But not to complain. The B. C. election results were arguably instructive to folk in other parts of Canada whose provincial and federal party system have an endemic split between the political centre and right.

Second best

You have read it before in this space. British Columbia has the second best kind of democracy available under the Westminster parliamentary system. For 70 years, the centre and right parts of the political spectrum have worked systemically to exercise governance in the province. First it was with the Liberal-Conservative coalition of the 40s. Then came W. A. C. Bennett’s Social Credit, which held power in 1952-72. Mostly under W. A. C.’s son, the centre-right stratagem worked even better from 1975 until the end of the following decade.

The centre-right forces regrouped under the BC Liberals and returned to power in the early 2000s. And, on Tuesday night, they were re-elected unexpectedly, according to the pollsters with an actual increase in seats. (Final results were Liberals, 50, NDP, 33, Independent, 1 and Green, 1. Premier Christy Clark lost her seat, so she and her party will be figuring out a place for her to run soon in a by-election.)

So, despite predictions, the centre-right coalition held and an earlier resurgent Conservative party’s vote virtually collapsed on election night. And the BC Liberals will extend their lease on government to a minimum of 17 years.

What would be best?

Before looking, as I am wont to do, at the faith-political tidbits connected with the B. C. situation, permit me to remind OttawaWatchers what, from this particular perch, would be ideal, if a centre-right coalition is second best. It, too, comes out of British Columbia. I mentioned it a few weeks ago, proposing the:

Convening of citizens’ assemblies to explore, in depth, parliamentary reforms that would diminish the destructive aspects of party discipline. Such an assembly occurred in British Columbia in the early 2000s. Its recommendations, tested in a referendum held in conjunction with the 2005 provincial election, fell just short of approval.

The assembly recommendations, in short, proposed creating fewer and larger multi-member ridings, allowing a fairer mix of party allegiances among the elected members. It was a complex proposal, which is probably why it was not quite ready for voters to try.

Faith-political tidbits

The influence of the Christian faith, from a range of perspectives, has prevailed in B. C. over most of the aforementioned 70 years. Its major influence came from across the mountains in Alberta, from then-premier Ernest Manning who, on the side, was the preacher on Canada’s National Bible Hour. It shaped the BC Social Credit movement under Bennett Senior. A lesser but nevertheless significant influence was on the NDP and its predecessor, the CCF. It came from Tommy Douglas, Saskatchewan CCF premier in the 40s and 50s, and an ordained Baptist minister with spellbinding oratorical abilities.

Fast-forwarding to this week: There are a number of people worth watching in the new BC Liberal lineup, not the least of them Premier Clark. In mentioning them, I would note that these are politicians who not only let their faith try to shape them, but do it carefully, so that they do not become known as religious fanatics or bible-thumpers. Although coming mainly from the evangelical and conservative end of the faith spectrum, they have learned to incorporate into their thinking some of the concerns of those who come from more leftward positions.

Another caveat: I have been watching these people for several years, mostly from afar. So my perspective is over the long haul, not necessarily in the more recent months. I make the assumption that they have come to their present positions as part of a political maturing process.

So here goes:

Christy Clark. Clark is known to be a regular Anglican churchgoer who draws strength from worship and fellowship in that setting. Less-known is the fact that she took a couple of years of religious studies earlier in life at the University of Edinburgh, a British equivalent, it is safe to say, to UBC’s Regent College. She gave witness to her faith a few weeks ago at a City in Focus breakfast in Vancouver. Douglas Todd, religion/ethics writer for the Vancouver Sun reported on her talk. His observations can be found by searching his blog, found on the Sun website.

Laurie Throness. Throness, with a Cambridge Phd and a thesis on the history of prison systems, is closely linked to the Christian and Missionary Alliance denomination. He served several years in Stephen Harper’s research department and was, for a time, an elder in the Ottawa congregation which Harper considers to be his home church. Throness was elected a Liberal MLA in Chilliwack-Hope this past week.

Simon Gibson. Gibson has been a long time city councillor in Abbotsford. His thoughtful faith stances are well-known in the community. He was elected Liberal MLA in one of the Abbotsford ridings.

Peter Fassbender. Long time popular and effective Langley city mayor, Fassbender was elected a Liberal MLA in Surrey-Fleetwood. (Full disclosure: He was my “boss” in the 80s, when I was editor of what became BC Christian News and he was board chair of Christian Info Society, BCCN’s publisher.)

