JOURNEY
TO JUSTICE
By
Joe Gunn
Values,
beliefs must be at centre of public life
Marci McDonald’s new
book has not only reached the bestseller lists — it’s creating
controversy and conversation.
A Calgary Herald headline
called the book “shrill nonsense” and others have accused
the author of dredging up “hysteria” about the role of some
Christians in politics.
The Armageddon Factor: The
Rise of Christian Nationalism in Canada argues that the religious right
is growing in influence in Ottawa, especially under the successive minority
governments lead by Prime Minister Stephen Harper. McDonald first broached
the topic in a 2006 magazine article entitled Stephen Harper and the
TheoCons. Her book goes further to document the positions of influence
in Ottawa now held by conservative evangelical Christian MPs, in parliamentary
staffs, well-financed evangelical lobby groups, media messaging through
television and the Internet. McDonald also posits that the successful
strategy for such growing influence has been imported, and in some cases
financed, by the larger, better-known and stunningly successful religious
right in the USA.
McDonald links the influence
of the religious right to federal Conservative policies such as the
exclusion of abortion in overseas maternal health programs, the defunding
of women’s groups, the withdrawal of subsidies to gay pride events,
unwavering support of Israel, the funding cuts to KAIROS, as well as
unprecedented financial grants to Bible schools.
McDonald is particularly interested in one strain of “Christian
nationalists” (sometimes variously referred to as “dispensationalists,”
Christian Zionists, or Christian Reconstructionists) who believe the
end times are soon coming and that Canada must become a “truly
Christian nation” in order to fulfil its biblical prophecy.
Many believe Canada is suffering
from “gross moral decay, family breakdown, immorality and perversion.”
Some evangelicals, who are often biblical literalists, believe in the
battle of Armageddon and “the rapture” as features of the
end times, even though there is no mention of this in either the Old
or New Testaments.
Several of my evangelical
friends complain that the book has lumped all evangelicals together.
There are almost 4 million Canadian evangelicals, and they come from
a wide range of beliefs and backgrounds. It can be perilous to focus
on a particular persuasion while drawing conclusions for all. For example,
the executive director of one evangelical foundation which formerly
funded Faytene Kryskow of TheCRY (a group that receives ample attention
from McDonald) now regrets that decision, defining this group as a “vocal
and ultra charismatic fringe.” A vice-president of ministry services
at the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada bristles at McDonald’s
claim that “theirs is a dark and dangerous vision, one that brooks
no dissent and requires the dismantling of key democratic institutions.”
On the other hand, other
Canadians wonder if McDonald is indeed on to something. In 2006, according
to pollster Ipsos Reid, 64 per cent of weekly Protestant churchgoers
— most of them evangelicals — opted for the Conservatives,
a 24 per cent jump from the previous election. The Centre for Research
on Canadian Evangelicalism acknowledges a “disproportionate preference”
for conservative parties among their members, yet they attribute this
trend more to Liberal alienation of evangelical voters than the power
of the religious right.
Whatever your read on these
issues, Catholics might see another volume waiting to be written: illuminating
the links as well as the differences between Catholics and Evangelicals.
McDonald’s book tries
to have it both ways: she argues that the religious right in Canada
is less influential than in the US because Canada has a larger Catholic
population. Yet she also mentions the growing and intentional links
that are building between conservative Catholics and Evangelicals on
“family values issues” such as same-sex marriage, euthanasia
and abortion.
Voting patterns do not seem
too dissimilar. The 2006 federal election also marked a milestone in
Catholic voting: for the first time since polling was done, a majority
of the most devout Catholics shifted their allegiance from the Liberals
to the Conservatives.
Religious belief and values
cannot be shoved to the margins of public life. Citizens for Public
Justice believes that “if religion is understood to be one’s
ultimate commitment or life orientation, then it cannot be confined
to private life, particular rituals or institutions.”
But an archbishop once reminded
me how priests in Quebec would preach from the pulpit on the Sunday
before an election. “Le ciel est bleu, l’enfer est rouge.”
If heaven was blue and hell was red, a good Catholic could never vote
for the red party. Just look at the fallout from that practice in Quebec
today!
The real issue is how people
of faith can and should positively contribute to “a hopeful citizenship.”
And a particular political party, even a conservative one, cannot be
the only home for Christians.
Gunn is the Ottawa-based executive director of Citizens for Public Justice, www.cpj.ca, an ecumenical social advocacy organization.
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