Conferences and Networks

Bringing in the chiefs

John Baglow 2010.  Used by permission. All rights reserved

McDonald’s recent book on the relationship between the Religious Right and the Harper government, The Armageddon Factor, may have been unclear on finer points of theology, and it contained a small handful of solecisms over which the Usual Suspects snorted and slobbered. But in general it was a competent dissection of the influence that certain elements of the “faith community” would like to have on governance, and a government (Stephen Harper, that is) that has provided them with unprecedented space—while falling far short of attempting to turn Canada into the Republic of Gilead.

But at least one significant omission should be rectified: the attempts of the government to work with reactionary religious elements amongst the First Nations.

Relations between the Harper administration and First Nations have been fraught almost from the beginning. From attempting to foist Maurice “Starlight Tours” Vellacott upon the Aboriginal Affairs Committee, to its shameful rejectionof the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples ; from its refusal for years to build a children’s school in Attawapiskat to its appointment of Chuck Strahl as Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs, whose visceral contempt for the First Nations is a matter of public record. (Chuck has now moved on to become Minister of Transport.)

As for Harper’s much-vaunted “apology” to residential school survivors, he followed that bit of self-serving puffery with deep slashes in funding to aboriginal groups:

But with apology and self-congratulations still echoing, his government cut off funding in its March 2010, budget to the very aboriginal groups set up to administer to survivors. The Ottawa-based Aboriginal Healing Centre loses its last federal money — and with it, some 147 national centres and projects — in 2012.

This past June, however, I watched that same Chuck Strahl receive high honours, in person, from a gathering of First Nations people in Ottawa (actually, outnumbered in the audience by those of the European persuasion). But this was no ordinary meeting. Strategically organized to take place a week before the hapless, hobbled Truth and Reconciliation Commission was due to hold its first hearings in Winnipeg, the National Forgiven Summit, organized by Canada’s Aboriginal Religious Right, gathered to accept Harper’s empty apology.

The master of ceremonies was one Kenny Blacksmith, a former Deputy Grand Chief of the Cree nation, already rewarded earlier this year for his devotion to the Conservative cause by being appointed to the little-known Canadian Race Relations Foundation.

Kenny is a protégé of the noted young Christian Dominionist Faytene Kryskow, who featured heavily in MacDonald’s book. Indeed, she helped him set up his more recent Facebook page.

He is devout and pentacostal—not that there’s anything wrong with that. But the subversive wedding of his beliefs with the aims of our government (the Ottawa meeting featured a video clip from Harper on a big screen, and various Conservative notables were in the VIP section) is something else again, particularly given the harm that this government has visited upon First Nations people.

Now, what is wrong with this picture? A group claiming to speak for Aboriginal people, making close links with a government that, despite a so-called apology for the shameful legacy of residential schools, has thwarted them at every turn, even balking at building a school for kids, while providing major funding for a Christian private college, and a Christian youth center in Vic Toews’ riding? NDP MP Pat Martin’s riding, over his objections, after the vigorous intervention of Vic Toews?

The only thing the government and Blacksmith have in common, it seems, is Jesus. But one wonders whether the Latter would approve of these goings-on. Does Blacksmith work for his people, or for the government?

Jesus said, “A person cannot mount two horses or bend two bows. And a slave cannot serve two masters, otherwise that slave will honor the one and offend the other.” (Thom 47:1-2)

And is he building unity or dividing his people?

“These 6 things doth the Lord hate . . . a proud look, a lying tongue . . . and he that soweth discord among brethren.” (Prov. 6:16-19).

So much for the chant of Kenny Blacksmith, a biddable man who reminds me a bit of Prufrock in T.S. Eliot’s eponymous poem:

[O]ne that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse…

So far, I suspect, little real damage has been done–Blacksmith and his following are just more people waiting in the wings, along with the other folks described in McDonald’s exposé. But a Harper majority could change everything.

We might recall that the current government is not the first to play this game. The Lubicon Cree, still desperately trying to settle a land-claim, their ancestral lands progressivelydespoiled, their population ridden with tuberculosis, suffered grievously under the Liberals. And one tactic used by Jean Chrétien, was to invent two Indian bands out of thin air, hoping to lure away Lubicon members. The people of one fake band, the “Woodland Cree,” were promised $1000 each if they voted for a federal offer of a pitifully inadequate reserve. They later found out that this would be deducted from their welfare payments.

But the deliberate courting of an idiosyncratic Indian leader as though he actually spoke for First Nations as a whole marks a new and dangerous political departure. The Assembly of First Nations, unsurprisingly, is none too happy with this initiative: “Forgiveness,” said AFN president Shawn Atleo, “is an individual choice and a personal decision. No one can forgive on someone else’s behalf.”