Mary Polak. Polak is a longtime BC Liberal cabinet minister with deep Catholic and moderate social conservative convictions. Her chief claim to faith in this election was that she defeated John Cummins, the BC Conservative leader and an equally-devout Catholic and equally-moderate social conservative.

Marvin Hunt. Hunt is a long city councillor in Surrey, BC’s second largest city. He will move onto the provincial scene, now, as one of the BC Liberal MLAs from Surrey. Before become a de facto full time municipal politician, he was a senior minister at one of Surrey’s largest evangelical churches. Surrey Mayor Dianne Watts relies on Hunt for counsel on matters relating to the faith-political interface.

Chuck Strahl, Stockwell Day, Reed Elley and John Cummins. These four men were supportive of either the BC Liberal or BC Conservative parties, following their longtime involvement as federal Conservative MPs. Strahl, Day and Elley are evangelical Christians and Cummins, as previously mentioned, is devoutly Catholic. Strahl and Day, former senior federal Conservative cabinet ministers, were supportive of the BC Liberals and played advisory roles. (Strahl, it should be noted, had to become more poltically neutral, after being appointed chair of the body that monitors the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS).) Elley, a Baptist minister of some note on Vancouver Island before and since his time in politics, was supportive of the Conservatives and of Cummins.

Adrian Dix. Yes, there is a faith influence there, too. Douglas Todd talked in one of his blogs relating to faith influence on leadership. Dix, the NDP leader, noted that much of his thinking about social justice and other faith-related values came from his late father-in-law, Vasant Saklikar, who was a United Church minister for many years in New Westminster.

This list is far from comprehensive. But the “tidbits” it contains help to provide a setting for some of the things that politics in British Columbia can model for other parts of the country.

And in Saskatchewan

Just to demonstrate that the west coast is not in splendid isolation in these matters, it should be noted that, for many years, the New Democrats reigned in Saskatchewan. The last NDP premier was Lorne Calvert, a United Church minister of the social justice vintage of Tommy Douglas. Brad Wall, a serious Mennonite Brethren Christian built up a centre-right coalition under the Saskatchewan Party label which displaced the NDP in that province in 2007. Wall completed the work started by a former Reform MP, Elwin Hermanson, also a serious evangelical, who had been the founding leader of the Sask Party.

In recent weeks, Trinity Western University’s (TWU) proposal for a law school has sparked much debate and discussion. The popular reaction from students, as reflected by tweets, status updates, and petitions, has generally been one of strong disapproval. However, often drowned out—but not absent—are the alternative voices in the debate. For instance, President Lindsay Lyster of the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, the same group that fought for LGBTQ rights in Little Sisters, has written to the Federation of Law Societies (FLS) in support of TWU’s proposal. In this piece, I also wish to challenge some common perceptions and voice why TWU has a strong case for a law school.

At the outset, I note that much of the recent controversy surrounds TWU’s Community Covenant. Among other provisions, the Covenant requires community members to “voluntarily abstain from” gossip, lying, viewing pornography, drunkenness, and “sexual intimacy that violates the sacredness of marriage between a man and a woman.” It is especially important to note the use of the word “voluntarily.” Signing and adhering to TWU’s Community Covenant, (an aspirational document that applies only on campus and during the academic year) is a voluntary act: it is part of accepting the offer of admission and choosing to join a private community. Likewise, TWU accepts no public funds. Like other religious schools in Canada, TWU has the freedom to set rules that best foster its desired environment, one that is supportive for its faith adherents, seekers, and their collective goals. Tuition at TWU is far from cheap, but that is the cost that many students are willing to bear–rather than going down the path of public accommodation–in order to obtain that desired educational environment.

For now, any issue of alleged discrimination is not central to the matter before the FLS. FLS must decide whether TWU can provide adequate legal training to its students to merit accreditation. The Federation of Law Societies (FLS) has already confirmed this much in its reply, dated 4 December 2012, to the Canadian Council of Law Deans. In that letter, the FLS stated that its mandate is to assess solely whether TWU would be able to offer a curriculum that includes the “substantive knowledge of Canadian law” as defined by national requirements. The wisdom of the Community Covenant, for now, is not on the table.

