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

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

“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

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.

The Catholic Register has a piece about Msgr. Fred Dolan, head of Opes Dei Canada. He is shocked that a couple of MP Opes Dei members were ‘outed’. Huh? He says he went to Ottawa as usual to ” to feed the spiritual needs of anyone who wanted to come.” The NDP and Bloq ‘outed’ Opes Dei members? Apparently it’s author Marci McDonald’s fault because she wrote The Armageddon Factor. Opes Dei isn’t mentioned in the book, but why let a detail like that get in the way?

The second piece is in The Globe & Mail, and it is basically reacting to things Marci McDonald didn’t write in her bestseller about Canadian Christian nationalists and political incrementalism. Written by Cardus researcher Ray Pennings, his op-ed gets a a fair bit of discussion from commenters, it’s not worth dealing with here. Religious faith is the civic oxygen of our social ecology

I must admit that I’d never heard of the ‘Work Research Foundation’ and wasn’t quite sure what was meant by a “Christian view of work and public life“. So I perused their site, and though they are now calling themselves Cardus, what I found was a bit alarming, beginning with this:

If you link to their audio section and scroll down to a 2005 recording, you can listen to a lecture series on something they call “spiritual capital.” And just so there’s no mistake, the re-introduction by Michael Van Pelt, clearly states that Cardus is the new name for Work Research Foundation. And  Darrel Reid, Stephen Harper’s deputy chief of staff, went right from there to Harper’s office. From their site:

The third installment of our thINK audio series is here, and our latest WRF product is just in time: spiritual capital is a concept which provides the tread for walking faithfully in a society that gets more secular every day. First, David Sweet introduces, in layman’s terms, the idea of “spiritual capital.” (2)

 For those who don’t know, David Sweet is the MP for Ancaster-Dundas-Flamborough-Westdale, a backbencher in the Harper government. He introduces himself as the Vice-President of Business Development for the group.I listened to all of the speakers and if there was ever a scripted mandate for a theocracy this is it. On his website, Sweet refers to himself as a motivational speaker, and it’s pretty clear after listening to 15 minutes (twice) of his speech, that he is motivating business leaders to create a Christian workplace.

He praises one such leader for printing that his “Purpose was to honour God” on his business cards. Sweet goes on to describe what spiritual capital is, by suggesting that it could be equated to social, physical and human capital, all requirements to maximize profit. “Faith” economics and devoting your business to the “Glory of God”. (when I was roaming I was linked to The Christian Labour Association, that even encourages companies be unionized by Christians)

The next speakers continue along the same vein, and what they describe is a Utopia where a company’s mission statement is reflective of “Christian values”, with a healthy dose of redemption.

They suggest that if a company bases their business on these “Christian values”, it will be a workplace with integrity and little conflict. And rather than discouraging employees from discussing their religious beliefs, they encourage open discussion, even for non-Christians.

It’s not too difficult to see what would take place here. You have a business with a stated Christian hierarchy. You employ non-Christians and then encourage open discussion of religious beliefs. Sounds like proselytizing to me. And what happens if those non-Christians don’t see the light? Will there be accusations of religious harassment, that would be similar to sexual harassment, where an employee is “saved” or risks losing their job?

Darrel Reid once suggested that gay rights are a form of Nazi tyranny. Is there a place for gays in this wonderful, non-conflict workplace?

Templeton Foundation

One of the groups that David Sweet promotes is the Templeton Foundation:

The mission of the Templeton Foundation is: to serve as a philanthropic catalyst for discoveries relating to the Big Questions of human purpose and ultimate reality. We support research on subjects ranging from complexity, evolution, and infinity to creativity, forgiveness, love, and free will. We encourage civil, informed dialogue among scientists, philosophers, and theologians and between such experts and the public at large, for the purposes of definitional clarity and new insights.

One of those ‘Big Questions’ is answered through intelligent design, rather than evolution. The foundation has also been embroiled in controversy, because despite the fact that they claim to be non-partisan, they regularly provide funding to Conservative groups, including Ari Fleischer’s Freedom’s Watch.

They have also garnered “criticism from some members in the scientific community who are concerned with its linking of scientific and religious questions.”

Another speaker mentions that they had just completed a project with the Max De Pree Center, in Pasadena California, where they promote a ‘servant leadership’ program, and recently hosted a seminar on the “Morality of the Market.”

So what does this all mean?

David Sweet and Darrel Reid from the Harper government are both involved with the Work Research Foundation, now Cardus, who are working to ‘Rebuild North America’s social architecture’  by promoting Christian businesses.