Precisely. But this government will take what forgiveness it can get. All that’s missing is repentance.

Dawg’s Blog
Dammit Janet

At the 49' Parallel

Karl Rove, Grant Jeffrey Headlined Summit Hosted By CUFI Canada Co-Chair

Rachel  Tabachnick  July 2010. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

This summit took place on June 25 -27 and is old news, but since it failed to make it into U.S. media, I think it is worth noting. Also, the blurring of the lines between end times prophecy and foreign policy will continue with the CUFI Summit in Washington D.C.  on July 20 -22.  This follows Hagee’s release of his new book Can America Survive:  Ten Prophetic Signs That We Are The Terminal Generation,” which includes the graphic description of the end of Judaism and the forced conversion of the state of Israel. Nevertheless, Jewish politicians (Democratic and Republican), Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren, and other Jewish leaders will speak at the event.

Grant Jeffrey is author of Shadow Government, How the Global Elite Plan to Destroy your Democracy and Freedom, also made into a “documentary” film by Cloud Ten Pictures in Ontario, the producers of the Left Behind movie series and John Hagee’sVanished: In the Twinkling of an Eye. I’ve written previously about Cloud Ten Pictures and Hagee’s portrayals of the Antichrist as the head of the European Union inVanished and other media.

Jeffrey is also one of the featured speakers on God TV’s series “Apocalypse and the End Times.”  Link to trailers for the series including interviews with David Ray Griffin, Mike Bickle, Paul McGuire, Tim LaHaye, Gary Kah, Mark Hitchcock, and Larry Bates.

Marci McDonald, author of Armageddon: The Rise of Christian Nationalism in Canada (published 2010), wrote the following in a Canadian magazine article in 2006 titled “Stephen Harper and the Theo-Cons:”

“McVety’s ideological muscle-flexing has provoked charges that he’s financed by the US Christian right. ‘We haven’t seen one American greenback,’ he retorts. Still, his critics could be forgiven for leaping to conclusions. Canada Christian College houses nearly two dozen evangelical tenants, including Oral Roberts Ministries, and just down the hall from McVety’s own office he runs John Hagee’s Canadian command post, dispensing books and DVDs that he claims brings in $1 million a year.”

McDonald continues,

“Then last December, still smarting from their failure to stop Bill C-38 [Civil Marriage Act], McVety and Ben-Ami [Joseph Ben-Ami] launched the Institute for Canadian Values with a gala dinner tutorial from Ralph Reed, the boyish tactical wizard behind Pat Robertson’s Christian Coalition, which succeeded Falwell’s Moral Majority and helped mobilize the South for Bush.”
- Walrus Magazine, 2006

Karl Rove’s speech at the “Faith and Business” summit is not available, but he did provide a separate interview with the press and one Toronto reporter described him as “confidently declaring the Democrats would soon suffer a ‘whupping.’” Afterwards, Rove wrote an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal titled “Obama and the Fiscal ‘Road to Hell.’” However, there was no mention of the end times prophecy aspects of this road to hell.

The ongoing blurring of the line between policy and end times prophecy will continue this week as John Hagee hosts his CUFI Summit in Washington D.C. on July 20 -22. Hagee’s latest book Can America Survive: Ten Prophetic Signs That We Are The Terminal Generation was released at the end of June and soared up to #2 on the Wall Street Journal’s “Best Selling Books” in the non-fiction category. As in other books, Hagee describes current events through the prism of end times prophecy and claims that the end of the natural world is imminent. The ultimate purpose of all this end times horror and bloodshed, including the death of one third of the world’s population, is to convince Jews to accept Jesus.

“There is comfort and consolation in Ezekiel’s prophetic portrait of the world tomorrow. The message is that God is in total control of what appears to be a hopeless situation for Israel. He has deliberately dragged these anti-Semitic nations into Israel to crush them so that the Jews of Israel and the nations of the world will know that He is the Lord and there is no other. America and Europe will not save Israel… God will!”
(Page 146)

This is Hagee’s description of the end of today’s world as we know it and the horrific events that will force the surviving Jews of the world to repent of Judaism. This forced conversion of Israel is the trigger which begins the glorious 1000 year Christian Millennium. In the chapter titled “Armageddon: The Final Battle for Planet Earth” there is a subsection titled “The Jewish People Turn to God.” This is slightly veiled code language for rejecting Judaism and accepting Jesus as messiah.
“Note carefully that the Jewish people at this point in time do not recognize Jesus as the Messiah. The Bible is very clear that this will happen at the end of the Tribulation, when the Jewish people…
“will look on Me whom they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for his firstborn.”
-Zechariah 12:10

That is the day, the Scripture declares, when ‘all Israel will be saved.’ (Romans 11:26)
Because of this colossal battle on the soil of Israel, the Jewish people will abandon their disastrous relationship with the Antichrist and begin turning toward the Most High God.”
(page 243)

Of course, as Hagee has pointed out in other books, such as Jerusalem Countdown, “all Israel” does not mean all Jews!  In this chapter Hagee again states that the Antichrist will be the leader of the European Union, a claim like many others in his media, that undoubtedly impact his audiences views of current world events.