TWU has a compelling case supporting their application. The reality is that TWU has received much recognition for its excellence in teaching and its academic environment. The Globe and Mail’s Canadian University Report gave TWU an A+ rating in Quality of Teaching and Learning for seven consecutive years, a recognition that no other national university has received. Moreover, TWU has consistently ranked among the top universities in the MacLean’s rankings, and the 2012 Canadian University Survey Consortium listed TWU as one of the top three universities in all five of its categories. From this record, there is nothing to suggest that TWU cannot bring the same level of excellence to its proposed law school, a level of excellence that it currently brings to its three professional schools and 13 other graduate programs.

Opponents of TWU’s proposed law school have contended that the Community Covenant discriminates against LGBTQ individuals and, as such, makes TWU unfit to host a law school—notwithstanding its religious affiliation. This argument finds support in Justice L’Heureux-Dube’s dissent in Trinity Western University v British Columbia College of Teachers (TWU), in which the Honourable Madam Justice stated that one cannot “separate condemnation of [the] ‘sexual sin’ of ‘homosexual behaviour’ from intolerance of those with homosexual or bisexual orientations.” The logic seems to be that if TWU requires students to abstain from homosexual sex, then TWU must be intolerant of LGBTQ students and therefore should not be allowed to train lawyers who will have to uphold Charter values. However, I respectfully reject this argument for a few reasons.

First, the assertion that certain classes of individuals are unwelcome at TWU is simply untrue. Every year, TWU admits and boasts a diverse student body that includes LGBTQ individuals and members of various faiths. Once at TWU, many of these individuals have found a learning environment that is both respectful and supportive. In fact, from the time that this controversy arose, many LGBTQ students and graduates of TWU have publicly voiced their support for TWU and have defended the Community Covenant. On CBC’s Early Edition on 28 January 2013, one such TWU graduate, Bryan Sandberg, spoke of a “powerful acceptance” at TWU that far surpassed his expectations. While Sandberg did not agree with all of the rules in the Covenant, he was nevertheless willing to abide by them. It is also worth pointing out that the Community Covenant operationalizes many tenets central to the Christian faith, such as compassion and respect for every individual, and prohibitions against harassment and verbal intimidation.

Second—and perhaps most important—the view that intolerance for homosexual acts necessarily indicates intolerance for homosexual individuals is based on the presumption that, if one is homosexually (or bisexually) oriented, then he or she will necessarily engage in homosexual sex. Consider this for a moment: Do we honestly believe that an individual cannot be homosexual if he or she does not act on his or her homosexual orientation? This cannot be true. Surely, one may have a certain disposition and choose not to act on it; this holds true for all people irrespective of their sexual orientation. I can understand if this argument might sound absurd to those who believe that a denial of homosexual acts is a fundamental denial of LGBTQ identity itself. However, this fact is not foreign to many seekers and adherents of the Christian faith, heterosexuals and homosexuals alike, who have willingly pursued such a path of abstinence; there is no monopoly on the LGBTQ experience, or what it should be. LGBTQ individuals should have the option of attending a school that reflects and supports their choices.

Third, even if TWU’s Community Covenant might be considered discriminatory in that it requires persons in same-sex civil marriages to abstain from sexual activity on campus, this fact alone does not mean TWU produces students who will engage in discrimination. While much has changed since 2001, when the TWU case was decided, the central holding of TWU has not: the freedom to hold beliefs is broader than the freedom to act on them. Nor has there been any evidence since 2001 that TWU nurses, teachers, or business professionals have engaged in conduct contrary to Charter values. In terms of law, many graduates of TWU currently attend law schools across Canada, and in fact, many are at Osgoode. All of these students have once upheld TWU’s Community Covenant, and many still live out some form of the Covenant in their personal lives. Despite this, or in spite of this, law school admissions officers here and nationwide still believe that these students are capable of being successful lawyers, who will uphold the Charter and the values of professionalism at their schools and in their future practices. The same reasoning also applies to graduates of private American Christian law schools who choose to practice law in Canada. Should any of these individuals be found to have engaged in any discriminatory conduct, the law society could accordingly deal with these individuals through its pre-bar admission character assessment or professional disciplinary committees.

