“Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.” Thanks to the efficient Harper government, Canadians are doing both at once.

Since 2008, there has been a spike in Christian funding by the feds–using our tax money. As reported in Straight Goods this past February (subscriber wall), Human Resources and Skills Development has been ladling out dollops of cash to right-wing evangelical groups:

In the period July 1 – September 30, 2009, for instance, 22 out of 173 grants made went to faith-based organizations, for a total of $889,016. In 2005, 2006 and 2007, by contrast, there were no grants to faith-based organizations meeting the search criteria (including in their names the word “Christ,” “Christian,” “Church,” “Pentecostal,” or “Baptist”).

While many of the faith-based organizations that received funding do not fall into the religious conservative category, most do. The Word of Truth Christian Centre in Pickering, ON, for instance, received $192,033 for a project last year. (Shouters) National Evangelical Spiritual Baptist Faith International Centre of Canada in Toronto received $198,951. Eastside Church of God, Fresh Start Program in Swift Current, SK got $84,110.

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For some reason, since the Harper Conservatives came to power, faith-based organizations with extremist views suddenly have become responsible for delivering local employment programs in many Canadian communities. [emphasis added]

Wycliffe Bible Translators slurped up a hefty $495,600 of your money and mine. But that was dwarfed by the $3.2 million awarded to an outfit called Youth For Christ–and, while children living in poverty on a reserve in Attawapiskat have been denied a new school for years, Edmonton’s Newman Theological College was recently awarded $4.2 million of Harper’s largesse.

We’re all tithing in spite of ourselves. And you needn’t take my word for it:

For Christian universities, “It’s a historic change, and nothing short of amazing,” says Justin Cooper, president of Redeemer University College in Ancaster, Ont., which received $2.9 million. The funds will help cover costs of increasing research and energy sustainability initiatives across campus.

Education funding is a provincial mandate, and Christian universities generally aren’t eligible, so they welcome the change. (Alberta and Manitoba are the exception: private colleges there have long been eligible to receive about half what a public institution might get for capital costs).

Christian universities that benefited from (the federal government’s Knowledge Infrastructure Program) include: Redeemer and Tyndale University College and Seminary in Ontario; Trinity Western University in British Columbia; The King’s, Concordia, Canadian, St. Mary’s and Ambrose University Colleges plus Newman Theological Seminary in Alberta; Providence College and Seminary and Canadian Mennonite University in Manitoba; and Atlantic Baptist University in New Brunswick.

Here’s blogger Dennis Gruending, making connections:

A story that the mainstream media both covered and missed was the Prime Minister’s promotion of two individuals to senior positions in the PMO in March 2009. Darrel Reid became chief of staff and Paul Wilson replaced him as PMO policy director. Reid and Wilson have deep roots in both religious and political organizations. Reid was chief of staff to Reform Party leader Preston Manning while he was leader of the opposition. Later he became the president of Focus on the Family Canada, a conservative Christian lobby group that has worked against public childcare, same-sex marriage, and against adding sexual orientation to a list of minorities protected from hate crimes.

Wilson has worked for Trinity Western University, which is based in Langley, B.C. and is one of the largest evangelical educational institutions in Canada. Trinity established an Ottawa “campus” in 2001 in an old mansion near Parliament Hill. It houses the Laurentian Leadership Centre, which places students as interns with Ottawa-based organizations, predominantly with MPs. Wilson co-ordinated that internship program but when the Conservatives won election in 2006, he left Trinity Western to become a senior policy advisor to Vic Toews, then the justice minister. Wilson later served in a similar policy role for Diane Finley, the minister of human resources.

Of course, we’ve been watching this shoddy theocratic drama play out for months in microcosm at Rights and Democracy. And–not to belabour the point–we’re paying for it.

Meanwhile, women die, while Harper’s conservative base celebrates. Welcome to Gilead.

It will be a long week for Ottawa’s Christian conservatives next week, thanks to former Maclean’s staffer Marci McDonald. And thanks to the fact that I have obtained her new book, The Armageddon Factor three days before its formal release on May 11, I can give you a quick peek at her book through a short summary of what she writes about. And you will know in advance why the national press will be—by my guess–running stories targeting Christian politicians and their friends in think tanks and lobby groups in a few days.

The Armageddon Factor: The Rise of Christian Nationalism In Canada seeks to argue that Canada is developing its own version of the American Christian Right, complete with various support structures and a network of influential supporters. McDonald, a winner of seven National Magazine Awards, first began to look at this subject when she wrote an October 2006 story for the Walrus magazine, Stephen Harper and the Theo-Cons, which began to look at the relationship between Harper and his conservative Christian supporters.