Undeterred by Hagee’s continued international promotion of a graphic narrative of the end of Judaism and the forced conversion of Israel, a  number of Jewish politicians and leaders will speak at  the CUFI Summit including: Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren; Rep. Shelley Berkley(D-Nev.);  Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA);  Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations; and Mortimer Zuckerman, Editor-in Chief of U.S. News and World Report and publisher of the New York Daily News.

I wonder if any of these Jewish leaders have read Hagee’s latest book? If you are represented by, or have access to, one of these Jewish leaders, you might want to ask them.

Talk2Action

Uncategorized

Timothy Bloedow’s Christian Government website becomes Christian Governance

Timothy Bloedow, legislative assistant to Reform-Conservative MP Maurice Vellacott,  former director of Equipping Evangelicals for the Public Square and former Christian Heritage Party of Canada candidate is ramping up his political activism “for promoting explicitly Christian culture and governance.”

In May Bleodow changed his website Christian Government to Christian Governance:

ChristianGovernance is pursuing a two-fold purpose: 1) interfacing with, and contributing to, Canada’s public policy process with initial focus on Ontario and federal governance, and 2) educating, mentoring and motivating Christian youth and adults to be engaged Christianly in Canada’s public life, applying their gifts, harnessing their strengths, and using their spheres of influence to reclaim Canada for Christ.

ChristianGovernance will monitor federal and Ontario public policy activity, including Parliamentary and Legislative Committee schedules in order to find opportunities to contribute policy papers and witness testimony on important legislation and regulations. We will distribute our policy documents to political science professors across the country. We will educate our politicians on the Christian history and philosophy that produced Canada. We will urge our civil magistrates to acknowledge the sovereignty of God and the Lordship of Christ to this nation. Is this a utopian dream? The Throne Speech prepared by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and read by the Governor-General on March 3, 2010 closed as follows: “As you set about this vital work, I pray that Divine Providence guide you in your deliberations.” Still carved into the ornate woodwork over the doorways in the Shadow Cabinet room are the words, “Fear God” and “Honour the King” from I Peter 2:17. The words are still there despite the secularist spirit that dominates Canada’s public square, now we just need men’s hearts to conform to them.

ChristianGovernance will educate people about what a Christian social order looks like, and how we might achieve one in Canada. Much of this will take place through a dynamic website with written, audio and video content, through the continued publishing of books, curriculum, and timely articles providing important news and analysis, and through conferences and a rigorous speaking schedule wherever we have opportunity to share our message. We will work hard to gain the attention of the mainstream media and be part of important stories about Canadian culture and public policy. We will do this by addressing current events in a timely fashion with a genuine Biblical perspective that will likely otherwise be missing from public debates.

Who is blogging?

unrepentant old hippie Christian Government: now with 44% less theocracy
Pushed to the left and loving it My Apologies to Timothy Bloedow, But I do not Hate Christians

Uncategorized

Demographic winter and the religious right

Dennis Gruending 2010. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Recently I received an email message urging me to read and then pass it along if I want to save Western civilization. The subject line said: Joys of A Muslim Woman: A MUST READ. Actually, it was not about joy at all but was an alarmist rant against Muslims. It was also an example of a recent fetish about “demographic winter”, which has become a favourite preoccupation with the religious right in the United States and to some extent in Canada. The message that I received provides material drawn from an author named Nonie Darwish.  She is of Egyptian heritage and her father was a senior officer in the Egyptian army until the Israelis killed him in 1956. Nonie moved to the U.S. in 1978 and became an evangelical Christian. She has written several books and has become prominent on the right wing lecture circuit and media. She is also founder of a group called Arabs For Israel and director of another called Former Muslims United.

One of Darwish’s books is called Cruel and Unusual Punishment:The Terrifying Global Implications of Islamic Law. Her American publisher describes it as “a wake up call to the Western world.” The book blurb continues as follows: “Nonie Darwish presents an insider’s look at sharia and examines how radical Muslim laws are destroying the Western world from within . . . Heed this warning: sharia law is attempting to infiltrate Western culture and destroy democracy.” The viral message I received contained much the same admonition.