Some have argued that an institution like TWU, with its Community Covenant, should not be in the business of training future lawyers. Again, I disagree. TWU-trained nurses, teachers, and business professionals have been quite successful in their fields, and they all work in fields that arguably have the same, if not a greater, public dimension to them as law. It is difficult to conceive of an attribute that is unique to law that would prevent TWU law students, as opposed to other TWU graduates, from being similarly successful in the field of law. Perhaps the concern is that, unlike some of the more empirical subjects such as physics, the law is more susceptible to subjectivity and might be taught in a way at TWU that encourages discrimination. This view, however, makes little sense. Just as there is no course on “Christian Physics” at TWU, there will be no course on “Christian Criminal Law.” Canadian law is not anti-LGBTQ, and so the law taught at TWU will not be anti-LGBTQ. TWU law graduates will have to pass the same bar admission exams as students at Osgoode if they wish to practice; if they wish to succeed, they will also have to learn and use the same law to its fullest measure.

Before concluding, I also invite you to consider this matter from a slightly different perspective: from that of an individual who is or seeks to be a part of a private religious school, organization, or community in Canada like TWU. Just as it is paramount for Canadians to affirm the Charter rights of the LGBTQ community, it is also important to recognize the freedom of religion, freedom of association, and the equality rights of those in the TWU community. It is often said that the debate over accrediting TWU’s law school is a classic clash-of-rights. On balance, however, and in light of the facts and evidence, the denial of accreditation of TWU’s law school—on the sole basis of its having the Community Covenant—would be the greater injustice. If TWU’s track record is indicative of its future success, the institution is certainly capable of building an excellent law school. If TWU were to be denied accreditation because it cannot provide a quality legal education or because of some other reason (such as the oversupply of lawyers or the FLS’ blanket refusal to go down the path of private legal education), so be it. The legal world will continue without TWU’s law school just as it will with TWU’s law school. But denying a private institution and their members the freedom to uphold certain beliefs, however disagreeable those views may be, is neither legal nor right; it certainly is not becoming of a free and democratic society that is truly committed to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

George Beverly (Bev) Shea, who always prefaced Billy Grahams sermons with a simple gospel song, passed away last week at the age of 104.

Shea, more than anyone on the Billy Graham team, had strong and continuing links to Ottawa and its environs. He was born in 1909 in Winchester, a 30 minute drive south of the capital. His father, Adam Joseph Shea, was the minister of Winchester Wesleyan Church, at the time. There were eight children in the Shea family: Bev was the fourth.

Later, during Bevs teen years, the senior Shea and his wife, Maude Mary Theodora, moved into Ottawa itself, where he took over the pastorate of Sunnyside Wesleyan Church, still a strong congregation just a few steps away from Carleton University. Many students including numbers enrolled in the universitys landmark journalism program worship at Sunnyside.

But I digress.

Behind the podium, Shea was both simple and professional. In person, he was friendly, self-effacing, outgoing and a great story teller.

I’d rather have Jesus…

One of his favourite stories recounted how his mother left the words of a poem on the piano, where she knew her son would see it. Shea was at a point in his life where he needed to make some decisions.

The poem began with the words Id rather have Jesus… They had their impact on the young singer. He took them to heart and, later, set the words to music. And, after going to work for Graham, he sang those words thousands of times. They were used to prepare Grahams listeners for the gospel the evangelist wanted to communicate.

For a journalist, Sheas story-telling made him a good interview subject. But, more than that, he was humble and self-effacing. He had a way of making those he was talking with feel better about themselves, because he genuinely was interested in their lives and what they were doing.

An evening in Winchester

The last time Edna and I saw Bev Shea was in the little Wesleyan Church in Winchester, where his father had been the pastor. He was 101 at the time, as I recall, and the town of Winchester had just honoured him by identifying itself as his birthplace. Signs pointing out that fact had been installed beside all roads leading into town.

The little church was packed and crowds poured out onto the lawn and sidewalk outside. A Skype link had been arranged with a Salvation Army band camp in Maine where gospel ‘booming baritone’ Wintley Phipps, a great admirer of Shea, was poised to exchange memories with him.

At the same event, representatives of the RCMP Pensioners Fund presented Shea with an honorary membership.

What was that all about?

When he was a teen, Shea wanted to be a Mountie. He recalled, with a sheepish grin, that he switched his vocational aspirations to gospel singing when he found out that being an RCMP officer might require him to take a first posting in the frigid Arctic.

Upon receiving the Mountie honour, he asked, with a good-natured growl: Where is my red coat?

Family links

Most summers, the Sheas would spend time in West Quebec, where they had a lakeside cottage.

His first wife, Erma Scharfe, was an Ottawa valley girl. She died when he was in his sixties and, a decade later, he married North Carolina native Karlene Aceto.

