The Evangelical Alliance, of which I am a member, has issued a press statement concerning the election result, quoting Steve Clifford, their General Director, as saying:

I think that we realise difficult decisions will have to be made and the level of public services we are used to may not be sustainable.  But in taking these difficult decisions I ask that whatever form the Government takes they remember what was asked of the apostle Paul, to remember the poor.

I welcome this statement. It is indeed vital that any government of this country, or of any other, remembers the poor, both at home and worldwide.

But it is rather late in the day for Steve Clifford to make this appeal, one which should have been heard more clearly from Christians during the election campaign. It was implicit in the Faithworks 2010 Declaration which I reported on during the election campaign. But the poor merit only a brief mention in passing in the Westminster 2010 Declaration, which I also reported on, and no mention at all in the pledge which that group asked election candidates to sign – it seems that the pledge was simply to

respect, uphold and protect the right of Christians to hold and express Christian beliefs and act according to Christian conscience.

Yet this is the Declaration of which “Steve Clifford – General Director, Evangelical Alliance” is listed as one of the Key Signatories, in fourth place following three bishops. And this is the Declaration whose backers, as I pointed out a couple of days ago, were clearly using it to promote the Conservative party – the party which was campaigning for higher taxes and reduced public services for the poor, and tax breaks for the super-rich.

I don’t know if the Westminster Declaration had any effect on the election result. Its 61,234 signatories (as I write) are a tiny number compared with nearly 30 million votes cast. They were not successful in getting Philippa Stroud into Parliament, but other candidates they backed were elected even when this was not the expected result.

But surely it is somewhat perverse for Steve Clifford to give his backing, and implicitly that of his Alliance, to a campaign which was in effect to elect Conservatives, and then after the event call on them, as the likely next government, to embrace a policy of remembering the poor which goes against their manifesto commitments. He would have done better to avoid endorsing in the first place a Declaration as unbalanced as the Westminster one. If his repentance now is genuine, that is good. But it is too late for this election, and so he may have put himself, and all the Christians in this country, in something of the position of Esau in Hebrews 12:17.