Darwish critique

I am not a fan of sharia law and believe, for example, that the Ontario government was wise to refuse suggestions that it be used in that province. But what Darwish is saying – or at the least what is being attributed to her — is boilerplate hysteria and has no place in civilized discourse. Religious extremism is an ugly thing but it comes in all flavours — Muslim, Sikh, Christian, Jewish and Hindu. The vast majority of religious adherents are not jihadists or Christian warriors but rather people who want to live peacefully with their neighbours.

Jim Holstun, an American professor, wrote a critique of Darwish’s work in 2008, after she had published a book called Now They Call Me Infidel. Holstun says that for Darwish there are no real distinctions between moderate or radical Muslims, and no significant differences within or between Arab and Muslim cultures. If that is what Darwish is saying, it would come as news to the approximately 60 people of good will – Muslm and Christian — with whom I attended a 12-week course at the Ottawa School of Theology and Spirituality in 2009 called Islam: A Deeper Look.

Muslims in Canada

The viral message that I received ends with the following invocation: “In twenty years there will be enough Muslim voters in CANADA to elect the PRIME MINISTER!  I think everyone should be required to read this, but with the ACLU, there is no way this will be widely publicized, unless each of us sends it on!”

The ACLU, of course, is the American Civil Liberties Union, indicating that this message is American in its origin and focus with a bit of Canadian content added on at the end. Interestingly, the name attached to the message is that of a Canadian academic in British Columbia. I have attempted to contact her but have been unable to do so. I want to know if she is actually distributing this message or if someone is playing a nasty trick on her because a variety of right wing websites are circulating the message over her name.

Demographic winter

The comments about there being enough Muslims in Canada in twenty years to elect the prime minister play on the theme of demographic winter. It is an idea much in vogue with the American political and religious right and it turns a long-standing concern about world overpopulation on its head. The problem, according to the new logic, is that a falling birth rate will have what one speaker called “catastrophic” consequences. The narrative usually reads that Western (read white) populations are not having enough babies to replace themselves, and that we will one day (soon) be swamped by immigrants from other races who will come to dominate our societies.

American blogger Bill Berkowitz, a liberal, wrote about demographic winter recently on a blog called The Smirking Chimp. “For many conservatives,” he says, “demographic winter — or ‘birth dearth’ as it is sometimes called — is the ultimate culture war battle, rooted in the rise of feminism, legalized abortion, the acceptance of homosexuality, illegal immigration, and the growth of minority populations. All of this is supposedly the result of a multi-decade campaign by liberals to undermine ‘natural law’ and the ‘natural’ family.”

One right wing website asks this rhetorical question: “Why is global white population declining and not the other groups? Does this have anything to do with the legal recognition of same-sex couples world wide among predominantly white nations in modern history, besides general reluctance to have babies?”

A vast conspiracy

The campaign around demographic winter allows the right to roll all of its straw persons into one vast conspiracy. Muslims, Arabs, immigrants, not to mention Western liberals, feminists and supporters of same sex marriage are all plotting to undermine Western civilization. The alarmists have created an intellectual frame, what one writer calls a “mainstream media shorthand”, to explain disparate events: Muslim veil debates in France (and Quebec); controversies over the construction of mosques in Switzerland (or Alberta); a reduced birthrate in affluent Western countries and a higher one in poorer countries; the closing of empty downtown churches in Europe (and Canada); debates over same sex marriage, even contraception and reproductive choice. One might ask, as a matter of Canadian interest, how the Conservative government’s maternal health policy aimed at helping mothers in poor countries but refusing to fund legal abortion, fits into this frame.

Since 2001, movies, books articles and seminars too numerous to mention have played to the themes of demographic winter and often to an anti-Muslim sentiment. While Europe Slept by Bruce Bawler is one such book. Pat Buchanan’s Death of the West is another. For Canadian content, there is the novel by Patrick Grady called Royal Canadian Jihad. There is also a documentary calledDemographic Winter: The Decline of the Human Family. A seminar held in Washington in June, and sponsored by the Family Research Council dealt with the same theme. The Council is an offshoot of the organization Focus on the Family, which is also present in Canada.

These groups and individuals are also hyperactive on the web. Do a search for the term demographic winter and you will find no end of alarmist sites touting the same dire warnings. On the other hand, there is very little web material that offers a critique of dystopian and chaotic world described by the alarmists. Where are the progressives?

Scary indeed

The introduction to the email message that I received was very direct: “This is scary and you must read it carefully . . .please take your time and understand what it is telling you . . . Let us not become victims. Let us fight and keep our country or we will not have life as we know it for ourselves, our children or our grand children.”

Scary, indeed, that people are wasting their time, and ours, spreading fear and hatred rather than understanding and tolerance.

