Emily Graves spoke with CARE about the new Current website and their leadership programme.

James Mildred

Leading Christian charity, CARE, has launched a major new initiative designed to inspire Generation Y Christians to impact society on human dignity issues. Emily Graves spoke with James Mildred, the Media and Communications Officer, to find out more.

Emily: Tell us about the work that CARE does.

James: CARE primarily are concerned with the whole issue of human dignity. We work in Westminster Parliament, in the Parliament up in Scotland, at the Assembly in Northern Ireland and we also have an office in Brussels as well. We seek to campaign, to stand up and to speak out about the value of human life from its natural beginnings to its natural end. We're concerned with the fundamental value of human dignity and we seek to do all we can to communicate in a compassionate way, Christian truths on these vital topics.

Emily: We're here today to talk a bit more about this major new initiative designed to inspire Generation Y Christians. Who is Generation Y?

James: Generation Y recognises Christians who are in their twenties and thirties. We often hear that this rising generation are struggling with a feeling of intense apathy; that there's no point in getting involved in politics and there's no point in thinking through some of these really important issues about human dignity. Generation Y are Christians who do want to make a difference, but perhaps are struggling to understand exactly how they can do that. That's why we've launched Current. We've launched Current to be an online community where people can come together; where they can write pieces and where they can discuss together some of the key issues surrounding abortion, purity, pornography and religious freedom. Where we can talk in our respective space and discuss and disagree with each other, but can also enjoy the conversation as well.

Emily: What's so important about Generation Y and not other generations?

James: I think the key thing is that we want to be reaching out to the rising generation. This isn't about saying Generation Y are in some way more important than any other generation, but it's recognising that there is a clear principle here. We want to be engaging the up and coming generation. In other words, we want to be reaching out to the leaders of tomorrow; people who are going to be coming forward and as they mature, grow older and gain more experience in life, we are hoping they are going to be the very ones from among whom leaders are going to arise, not just for the Church, but also for charities like ourselves as well. I think it's important to be seen as relevant as possible and to be proactive in engaging Christians who have the energy and sometimes the time to really get stuck into these issues. We recognise that human dignity is important, but we also recognise that for many Christians there's a real problem, in that they don't know how to engage on these topics and we're hoping that Current provides inspiration and guidance for how Christians can get stuck in.

Emily: You mentioned before this new website that you've launched called Current, so what is it all about and where did the idea originally come from?

James: The idea for Current came about in discussion internally at CARE as we began to consider ways in which we could engage Christians in their twenties and thirties on issues that are related to human dignity. It was decided that we wanted to provide a base where Christians could write their own pieces, present their own opinions and thoughts; to have a space where we can publish their work for them and that then creates an environment where discussion can take place, as people can comment on whichever piece they read.

It's fascinating today to see the latest top story is raising the whole question of 'Are Christians better suited to the top jobs?' It's a piece that looks at the fact that because the two great qualities of leadership are humility and an intense desire to succeed that Christians are those who because we've been accepted and because we've received the gospel we should be humble, but we should also have that desire to stand up and to speak out. It's pieces like that that I think are really interesting and are at the very cutting edge of Christian thinking. That's why we're very excited about it. It is all very contemporary, with a very modern look to it too.

Emily: Are we seeing more opportunities arising for Christians to communicate a Christian perspective in the public square?

James: I think that this whole era at the moment is a golden opportunity for Christians. As there has been a considerable rise in general apathy amongst the population of the entire United Kingdom and a sense in which we're saying all of the political parties are increasingly similar, we're increasingly frustrated it seems with parliamentarians - this is a chance for Christians to be a witness, to stand up, to speak out and to do so compassionately and graciously, and to take up the mantle that other people are dropping.

We want to be those that take seriously that creation mandate to have dominion over the entire earth. We want to be those who seize these opportunities that are given to us and yes I do think there are more opportunities now, not least with the massive growth of the online world, which brings with it tremendous opportunities as well. So that's why it's an online forum we've launched in recognition that a lot of 20 to 30 year-old Christians are engaging online, on Twitter, Facebook, and you've now got Instagram as well and a whole host of other platforms. So we're using the online world as a tool to say that the answer to apathy must never be apathy in return, it must always be proactivity and Christians stepping forward and saying, yes we've seen some setbacks over the last decade, we've seen things going in a direction that perhaps we're not always comfortable with, but we're not going to stop speaking out and we're not going to stop engaging because it's through engaging and it's through speaking that we really can make a difference.

Emily: And I presume that it's due to that, that you feel these sorts of conversations need to take place?