up reading the weird God stuff! It struck me... it just hit me almost with a physical force - it's true!”

Mr Farron said, “It's been far from plain sailing ever since. There have been times when I’ve backslidden. God is gracious, he's got us in his hands.”

Mr Farron describes himself as a “Christian liberal, not a liberal Christian.” His faith has caused tension in his career and caused him to relinquish political power. He seems completely at ease with the position he is currently in “I love what I’m doing now.” He describes leading the Lib Dems as ‘a massive honour’ and said there is something liberating about being ‘post-ambitious’. He believes resigning was the most useful thing he could have done. He said, "The most important part of my job is the opportunity and privilege to serve other people."

Every year he deals with tens of thousands of cases as an MP . He said, “It's not just the number of people we're helping, but the depth and seriousness of the problems people are dealing with.” He cites current problems as people who are stranded in another country, had their cancer operations cancelled, widespread increase in poverty and unemployment.
It is important to him to communicate faithfully and publically about being a Christian. The focus on Mr Farron’s faith put him in a difficult position. He said, “I'd either have to backslide and be a failure as a Christian in order to move the conversation on. Option two was to be dogged and know what I should do and be faithful to Jesus.” He felt that the option was to either be a bad Christian or be a bad leader. "That's a rubbish choice, let's do neither."

Mr Farron says that he gave up the leadership for something infinitely and eternally more valuable.

Integrity in politics is about being less selfish and less vain. It’s being able to put others before yourself. Mr Farron gave examples, “being prepared to get marked down by the whips. It actually looks like trashing your career. In the Bible love is always costly...I think the same goes for integrity.”

Jesus teaches about integrity. He is the only person who lived who stands up to scrutiny and his integrity is linked to humility.

If the electorate acknowledges that nobody’s perfect, should we lower our expectations when it comes to integrity in politics?

Mr Farron believes that if you put your ultimate hope and trust in a politician than you’ll be disappointed and you’ll have to compromise. He said, “That doesn't mean that integrity doesn't matter.” He talked about John Major ‘s ‘back to basics’ campaign in the 1990s talking about morality, decency, importance of the family, setting up the Conservative party as the party of morality. Consequently MPs’ dirty laundry was publically rummaged through and the view that evolved was that you can do what you like. Mr Farron said, “I do think if you cannot be truthful and faithful to those closest in your life, how are we meant to trust you in public?” We shouldn’t hold others to a higher standard than we hold for ourselves. The challenge for Christians is to demonstrate a radical difference, which involves being countercultural when you put your trust in Jesus. Mr Farron said, "Be careful where your hope lies - make sure it's in the right person."
 

Helen Baldry, 08/11/2020

Helen Baldry
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