Pulpit and Politics

At the 49' Parallel

G20: Rapture Outreach Tourism

By Alison. Dawg’s blog. 2010. Used by permission. All rights reserved
Kady snagged this pic of the Inscribe the Bible.ca bus on Friday. It was parked outside Charles McVety’s Canada Christian College for the Karl Rove mini-G20 Faith and Business speech – which was all about giving the US Dems a “whupping” apparently.

Inscribe the Bible Canada is sponsored by B’nai Brith Canada andChristians United For Israel, founded by Texas millionaire televangelist Pastor John Hagee. John Hagee Ministries rents office space from McVety at Canada Christian College, and McVety in turn is chair of CUFI Canada. B’nai Brith VP Frank Dimant chairs a department on Israel at McVety’s college, and his appointment to that position was attended by Jason Kenney.

McVety, Hagee, and Dimant have all shared the podium at CUFI bunfests. End times are cozy times.

“The Bible and Peace House will be the jewel in the crown of Bible Valley. The Bible Valley Project intends to develop an area of 25,000 acres adjacent to Jerusalem.

The Bible Valley Project will be composed of several sub-projects.
Foremost will be the handwriting of 100 copies of the Bible in various languages by two million Bible lovers from around the world. This will be done in cooperation with the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The Bible House is one of the elements in Bible Valley dedicated to bringing the Bible back to Israeli society and Israeli society back to the Bible.”

Bring Israeli society back to the Bible? Develop 25,000 acres adjacent to Jerusalem to look like biblical times? Rapture outreach tourism?

Take it away, Max …

Rapture Ready: The Unauthorized Christians United for Israel Tour from huffpost on Vimeo.

Next CUFI Show in Washington DC in a month.

Alison also blogs at Creekside
Dawg’s Blog
Chris Selley: Rove sees ‘whupping’ in the offing
Joe Connor: G20: Is god at the summit?
Scott Dagastino: “Strange bedfellows in the Israeli apartheid debate

Conferences and Networks

News Digest June 18, 2010

A week after Pentecostals and Charismatics held a  First Nations ‘Forgiven‘ event in Ottawa, it’s like it never happened.
The site, blogs and twitter have been silent. There is no word participants are working with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Kenny Blacksmith of Gathering Nations International and star of the Ottawa event was appointed to the  Canadian Race Relations Foundation (Citizenship & Immigration Canada) prior to his Ottawa weekend show which was heavily promoted by The Miracle Channel and 100 Huntley Street.

A group of religious right lawyers in Canada who received their charitable status in 2007 for their Faith and Freedom Alliance believe religion freedom is under attack. The group aligns with Focus on the Family Canada, REAL Women of Canada, The Christian Legal Fellowship, Catholic Civil Rights League and the Canadian Council of Christian Charities.
Good background here. John Carpay of the Canadian Constitution Foundation was a featured speaker at the Alliances 2010 Christian Legal Intervention Academy held the the first weekend in June in Toronto.

There is a good post on Quebecors ‘Fox News North’ centred around the Sun media chain by Rev. Paperboy. Great line. “Goodbye reasonable discourse, nice knowing you.”  Because it has done such great things for American Politics

Books

The Armageddon Factor and its critics

Dennis Gruending. 2010. Used by permission. All rights reserved

I wrote in a recent post about Marci McDonald’s book The Armageddon Factor, which traces the growing political influence of Canada’s religious right. McDonald has clearly struck a nerve – two bodyguards accompanied her at a recent Calgary event to promote her book. Reviews and interviews with her (and her critics) have been everywhere since the book was released in mid-May. On the week ending June 5th, The Armageddon Factor was ranked second on The Globe and Mail’s list of hardcover sales among Canadian titles. McDonald and her work have also been the object of close attention among reviewers, Op Ed writers and bloggers. Let’s look at some of the comments.

Charge from the right

The charge from the right was led by the National Post and featured some of its regular polemicists. They included the ubiquitous Ezra Levant, who in his subtle and gracious way described McDonald as a “bigot” against Christians, Jews and Sikhs. On his blog he called her a “Christian hater” and described her as  “bigoted, sloppy, error-prone, smug.” On his Twitter feed, Levant said this: “Watching Marci McDonald on TV. What a hateful bigot. If she spoke this way about Jews, she’d be run out of town as an anti-Semite.” Levant and some others throw this latter accusation rather casually these days.

Levant points to a list of factual errors in the book and suggests that may have occurred because McDonald “spent her career in Washington, D.C.” and is out of touch with Canadian political reality. McDonald indicates that she worked as a journalist in the U.S. beginning in 1984 and that she returned to Canada in 2002. For a good deal of that time she was bureau chief for Maclean’s magazine in Washington.