Although I just came from the bookstore…I shall try and hit as many high points as I can, wanting to post today.

As I used to work for the conservative Report newsmagazines in Western Canada, I suspect that I would be part of McDonald’s own personal “Axis of Evil” if the magazines were still publishing. But, in order to try to be fair to her work as I just got the book, what I will do is try to mostly report on her work in this post. At a very first glance, I fear that she will beg questions and add two and two together to make five…but what I shall do is wait until I have read the book to offer a more concrete comment, after this post.

It will probably hit the best seller list quickly. Curious? Read on…While I would probably qualify as a member of the “Christian Right”(and admittedly inclined to disagree with her thesis) , I do recognize the value of a little scoop, so I will pass on to you what I can gather from a quick overview.

McDonald approaches her subject from a position that the Christian right is likely to be scary. The introduction to her preface—I wonder if she has read Sinclair Lewis’ novel It Can’t Happen Here–reads like this:

“She stared at me across the table as if I were out of my mind. A publisher had asked me to write a book on the rise of the Christian right in Canadian politics and hearing the news, one of my closest friends was questioning my sanity for even contemplating such a task. “Why would you want to do that?” she asked. “Surely you don’t think that it can happen here. This is a profoundly different country that the United States.”

It would seem not, McDonald continues, but in her years reporting in the U.S. she found that the Christian right always develops a hidden resilience. Returning to Canada, she writes that she found clues, as argued in her Walrus feature, that there was a “burgeoning religious right [in Canada]—a coalition not limited to Christians” and that moreover the secular media—and even most non-Christians seemed not to be paying much attention to it. Her book is an attempt to redress that.

She then has a brief mention of The CRY in Ottawa introducing a friend of BDBO, Faytene Kryskow, to her readers. (What about Faytene? Please see my accompanying post.) This allows her to then talk about Stephen Harper’s born-again faith, which the media found quite odd, and Preston Manning’s role as a mentor to him. Harper’s home church is looked at. When discussing Harper’s career, there is a general sense on McDonald’s part that Harper values conservative Christian support and values, but a bit less than he values the possibility of getting a majority government.

Her political approach then leads her to looking back to the 1980s, and the difficulties that conservative Christians had passing abortion legislation. The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada’ s Brian Stiller was probably the most noted so-con of the era, so she speaks to him as well.  This leads naturally to a short profile of Charles McVety (who Bene D has written on) Brian Rushfeldt of the Canadian Family Action Coalition, and Joseph Ben-Ami who now do much of the same sorts of things that Brian Stiller used to do. The journey of Darrell Reid from Focus on the Family Canada president to Stephen Harper advisor is focused on.

Being from central Canada, McDonald knows about the National House of Prayer, which allows her to spend a chapter talking about what it does, along with David Demian.

The next chapter stood out to me, as it is mostly about BDBO’s “perhaps favorite youth evangelist”  , Faytene Kryskow. I’ve taken the liberty of doing a separate post about that, but I do want to mention here that McDonald does cite her dominionist views as central to the Christian nationalist movement she decries in her book. Bet that is a surprise to many of the other Christian figures I’ve cited so far, but I explain all that in that post.

And then, McDonald looks at academia and the related issue of creationism/intelligent design. What follows this is a chapter beginning with Murray and Peter Corren, two gay teachers who gained the ability to screen everything in B.C. schools, which leads to a discussion of the issue of homosexuality in Canadian schools and how the Christian right tries to have its own influence on the issue.  This leads, naturally, to the question of Ontario’s Christian schools and public funding, homeschooling, and the tales of B.C.’s Christian Trinity Western University and the Laurentian Leadership Institute.

Canada’s “electronic pulpit” leads to a talk about Canada’s religious broadcasting history including discussions of pirate TV broadcasting100 Huntley Street the Miracle Channel and Crossroads Broadcasting. (Tim Bloedow is quoted herein.)

Gerry Chipeur, a former Alberta Report source and Calgary lawyer features in the next chapter about how conservative Christians approach the courts and the judiciary. The Boisson case, naturally, is discussed, as well as the controversies about the “human rights tribunals” and their treatment of the press. (This struck me as interesting as a central figure here—Ezra Levant is not Christian—rather Jewish. Given that she says in the beginning of her book that Canada’s religious right is not uniformly Christian—why does Levant’s mention on page 303 stand out?)

Names of various Americans have been standing out in the book thus far, though, perhaps in an attempt to argue that Canada’s Christian right is an American creation.

