The release of 1,000 yellow and purple balloons, to the accompaniment of a Haitian band, made a cheerful splash in the centre of Leeds. This was politicking church-style.
The balloons were each marked with the word "hope" but they carried a harder-nosed message, aimed squarely at a political party - the British National Party.
A coalition of churches in West Yorkshire is calling on voters to shun the BNP in the June elections.
Some clerics are openly opposed to the BNP
Recently Anglican and Roman Catholic leaders in Birmingham said voting for the BNP would be like spitting in the face of God.
Bishops in other parts of the country - even rural Shrewsbury - have been issuing what sound like instructions to voters, and they're making sure voters get the message.
Christian groups are delivering leaflets accusing the BNP of trying to divide society over the issues of race and asylum in West Yorkshire.
The BNP says the question of how inclusive society is should be up to voters. It says the churches have misrepresented its policies, and that they should stay out of politics.
But the Anglican Bishop of Pontefract Tony Robinson, who has been on the streets himself canvassing voters, says Christians have a duty to speak out.
"Jesus himself was a political figure," said Bishop Robinson.
"He challenged the political authorities of the day. He's a model for us today, because of our concern to uphold the commandment 'love thy neighbour'."
Church intervention in political life is not restricted to concern about the BNP.
John Packer, the Anglican Bishop of Ripon and Leeds said that when he participated in the campaign against the BNP he had been taking his lead partly from the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams.
Political process
Dr Williams - who has made frequent criticism of the war in Iraq - recently accused the government of damaging people's trust in politics.
Christians are also engaged in trying to influence the political process in the Palace of Westminster itself.
A group called Care - set up to promote Christian values in political life - lobbies MPs on a wide range of issues, including marriage and bioethics.
It works in partnership with a network of advisory centres for women with unplanned pregnancies.
Its head of policy, Roger Smith, says Christians are increasingly willing to use the political process to make their influence felt.
"Historically there's been a division between people who say the Church should only deal with things like the gospel, and proclaiming the good news about salvation," he says.
"But increasingly Christians are waking up to their responsibility for the community and that means getting involved in politics."
Then on Wednesday came an unambiguous appeal to voters from the Roman Catholic Church.
In a document it presented as a moral audit of Britain, the Church warned of a slide into what it called a culture of death.
The 100-page booklet, Cherishing Life, said voters should challenge candidates in the local and European elections in June about their attitudes on a range of subjects of particular concern to the Church.
Abortion opposition
They include anything that the Church regards as antithetical to life, such as euthanasia, IVF treatment and stem-cell research.
But it is on abortion the Church is most outspoken. It reminds voters that about 180,000 abortions are carried out in Britain each year, describing it as a "sinister form of injustice" which occurs when the "very ethos of the health-care professions starts to be corrupted".
"We all have a responsibility to create a culture of life," said Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, leader of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales.
"But we are creating a culture that is diminishing life. If we don't actually enhance life, we diminish it.
"Governments have to realise that there's a spiritual side to everyone that impinges on political life, so they can expect the voice of the Church to be heard more strongly in the future."
Abortion has long been a defining issue for the Roman Catholic Church, but in England and Wales the Church has broadened its appeal to voters to support pro-life elements of policy on education, marriage, and other social issues as well as medicine and science.
Gay issue
But in contrast to the strong line on issues of life, some have detected a softening of the hard line on some social issues.
"Cherishing Life" says of gay sexual activity that it's "objectively disordered", but essentially because such relationships exclude the creation of new life. Homosexual orientation alone is not condemned.
It is not exactly the attitude towards homosexuality associated with the Vatican.
But the Church in England and Wales is keen to emphasise its positive attitude.
"This isn't a document saying you can't do this, you can't do that," says Cardinal Murphy O'Connor.
"It's a guide to how to be happy, and live a good life."