‘Marvin’s trying to introduce a theocracy’-worry, addressed by the mayor
As part of his mayoral campaign, the mayor gave two interviews to Christ Church in Clifton on the same day.
As part of his mayoral campaign, the mayor gave two interviews to Christ Church in Clifton on the same day.
The following video clip of the audio recording mentions how he uses and deals with his faith in politics. It is from the session called 10 Gathering.
I have written two stories on the mayor’s links to Evangelical churches in the UK and the US. The first was about the mayor’s faith advisor and graduate of Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry, Rachel Molano, published July 2019[link] and the second was published March 2020 and was about the Bristol Housing Festival being used to revive the Monastery [link].
Transcript
[Marvin Rees:] I often use Biblical proverbs in my talks, you know. People don’t know they’re from the Bible but they are [laughs]. Suffering, perseverance … hope, this is a big one for me in Bristol as well.
It’s been quite easy in many ways because as I said, if your approach is to find good people who want to get good stuff done and have the ability to do it if you back ’em, these are the people turning up.
It’s Andy Street, It’s Rachel Molano, you know. It’s Rob Scott Cook coming along you know, Ed Rowberry, and what… There was a discussion in my office because we did begin to get some heat, yeah. It was all Twitter and all that kind of nonsense about ‘look Marvin’s trying to introduce a theocracy. He’s hanging out with these mad right-wing evangelicals from the United States’ — Tony Campolo — you wouldn’t want to read his stuff you know.
So, there was a real effort to chuck some mud around, and my chief of staff, Kevin, Slocombe, we were in the office and they were saying we need to kind of not talk about this so much, this is what some of my guys were saying.
Kevin said, ‘Look, the church is turning up with passion, expertise and they deliver. Right? They’re delivering food; they’re delivering housing. What’re you going to do, turn them away?’
People are turning up wanting to get real stuff done and they’re not mucking around not playing games… 25% of our kids are in poverty. You know? That’s the kind of maturity of understanding of place that we need. And so it’s easy to open a door to that.
I challenge anyone who wants to challenge me for engaging with faith organisations; well, you step up and offer the level of solutions that are being offered by the faith community. Then you’re welcome through the door. But if all you wanna do is come and moan, and make snide comments on Twitter, I ain’t got time to expend my emotional energy on that.
My emotional energy has to be directed towards people who are turning up with a determination to make the city better. That’s what I’m going to invest in.