Michael Van Pelt, another speaker on the podcast, is a new appointee at Rights and Democracy, which has been embroiled in controversy after their hostile takeover by the Harper government.

Ray Pennings, another speaker, is the chair of Redeemer University College, where the 4th speaker, Gideon Strauss is one of the faculty.

David Sweet hosted a National House of Prayer ‘dessert reception’ there, where the faithful were invited to “Come and hear what God is doing in our Government.” And Redeemer College recently received three million dollars of public money – our money; despite the fact that they are an elite private Bible school.

Welcome to Reconstructionism 101. Leave your souls at the door.

By: Emily Dee

Sources:

1. Wikipedia

2. Spiritual Capital, By Ray Pennings and Michael Van Pelt, CARDUS, July 1, 2005

Strengths and weaknesses

Many of the groups and individuals that McDonald writes about are what she describes as “Christian nationalists”. They are people who want their country governed by Biblical principles, as they define them, and there is little room for diversity, tolerance, secularism or faiths other than their own fevered brand of Christianity. McDonald’s focus in the book is both a strength and a considerable weakness. A strength because it is important that we know just who is bankrolling the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada, or Faytene Kryskow’s youth group, or the openly theocratic group Equipping Christians for the Public Square. The weakness is that McDonald spends much of her time and energy focussing upon people, like the custodian of a creationist museum in Alberta, who appear to be on the fringe. McDonald may well argue that people who were once considered fringe are now accepted as mainstream, but I would have preferred that more attention be paid to groups such as the well-established Evangelical Fellowship of Canada or to members of the Conservative cabinet and caucus.

Still, McDonald is the first writer to have provided us with a baseline study of the religious right in Canada. Perhaps it is for that reason that she is being so roundly attacked in the National Post, that house organ of the right, religious and otherwise. This is a book that should be read by journalists, as well as academics, people in political parties – and people in churches. We should use it as a resource to help us watch carefully what is happening in Parliament, on the airwaves, and in our schools and universities. The religious right is here and it is not going to go away. Further, it is not some alien force wholly transplanted from elsewhere, despite the significant American influence at work. There are members of my extended family that fit the religious right description, some who could even be called Christian nationalists. We must learn to understand these people from the inside out and to engage them. On that score, too, the book comes up a bit short. One has the feeling that McDonald is examining a species that she can describe but does not really understand. Dennis Gruending Pulpit and Politics

And Macleans Magazine:

His case was handled by the Alliance Defense Fund, who challenged the courts, not on freedom of speech, but freedom of religion. They used the protection of religious freedom to justify hatred and exploited a child to do so.

A student at Sheridan Middle School in Thornville won a federal court ruling Thursday allowing him to wear a shirt to school that insults homosexuals, Muslims and abortion-rights supporters.

On Sept. 1, 2004, the first day of school, seventh-grader James Nixon wore a T-shirt that read on the front, “INTOLERANT. Jesus said … I am the way, the truth and the life. John 14:6″. On the back, the T-shirt read, “Homosexuality is a sin! Islam is a lie! Abortion is murder! Some issues are just black and white!” (2)

Marlin Maddoux and the Alliance Defense League

One of the founders of the American Defense League who came to the aid of young James Nixon, was Marlin Maddoux (1993-2004), a pioneer of Christian radio broadcasting.

Newspapers usually describe the ADF, which is based in Scottsdale, Ariz., as a “conservative” group but give little additional information. USA Today even called the ADF “a legal alliance that promotes religious freedom….”

Critics say a description such as that doesn’t even begin to tell the story. Far from supporting religious liberty, the ADF champions the exact opposite: It was formed by a band of television preachers and radio broadcasters to advance the Religious Right’s perspective in the courts.

The ADF, watchdogs at Americans United say, champions a radical agenda to destroy the wall of separation between church and state. It even has close ties to the most extreme faction of the Religious Right–a movement that wants to create a harsh fundamentalist Christian theocracy in America. Since its founding, the ADF has played a role in nearly every church-state case to reach the U.S. Supreme Court and many lower federal courts. Since 1994, the ADF has directly or partially funded cases dealing with government aid to religion, religion in public schools, abortion, gay rights and religiously based censorship. Throughout, the organization’s goal has been the same: merge religion and government. (3)

 Maddoux was also a member of the Council for National Policy, which appear to represent the pro-military arm of the Religious Right. It was at a conference of the CNP, held in Montreal in 1997, where Stephen Harper was invited to deliver a speech tearing down the Canadian identity.

