Christians and people of other religions should not “leave their faith at the door” in politics, Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said.
Speaking ahead of this year’s general election, Mr Brown added that Christian engagement in politics was beneficial for building a better society.
His statement comes as critics say that his Government’s legislation, including its new Equality Bill, make it more difficult for Christians to live out their faith in public.
However, in a video released this week, Mr Brown said the public square was more than just a market place and that it could not be stripped of values.
“I don’t subscribe to the view that religion should somehow be tolerated but not encouraged in public life, that you can somehow ask people to leave their faith at the door when they enter a town hall or a Commons chamber,” he said.
Speaking of his handling of the financial crisis, the Prime Minister said he was reminded of what he had learnt in church as a child.
Referring to the story of the Good Samaritan he said: “Where there is hardship you cannot and must not pass by on the other side.”
“So the lessons of the Gospels need not be kept separate from political life,” Mr Brown added.
He said: “If Christians engage with politics then all of us together can build a society where wealth helps more than the wealthy, good fortune serves more than the fortunate, riches enrich not just some of us but all.”
Mr Brown’s statements come as Christian nurses, doctors, teachers and care workers have faced problems in recent years at work because of their beliefs in recent months.
Several Christian groups have warned that the Government’s new Equality Bill could pose a further threat to Christian freedoms.
In December a Government equalities minister admitted that churches should be “lining up” lawyers to defend themselves against secular legal challenges under the Equality Bill.
The Bill was described by one media commentator, George Pitcher writing for The Daily Telegraph, as an attempt to “drive religion from the public sphere”.
Under Mr Brown’s premiership the Government has also introduced the Children, Schools and Families Bill which seeks to make sex and relationship education compulsory from the age of five.
Last year the Government tried to delete a free speech protection to a controversial ‘gay hate’ law using the Coroners and Justice Bill. However, the move was defeated in the House of Lords.
At a reception he attacked as “unacceptable” a measure reserving marriage for one man and one woman passed by public vote in California.
In Ireland, Justice Minister Dermot Ahern, said that, as a politician he believed religion was a purely private matter.
Last July, in response to a sermon made by a priest in his constituency, he said that when he legislated “particularly as a Government Minister, I don’t bring whatever religion I have to the table.”