God(s) in the house: From faith to hopeful citizenship

Marci McDonald's cover story in the October issue of The Walrus magazine was one of several recent articles to raise the spectre of the fearful impact of “evangelical” Christians and others of faith on public life. Under the cover title “Jesus in the House,” the article attempts to make a case that the “stern, narrow-minded theocracy” of American televangelists is being espoused in Canada through some of the “most outspoken players in this country’s religious right wing.” McDonald suggests that not only do these “players” have the ear of the Prime Minister, but that Stephen Harper’s own religious journey puts him firmly in the theo-con path.

The relationship of faith and politics often generates passionate debate, fears, and letters to the editor. Interest in the topic has been sharpened by the rise to power of the current version of the Conservative Party, and the association made by observers and party members between the party’s policy directions and particular expressions of Christian faith.

Wading through the various positions on this touchy issue is challenging. CPJ has a long history of both being a faith based organization in political debates and speaking out about how faith can and should affect policy-making in Canada. CPJ promotes respect and dialogue to find policy options that create space for difference. Our pending move to Ottawa is intended to bring this history and experience front and centre in the nation’s capital.

God(s) in the House

Provocative articles like McDonald’s invoke the predictable response that “religion has no place in public life.” However, this is an impossible proposition. Faith commitments – our deepest commitments – shape how each of us interacts with our neighbours, our institutions, and our environment.

In fact, everyone does bring their faith to the public square, as well as to other areas of life: work, school, family, the media, and so on. If religion is understood to be one’s ultimate commitment or life orientation, then it cannot be confined to private life, or particular rituals or institutions. Such ultimate commitments are not restricted to formally recognized religions, such as Christianity and Islam: liberalism, humanism, and capitalism are also religious value systems. People place their ultimate commitment in the forces of the market, or the state, or human rights, or the scientific method.

Ultimate commitments give meaning and direction to one’s whole life, as well as to the institutions and the society in which one participates. They shape how people tackle issues in the public square. The faith perspectives of all Canadians influence how they participate as citizens in building and shaping Canadian society.

Canada is a country consisting of persons, communities and institutions committed to different faiths. Therefore, we must find ways of guarding freedom of religion and rejecting attempts to impose freedom from religion. People in Canadian society have different beliefs and wish to live in different ways. Government should protect and facilitate their right to do so.

So God is in the House, and in fact there are many gods in the House of Commons. The important choices being made in that place are shaped by the deepest commitments of MPs and other decision makers – whether a formal religious commitment or a commitment to the demands of the marketplace, or to human rights, or to the forces of democracy itself.

The real question of faith and politics is not if, but how, God is in the House, and how people of faith can contribute to a hopeful citizenship.

Unhelpful caricatures

Whatever the truth of McDonald’s piece, it was not the only recent article to express worry about those on the so-called political right who are explicit about their faith commitments. The Globe and Mail printed a feature article in September under the title “In Ottawa, faith makes a leap to the right.” Globe columnist John Ibbitson went so far as to write that if people take their faith seriously, their “worldview reflects barbarism” and they cannot and should not engage with “secular Canadian society.”

Too often commentators employ simplistic caricatures to support their ‘opinionating.’ They easily label someone as on the religious right or left, and correspondingly on the political right or left. Whole meanings and positions are attributed to someone by their label.

The same happens when someone is religiously labeled as “evangelical” or “Muslim” or “United Church.” Based on a particular label, assumptions are made about the views of a person or community with regards to, for example, gender relations, the Middle East conflict, or preferred political party. However, it is clear that within any of these religious communities there are strong differences of views on various public issues, and members vote across the party spectrum.

Unfortunately, people of faith fall into the same trap. When spokespersons or press releases say that “Christians call for” or “evangelicals call for,” they sweep a whole group of people up into the label and impose a view on that group, whether or not all the members agree. (This is different for institutions that confer authority on spokespersons through a decision-making process.) Similarly, when people of faith lament the “liberal, secular left establishment,” it is not clear to whom they are referring.

To hopeful citizenship

Rather than dismissing the place of faith or engaging in simplistic caricatures, we need to acknowledge and respect the deepest commitments of Canadians. We also need to engage in a careful discussion on their appropriate role in the public square. We need to draw out the best in faith-based contributions to public life, working out the implications for the common good: whether addressing how to create a sustainable economy, how to address inequality, or how we position Canada in the world.

Janice Gross Stein, in an essay in the Literary Review of Canada, asks thoughtful and probing questions about Canada’s commitment to multiculturalism (including multi-faith). According to Gross Stein, multiculturalism “is being tested by a resurgence of orthodoxy in Christianity, Islam and Judaism where lines of division between ‘them’ and ‘us’ are being drawn more sharply. And it is being tested because Canadians are uncertain about what limits, if any, there are to embedding diverse cultures and religious traditions in the Canadian context.”

Rather than simply dismissing the place of religion in the public square, Gross Stein calls for a renewed debate on these difficult questions. She asks what to do when “my religious obligation clashes openly and directly with values that I hold deeply as a Canadian.”

As Gross Stein acknowledges, too often the temptation for people of faith, including those with a secular faith, is to try to impose a sense of “just us,” not “justice.” We try to use the government to impose a particular religious point of view to the exclusion of others. In that way, faith commitments lose credibility and no longer enrich the common good.

Canadian citizens need to engage in debate about our public life together, with a clear eye to our core values and faith perspectives. We must engage each other in the public square to shape actual policies and programs that contribute to the common good. This must be done across faiths and ultimate commitments, and also within them.

People who hold strongly to their particular faiths have much to contribute to the common good, and do much through their communities. The challenge is to identify how to engage in the public sphere in a way that can best contribute to a pluralist Canada.

From this respectful dialogue we can influence the shaping of public values that can be the basis of policies contributing to the well-being of all and the integrity of creation. This open and respectful wrestling around core commitments needs to be the hallmark of Canadian democracy. It is this dynamic that will help to shape a politics of hopeful citizenship.

The Catalyst, winter 2007, Volume 30 / Number 1