As Christians, we've established quite a name for the things we stand against: abortion, Jerry Springer the Opera, euthanasia, political correctness, human trafficking, air companies that don't allow us to wear crosses, super casinos, the Da Vinci Code, … the list goes on. There's no doubt that some of these issues are hugely important. The problem is, that, as far as the world looking at us is concerned, we seem equally vehemently opposed to all of them.

And, rather worse, everyone can think of something that Christians are against, but, if you ask the man (or woman) in the street what Christians stand for, they might struggle to come up with anything that reflects the core of our beliefs.

What's worse, our natural tendency as Liberal-Democrats is also somewhat the same — we are the party which has a policy, or a position statement, on almost every issue imaginable (is it because we still shrink from the Margaret Thatcher taunt against the SDP that they had no policies?). Therefore, as LIberal-Democrat Christians, we are probably the most at risk of defining ourselves not by what we are, but by what we are against.

As LDCF we come together from all denominations, but we share a fairly clear picture of a Gospel which is not only the same across our different churches, but is also substantially the same as the Gospel they were preaching in the 1st century. At our annual general meeting, somewhat mischievously, someone suggested that we ought to develop a written LDCF basis of faith. Mercifully the suggestion wasn't taken up -- I can see that going round and round in the committee stage for a good few years if it ever got that far.

But, at the core of it, we all believe that God created the universe, that human beings are God's creation, and that human beings individually and collectively have chosen to turn their backs on God. We believe that Jesus Christ was one in being with the Father God, but chose to become a man, and lived among us. We believe that he died for us, and that he rose again, and that now he calls each one of us to follow him. All these things have been in the writings and the creeds from the earliest days after the New Testament. Again, we could argue for ever about the exact wording, and we might get into a very long debate if we wanted to discuss the mechanism of creation, or the exact nature of sin, or precisely how we are called to follow him. And we would certainly not want to get into a debate about the nature of sacraments, how churches should be organised, the precise role of the Bible in all of this, and exactly how God can be one, and yet also three.

But — even accepting that we differ in emphasis, we may differ in wording, we would certainly differ in styles of worship, we are brought together by our common faith.

Which again puts it sharply in contrast with how we so often let ourselves be perceived — as much divided as we are united on a thousand things which we oppose, some of them of global importance, and some of them trivial to the point of absurdity.

There is a time for us to stand up on certain key issues. But there is surely also a time for us to shut up on many minor issues. Paul, in 2 Corinthians 6:3, writes: "We put no stumbling block in anyone’s path, so that our ministry will not be discredited." He goes on to describe a fairly major list of things that he put up with in order to remove any potential stumbling block. As Liberal-Democrats, if we truly aspire to power in this country, we have to learn to cease to focus on the minor issues and truly tackle the major issues. As Christians, if we truly aspire to be a transforming community, we have to relearn to focus first on Christ, and only afterwards on 'other issues'. As Liberal Democrat Christians, surely we need to learn to do both.