He told this group of ‘muscular’ Christians that: “your country, and particularly your conservative movement, is a light and an inspiration to people in this country and across the world.” (4)

Another founding member of ADL is James Dobson, the man who created Focus on the Family. Dobson provided the seed money for a Canadian branch of Focus, started up by Stephen Harper’s deputy chief of staff, Darrel Reid. He also indirectly poured thousands of dollars into Harper’s election campaign, focusing on the issue of same-sex marriage, which became one of Harper’s election promises (wink, wink).

Dobson is also a founding member of the Council for National Policy with a strong belief in creating an aggressive theocracy in both the United States and Canada.

From the beginning, the ADF was clear about what it wanted to achieve. Its founders announced the group’s formation in 1994 with a huge direct-mail campaign aimed at fundamentalist Christians. Maddoux and five other high-profile Religious Right leaders endorsed the effort: James Dobson, president of Focus on the Family; Bill Bright, president of Campus Crusade for Christ; D. James Kennedy, a television evangelist and head of Coral Ridge Ministries; the Rev. Donald Wildmon, president of the American Family Association; and Larry Burkett, president of Christian Financial Concepts (now Crown Financial Ministries), a fundamentalist-oriented financial services company.

In a letter soliciting donations for the ADF, Dobson wrote, “By pooling resources, substantial amounts of money can be channeled into a critical aspect of the civil war for values—namely, the legal battle in our nation’s courts for the sanctity of life, the defense of religious freedom, and the preservation of traditional family values.” (3)

 And as you can see from their own website, James Dobson is indeed a founding member of the Alliance Defense Fund.

Cindy Silver and the Religious Right

During the 2006 election campaign, when Ralph Reed suggested that the Religious Right in Canada bring forward as many Christian nationalists (extremists, fundamentalists) as possible, one they hand selected to run was Cindy Silver.

Silver was a lawyer with the Christian Legal Fellowship, the Canadian franchise of the Alliance Defense Fund, and one of her most prominent clients was Focus on the Family Canada, then run by Darrel Reid, Stephen Harper’s deputy chief of staff.

She had the endorsement of former Reform Party MP, Sharon Hayes, who is best remembered as the woman who issued a press release on her House of Commons letterhead, that accused the Chinese of eating fetuses, urging Liberal ministers attending the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing to reject

These petitioners request Parliament to affirm the duty of parents to responsibly raise their children according to their own conscience and beliefs and to retain section 43 in Canada’s Criminal Code as it is currently worded.

Cindy Silver shared those views and as part of a letter to the editor wrote:

But what concerned the citizens of North Vancouver-Surrey, where Silver was running, was her views on things like abortion and homosexuality. In 2003 she had appeared before a House of Commons committee, as a private citizen, (not representing her client Focus on the Family), and made the following statement:

No Apologies found the error in The Toronto Star excerpt May 8, 2010

Click here to read what appears to be a lengthy excerpt from Marci McDonald’s book, “The Armageddon Factor: The Rise of Christian Nationalism in Canada,” due to be released Monday. One of the many illustrations of the absurdity of Ms. McDonald’s conspiracy theories is her labeling of the Canadian Constitution Foundation as a “Christian advocacy group.” One of CCF’s leading representatives and in-house lawyers is outspoken atheist libertarian, Karen Selick. How much credibility is Random House Canada going to get for publishing this book?

Book author Marci McDonald responded:

You were right about the mistaken reference to the Canadian Constitution Foundation as a “Christian” advocacy group in the Toronto Star’s excerpt of The Armageddon Factor. The book itself states no such thing and, in fact, describes the foundation as “legal advocacy group,” which has occasionally acted on behalf of Christians such as Stephen Boissoin. The error occurred when the newspaper was editing the text for excerpting and in no way reflects on the accuracy of the book. – Marci McDonald No Apologies comment May 8, 2010 Marci McDonald May 8, 2010

The Canadian Constitution Foundation’s Litigation Director was not convinced and responded:

Marci, that’s not a very convincing explanation. The Star’s reference to the CCF arose in connection with a reference to Shona Holmes, the plaintiff in litigation challenging the Ontario government health care monopoly. Shona’s case has nothing whatsoever to do with Christianity or any other religion, so why would you have mentioned her at all, except because you wanted to introduce some tie-in to the allegedly Christian advocacy group, the CCF?

Would the Star not have let you proof-read the “excerpt” before they publish it? The National Post always lets me proof-read any changes they propose to make to my op-eds.

I’ll be checking your book when it comes out to see what you really said.