David Frum has spent most of his adult life studying and working in the U.S., but that does not appear to disqualify him from commenting regularly on matters Canadian in the National Post. He also weighed in on McDonald’s book, describing it as “weirdly clueless” and McDonald as “breathless” in her description of “a sinister conspiracy by militant evangelicals to reach into the very centre of Canadian government.” But what appears to bother Frum most is McDonald’s contention that the Harper government has taken pro-Israel policy positions at least partly in order to reward a supportive coalition of religious conservatives. Frum concludes: “It’s hard to avoid the suspicion that McDonald’s real grievance against the Harper government is not that it is too pro-Christian, but that it is insufficiently anti-Jewish.”

Gerry Nicholls, who worked with Harper at the National Citizens’ Coalition, also attacks McDonald in the National Post, describing her book as “great propaganda,” and “pure and utter nonsense.” He makes the following claim: “For one thing, Harper is by no means an Evangelical Christian; he’s not even a social conservative.” This would come as news to Lloyd Mackey, a Parliamentary Press Gallery reporter who has filed for religious publications for years. In 2005, Mackey published a book calledThe Pilgrimage of Stephen Harper, in which he described Harper’s religious faith and his gradual move from mainline Protestantism to his becoming a member of the Christian and Missionary Alliance.

In the Saskatchewan farm country where I was raised, people used to say that if you throw a stick into the bush and hear a yelp that means you have hit something. In this case, McDonald obviously has hit something at the National Post. In their exaggerated personal attacks and their fevered rush to discredit and destroy, these writers undermine whatever credibility their critiques may otherwise have had.

Thoughtful critics

There are critics of McDonald’s book who are more thoughtful and plausible than those mentioned above. Paul Wells, who writes for McLean’s as McDonald once did, describes the genesis of her book. “In 2006, she wrote a long article for The Walrus,” Wells writes. “In it, she took an obvious and interesting fact — the Harper government pays a lot of attention to the concerns of evangelical Christians — and turned it into a risible fantasy: the Harper government is a plaything of wild-eyed end-timers who would transform Canada into a soul-saving factory in anticipation of the Rapture. The Armageddon Factor is the book-length version of that article…” Despite his criticisms, however, Wells accepts as fact McDonald’s claim that the religious right has influence with the Harper government, but believes she overstates it.

John G. Stackhouse, Jr., a professor of theology and culture at Regent College in Vancouver, provides a detailed three-part critique of The Armageddon Factor on his blog. He faults McDonald for “frequently [failing] to pass even minimal journalistic standards,” and says that her conclusions are largely mistaken. He claims, for example, that she confuses “a generic concern to influence Canada according to Christian principles with the extremist agenda of establishing a theocracy that would stone homosexuals.”

He writes, “Ms. McDonald uses weird literary camerawork to zoom in on people she admits are on the fringes of evangelicalism only to widen out to include other evangelicals, Roman Catholics, ‘conservative Christians’ and even Jews as if they’re all connected. But where are the basic definitions we need? What is fundamentalism or evangelicalism or Pentecostalism or charismatic Christianity? What is a ‘Christian Right’ or a ‘Religious Right’ versus simply orthodox Christianity or politically conservative religious people? Ms. McDonald never defines any of these key terms  . . . so we literally don’t know what she’s talking about.”

Despite his criticisms, Stackhouse sees an inherent value in what McDonald has produced.  “Ms. McDonald, despite her evident trouble understanding quite what she’s looking at, has nonetheless found something to which the rest of us ought to pay attention. There are, it appears, people in Canadian public life and in the federal government in particular whose views and associations ought to trouble not just the Marci McDonalds but even card-carrying, bona fide evangelicals like me.”

Reporting on faith and politics

Few academics in Canada have shown much interest over the years in exploring the interface between faith and public life and most journalists are unequipped to report knowledgeably on these connections. The topic was clearly not an easy one for McDonald to master either but she has rendered us a great service. There is a religious right in Canada, it has political influence and we should be reporting on this development. I would observe that there is a religious left too, whose flame burns only weakly these days, and we should report on it as well.

Pulpit and Politics

Uncategorized

Jason Kenney and Absolute Truths

“Jesus talked about faith as the leaven that raises up the whole loaf; the light from the mountain that illuminates the valley below … a treasure that one discovers through constant searching; a gift from a God who invites all especially the poor and sinners to a banquet of rich foods and fine wines. This is the faith to which we witness. Jesus, in our tradition, found this faith more deeply rooted in the hearts of sinners , prostitutes, tax collectors, and shepherds than in hearts of the religious and the self-righteous. He encouraged us not to separate wheat from chaff, but to take care of the fields entrusted to our care and leave judgments to God.” Jesuit Fr. Stephen A. Privett

In 2000, Jason Kenney was invited to speak at his Alma Mater, the University of San Francisco, to a group of young Republicans. What he told them when asked about his success in persuading others to his side was: “I did not persuade them, the truth did. I used the political strategy I gained at USF when I campaigned for student government. I took the truth and I built a pluralistic coalition around it.” (1)

The “truth” for him was the orthodoxy of the Catholic church. Normally when writing about a public figure you factor in all of their life experiences, that led them to who they were. But in the case of fundamentalists or those who follow an orthodox form of religion, there is only one place to draw from. And despite all of his life experiences, everything that now shapes Jason Kenney’s thinking can be found at St. Ignatius in the mid to late 1980′s. It was there that he found his “truth”.