In my quick scan of the book, I have not been able to find anything that jumps out at me as obviously newsworthy, such as “Stephen Harper, whose parents raised him as a druid…” (large ). But I think that McDonald, knowing the ways of a newsroom, realizes that reporters who have been wanting to write on a subject, such as the “Christian right in Canada” need what is called a “news peg”—a new excuse to write about a topic. “A new book…” is perfect for such a purpose. McDonald, to be fair to her, dislikes the Christian right, as would many assignment editors and reporters across the country. So, I would expect her to appear in your newspapers and on your TV next week.

The last two chapters are tailored for such a media push. The chapter called “The Armageddon Factor” targets “Christian Zionism” and links it to Stephen Harper’s friendly stance towards Israel. Instead of pointing out, as Ezra Levant has on his blog, that there are many prominent conservative Jews in the Conservative Party who have Harper’s ear on this subject, McDonald instead attributes this to the dispensationalist beliefs of some on the Christian right. She reasons that they want to hasten the return of Jesus and therefore need to hasten the events of the end of the world for this to happen—which include pestilence, famine and war. Merv and Merla Watson, two sweet Christian musicians with an interest in the “messianic” church are part of the scheme. (I’ve met the Watsons and can attest that they do not have nuclear weapons hidden in their autoharps.) (Fair warning– I will probably have issues with this chapter.)

Hinting that Christians wanting to cause the end of the work have Harper’s ear is useful red meat for the media. As is the last chapter, which discusses in a general way Christian conservative efforts to establish an institutional presence in Canadian politics—if you are a media reporter with an already skeptical bent about the Christian right, to have them be entrenched would be scary.

In Bene D’s own teaser post about the book earlier today, he writes that the book would be an encyclopedia on this subject. As someone who might have a good knowledge of all this—if not as thorough as Bene D’s—I can say at first glance that McDonald’s book seems quite thorough, and addresses the people and events that I would, were I to do a book length treatment of Canada’s Christian right. I might even say that it is comprehensive.

I fear a bias though…but will hold off on declaring that I see one, in my view, until giving the book the careful reading it deserves. (As I mentioned, I will address any comments to that effect in a comment on this post.)

I do know, however, that this book serves up this subject, on a plate, to those editors who want to pursue it. Given that the reporters will be primed by McDonald’s own unfriendly towards the right point of view on this, I can imagine conservative Christians having to face questions with a bit of a spin on this subject.

If you have a progressive view on all this, I can imagine you thinking “Rightly so!” But I can agree with you that there will be some very interesting stories sparked by this book, whatever you might think of what McDonald has to say, after you finish reading it.

I guess the goodwill had to wear off at some point. For weeks now, as the opposition critic for international cooperation, I have been peppered with media questions about CIDA’s performance in Haiti. I’ve refused to rise to the bait, following a longstanding tradition of political cooperation in times of crisis. The CIDA minister has struggled against massive odds to provide assistance in a world of complexity, misery and corruption. The minister herself has provided me with regular updates, keeping me in the loop as to the massive effort required. There will surely come a time, as in all things political, when the Harper government’s response to that devastated nation will come under historical review, but not right now. Especially not right now. It behooves the other parties to cooperate the best they can when it’s a matter of life and death. In this spirit, the respective critics for defence, diplomacy and development from all parties, instead of criticizing, have spent their days assisting with fundraisers to help the Haitians and working on long-term policy for its future.

McDonald explores the connections between the Christian right, a growing array of think tanks and advocacy organizations in Ottawa, and – somewhat disturbingly – the Reform elements now present in the Conservative Party of Canada.

Her analysis delves specifically into the religious background of Stephen Harper, who, despite years as our Prime Minister, remains something of an enigma on the personal level. Harper is a member of the Christian and Missionary Alliance church, having seemingly moved into evangelicalism through the influence of Preston Manning and other colleagues in the Reform Party. In 2003, he suggested at Civitas that the road to power lay through the cultivation of his friends in the religious right, whom he labelled the “theo-cons” – religiously motivated social conservatives.

McDonald hits many of the major highlights, including Charles McVety, the Manning Centre, Focus on the Family’s Institute for Marriage and Family Canada, the Canada Family Action Coalition, and the National House of Prayer. She also touches briefly on the role of Christian zionism and alliances between the Christian and Jewish right – such as McVety’s decision to have Orthodox Jew and B’nai Brith veteran Joseph Ben-Ami head up the Institute for Canadian Values.

At this point the greatest fault in McDonald’s account is really no fault of hers: the work is becoming seriously dated. A lot has happened in the last three years. However, her article still remains, in my mind, the best starting point for beginning an exploration of the Canadian religious right.