Karen Selick, Litigation Director, the Canadian Constitution Foundation (and atheist)

Perhaps we can help clear this up.
On pages 342-343 The Armgeddon Factor in the chapter Here to stay:

Moreover, pundits who predicted those networks would vanish in the wake of the same-sex marriage defeat have instead seen them proliferate. Amid the stormy U.S. health-care debate of 2009, most Canadians were stunned to discover that one of their own was the star of a 2- million-dollar television campaign warning Americans about the perils of this country’s publicly funded medical system. Shona Homes, the poster girl for that attack, turned out to be fronting a lawsuit against Ontario’s health ministry spearheaded by a Calgary-based legal advocacy group named the Canadian Constitution Foundation. Orginally created by Conservative MP John Weston, the Foundation was at first not considered part of the Christian Right, but one of it’s board members, Dr. Will Johnston, is president of Canadian Physicians for Life, and Weston himself is an evangelical who once told christian law students that what set his Vancouver law firm apart was ” the regularity and informality of prayer practised by the partners.”  Although Weston’s initial focus was on pet libertarian peeves like medicare, since he stepped down to run for Parliament, the foundation has devoted many of it’s resources to defending evangelicals like former Alberta pastor Stephen Boissoin, in freedom-of-speech cases against another perceived incursion of the state: human rights commissions.

Nor is the foundation the only new presence on the evangelical political scene. In 2008, it was joined by the Association for Reformed Political Action (ARPA) founded by Mark Penninga, a Laurentian Leadership Centre alumnus and former spokesman for Focus on the Family Canada, whose mission is to ” bring a biblical perspective to  civil governments.” Both ARPA  and the Canadian Constitution Foundation are working with more established evangelical groups in a new push to co-ordinate their campaigns for greater effect. Nowhere has that joint strategizing been more evident than on the issue that has been pegged as the next flashpoint in the values wars: the de-criminalization of assisted suicide, or, as the religious right prefers to call it, euthanasia.

I commend No Apologies for bringing this to the public’s attention and the swiftness of author McDonald in providing an explanation and correction.

In this country, where the CRTC has kept the reins on religious broadcasting and Catholics make up a larger proportion of the faith community, the emergent Christian right may look and sound different than its American counterpart, but in the five years since the prospect of same-sex marriage propelled evangelicals into political action, it has spawned a coalition of advocacy groups, think tanks and youth lobbies that have changed the national debate. The “sleeping giant” that Capital Xtra! magazine had warned against in 2005 is now up and about, organizing with a vengeance that will not be easily reversed. As Faytene Kryskow, leader of Christian youth lobby called 4MYCanada, told a parliamentary reception, “We are here, and we are here to stay.”

Toronto Star

The book by Marci McDonald will be coming out the same day at the National Prayer Breakfast in Ottawa.  Some of us can’t wait.

In the brief  Toronto Star excerpt, The National House of Prayer, Joseph Ben-Ami, Dave Quist get mentioned.
Hit the blog search button on this blog if you want to know more about them.

As well it’s an honour to see a regular contributor to religious right alert mentioned in this teaser: Dennis Gruending of Pulpit and Politics.

Numerically, the Canadian religious right may still be a fraction of that in the U.S., but as Ottawa communications consultant Dennis Gruending points out, “Groups that are well organized can punch above their weight — particularly in an era of fractured parliaments and minority governments.” A former New Democratic Party MP, Gruending laments that “there is little in progressive Ottawa to rival the networks that have been created by the religious and political right.”

Moreover, pundits who predicted those networks would vanish in the wake of the same-sex marriage defeat have instead seen them proliferate. Amid the stormy U.S. health-care debate of 2009, most Canadians were stunned to discover that one of their own was the star of a $2 million television campaign warning Americans about the perils of this country’s publicly funded medical system. Shona Holmes, the poster girl for that attack, turned out to be fronting a lawsuit against Ontario’s health ministry spearheaded by a Calgary-based Christian legal advocacy group named the Canadian Constitution Foundation.

You can read about Ms. Holmes and the Canadian Constitution Foundation  have caught the attention of religious right alert also. Feel free to search the site.

Who is blogging

Benediction Blogs On: How Canada’s Christian right was built
No Apologies: Marci McDonald’s conspiracy theory on Canada’s “Christian right”
Terahertz: Three days till Armageddon
Larry Lootsteen’s Blog: The Religious Right – In Canada, In Power
Ezra Levant: Does Joseph Ben-Ami wear a yarmulke because he’s a cardinal?
Dawg’s Blawg: Guy Laliberte for Prime Minister
the woodshed: Chuckles McVety wants to give you a wedgie