He has said on numerous occasions that he was “converted” while there, which I found a little puzzling. After all, Kenney’s father was the president of a Catholic college, the same college that Jason graduated from. Was he not Catholic then?

However, what I’ve discovered is that his conversion may have actually been to the “church”, the absolute “truth”, as espoused by three controversial theologians: Rev. Joseph Fessio, the founder of the school; Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, the influence for the school, and Fr. Cornelius M. Buckley, whose liturgies based on Catholic orthodoxy, were said to have inspired a “cult like” following.

In 1987, when Jason Kenney abruptly left his studies, both Fessio and Buckley had been fired from their positions at the university, not only for their refusal to conform to the modern teachings of the church, but because they were constantly locking horns with the Jesuit hierarchy, and encouraging their students to do the same.

One graduate from St. Ignatius puts it this way:

I began my undergraduate life in 1980 at University of San Francisco. While there, I witnessed a virtual war between orthodox Jesuits and Jesuits of a different stripe. Jesuits who I regarded as good and holy men, were silenced when they didn’t toe the Jesuit party line. Fr. Cornelius Buckley, S.J., a professor of history, was silenced and sent to work at a small hospital in Duarte, California, where he remained for many years, obedient to his order, even though many in his order are flagrantly disobedient.

The St. Ignatius Institute, under the guidance of Fr. Joseph Fessio, S.J., operated a classical Catholic curriculum within the larger confines of the university and it attracted many students … It took the Jesuits over twenty years to shut the Institute down, which they finally did a few years ago by firing its director and hiring new professors who would teach the “new” theology. The Institute now exists in name only. It doesn’t teach the same things … Both Fr. Fessio and Fr. Buckley are two orthodox priests, who when they objected to much of what was going on on campus, did not endear themselves to their fellow Jesuits. (2)

One of the things that they objected strenuously to, was the acceptance of homosexuality.

Our ‘Greatest Canadian’ Tommy Douglas, when studying to become a pastor, told a story of how a straight laced preacher had visited his home and how his mother was mortified, when his father offered the teetotaller a beer. He decided on that day that if he was going to be a minister, he would be “one who would accept a glass of beer at a parishioner’s home, who would accept his parishioners as he found them and would strive to be one of them.” (3)

In the testimonial of the St. Ignatius graduate above, he states that “It took the Jesuits over twenty years to shut the Institute down, which they finally did a few years ago by firing its director and hiring new professors who would teach the “new” theology.” This purge was accomplished by Fr. Stephen A. Privett, who in the opening quote says that “Jesus, in our tradition, found this faith more deeply rooted in the hearts of sinners , prostitutes, tax collectors, and shepherds than in hearts of the religious and the self-righteous. He encouraged us not to separate wheat from chaff, but to take care of the fields entrusted to our care and leave judgments to God.” (4)

Privett understood what Douglas understood. You take care of what was entrusted to you and leave the judgements to God. By sharing a glass of beer or reaching out to the gay community, even if you personally disapproved of such things, you reached the hearts of “sinners”.

Since Marci McDonald’s The Armageddon Factor* hit the shelves, there are many defending the enormous power of the Religious Right on the Harper government, by stating that Tommy Douglas also promoted what have been referred to as “Christian values”. But there is a vast difference.

Several years ago, in an interview, Douglas was asked: It has been suggested that you emphasize religion in politics in the manner of Aberhart and Manning. As I recall, you set yourself firmly against doing this, did you not?  To which he responded:

“Yes. I’ve always been strongly opposed to using religion as a gimmick for gaining political support. I believe in applying Christian principles to politics and to government. But I think one must remember that in a political party there are people of all religious beliefs, just as in every church there are people of different political points of view.” (5)

Because this movement does not reach out to “sinners”, but passes judgement, something that should be left to their god.

I’m not a religious person, but I’m not an atheist either. I believe that everyone has a right to their own beliefs, so long as they don’t try to “force” them on others. And I don’t think that homosexuality is a “sin”, or that you need to be a Christian to have “values”.

When Jason Kenney excluded gay rights from our citizenship guide, it was not an oversight. It was part of his “pluralistic coalition”: that he had built around his “truth”.

When he was attending St. Ignatius, “… he made headlines in California trying to ban abortion groups from the university and fighting against gay rights in San Francisco.” (6) In fact, “Jason was a leader of a group of students that sued USF for false representation. USF claimed to be Catholic yet failed to espouse the teachings of the Catholic Church. Kenney, who converted while at USF, was able to see the contradiction. USF began to fund campus organizations, which undermined the teachings of the Catholic Church.” (1)

Jason Kenney went to enormous lengths to oppose abortion and homosexuality, even suing a university. He told the Western Catholic Reporter in 2003 that he felt that “Political activity is “a necessary form of charity in the promotion of the Gospel“.” (6) Or more precisely from the Young Republicans:

Kenney was initially opposed to the life of politics, believing that morality and politics are mutually exclusive. His life was changed when he read the Holy Father’s encyclical, Evangelicum Vitae. Seeing that the Holy Father’s notion of politics was a form of charity changed Kenney’s perspective. “I felt compelled to enter politics as a vocation. I was called to politics, not qua politics, but as a form of charity as a promotion of the message of the Gospel of life”. (1)

Footnotes:

*The Armageddon Factor: The Rise of Christian Nationalism in Canada, By: Marci McDonald, Random House Canada, 2010, ISBN: 978-0-307-35646-8

Sources:

1. A Mix of Morality and Politics, USF Grad Shakes Up Canadian Political Scene, By Rich Kunz, San Francisco Faith, June 2000

2. Why I No Longer Support the Jesuits, by American Phoenix, July 13, 2006

3. Tommy Douglas: Building the New Society, By Dave Margoshes, XYZ Publishing, 1999, ISBN: 0-9683601-4-9

4. Response by Stephen A. Privett, S.J., President of the University of San Francisco, to the charges made on the website of Friends of the St. Ignatius Institute, February 8, 2001

5. The Making of a Socialist: The Recollections of T.C. Douglas, Edited By Lewis H. Thomas, The University of Alberta Press, 1982, ISBN: 0-88864-070-7, Pg. 82

6. Promote human dignity - Kenney: Politician says faith and politics do mix, By Ramon Gonzalezwcr, Western Catholic Reporter, June 2, 2003

Books

Tom Warner Losing Control: Canada’s Social Conservatives in the Age of Rights

Marci McDonald is not the only journalist who has noticed and written about the Canadian religious right this year. Author Tom Warner who is published by Between the Lines has come out with Losing Control: Canada’s Social Conservatives in the Ages of Rights .

Losing Control takes a hard, critical look at Canada’s social conservative (religiousright) movement and its efforts to re-establish Canada as a nation predicated on the supremacy of God. It explores the nature of social conservatism’s holy war on homosexuality and its promotion of family values and traditional marriage. It delves into the movement’s efforts to secure more morality-based state regulation of sexuality and reproduction. For social conservatives, the ideal Canada would be a place where there would be no separation of church and state, or of faith and politics.

Losing Control dissects the movement’s campaigns to eradicate secularism and “moral relativism” as defining features of contemporary Canadian governance and raises disturbing questions about the enormous political influence of the movement on Canada’s political parties—in particular, the Conservative Party government of Stephen Harper.

Tom Warner has been a gay activist for over thirty-five years. He got started in 1971 by helping to found the Gay Students’ Alliance at the University of Saskatchewan and, in 1971–1972, the Zodiac Friendship Society, which later became the Gay Community Centre of Saskatoon. After moving to Toronto in 1973, he helped to found the Gay Alliance Toward Equality and served as the group’s president from 1976 to 1977. Tom is the author of the widely acclaimed Never Going Back: A History of Queer Activism in Canada.

If you have questions for the author, please add them to the comment section and we’ll ask  if Mr. Warner will stop by to answer.

News and Roundups

Charles McVety and G-20.ca

Taxpayers are forking out 1 billion dollars to contain poltiicans during the G-8 and G-20 summits and The Conservative Party of Canada get’s cyber-squatted by Canada’s religious right.

Whois:

Domain name: g20.ca
Domain status: EXIST
Domain number: 2550364
Approval date: 2008/11/10
Renewal date: 2010/11/10
Updated date: 2009/11/13

via: Rick Mercer

Update: The Galloping Beaver points out something I missed.

Now tell me. How is it that Charles McVety knew to lock down the G20.ca URL when the rest of us didn’t get the official word that Harper was planning a gazillion dollar photo-op in Canada before December 2009?

Hmmm???

Who is blogging?
Sister Sage’s Musings: Overpriced G20 Summit; In Addition to Closed City of Toronto; Check out the Theocratic Theme!
Pushed to the Left and Loving It: Why is Charles McVety Running the G20 Website?