You dont have to be around Ottawa long to learn that hundreds of Scharfs dot the city and valley. A cousin of Ermas, Diane Scharf, (different spelling, still a relative) has been a leading legislative assistant to Liberal and, later, Conservative parliamentarians for decades. In her spare time, she mentors dozens of younger Hill staffers in the ways of Christian servant leadership.

Other passages

It seems that a number of other passages took place around the same time as Sheas, among them Margaret Thatcher, Al Neuharth and Bob Wright. All three died in their 80s. Here are paragraphs about each:

• Thatcher, the late prime minister of Great Britain, came from devout Methodist background, a point acknowledged at her Anglican funeral, where the main congregational hymn was Charles Wesleys Love Divine All Loves Excelling. One of her most significant statements regarding her beliefs about the roles of faith and politics were contained in a speech she gave to a Church of Scotland general assembly in 1988. The text of that speech can be found at www.margaretthatcher.org/document/107246.
• Neuharth headed the Gannett newspaper chain until 1989 and founded its flagship national daily newspaper, USA Today, in 1982. Some of his research into the feasibility of that newspaper became available to me when I was working on my MBA thesis at Simon Fraser University in the 80s. That thesis, in turn, helped in the decision-making processes in the early years of what became BC Christian News, which published from 1982 to 2011.
• Wright was the founder and head of Oak Bay Marina, a waterfront tourist magnet in the Victoria suburb of the same name. Before he developed that business, he was a district advisor in the Victoria Times circulation department, where I was a teenage carrier-salesman. In that role, he taught me much about the role of the newspaper and how to put its best face forward. Later, I moved to Vancouver for my first job and education. Returning home one weekend, my father took me to see Wright, who had just taken over Oak Bay Boathouse, a primitive little facility. We sat on apple boxes in his office cubbyhole while he showed us sketches about what he hoped Oak Bay Marina would become. He was a colourful, sometimes controversial community leader and vision-caster. And, because he made his money from the ocean, he contributed $11 million, a few years ago, to the University of Victoria to develop the Bob Wright Centre for Ocean, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences.

This past weekend

As a result of the political activities of the past weekend we have a new ball game, at least insofar as the two opposition parties are concerned. At their convention, last weekend in Montreal, the New Democrats moved to emphasize social democracy more and democratic socialism less than they have done before.

And Justin Trudeau, at 41, has taken over the reins of the Liberal party.

Both parties show few signs of uniting the left, in a mirror image of what happened in the Conservatives almost a decade ago. That was when the five or six different streams of conservative policy came together under Stephen Harper, with a little help from Peter MacKay.

So, in the run up to the 2015 federal election, it is likely that the struggle will be twofold. On one hand, the Mulcair NDPers and Trudeau Liberals will duke it out for control of the ‘Laurentian elites.’ On the other, the Conservatives will continue to broaden their base both centreward and rightward.

The Big Shift

They hope to build on the ‘The Big Shift,’ which was outlined in some detail earlier this year by Globe & Mail columnist John Ibbitson and pollster Darrell Bricker, in a book by the same name.

That tome suggests influence in Canada has shifted from those aforementioned Laurentian elites, so named for that belt of rocky hills and lakes that became the Ottawa/Toronto/Montreal axis. Ibbitson and Bricker acknowledge that it was around this axis that the nation was built, but point out that the influence in the last few decades has been toward the growing west and the large immigrant populations settling both there and in the suburbs of Toronto.

There is much more to this discussion, of course, and a look at The Big Shift will help to bring some focus to the complexities of these fairly seismic changes.

But the radical conflict resolution discussion I would like to encourage among OttawaWatch readers goes well beyond the effect of these seismic shifts.

One sidelight in Ibbitson’s and Bricker’s thinking that might hint at the hesitancy on the part of the Liberals to simply move in with the NDP is the existence of what they call the ‘John Manley Liberals’ those in that party who would sooner co-exist with the centre-right than with the centre-left.

The adversarial arena

The aforementioned seismic conditions go to the issue of the adversarial political arena that the shifts tend to amplify, rather than reduce.

Simply put, the job of the government is to govern and ensure that its governance is understood. The job of the opposition is to oppose and to ensure that voters know it is a government-in-waiting. Throughout 45 years of observing this setup, I have often tried to concoct scenarios that would enable people charged with governance and opposition to find ways to conciliate and collaborate.

The respective roles of government and opposition get complicated, however, when conflict-creating objectives almost hijack the debate or discussion process.

Safe discussions

My thesis, at this point somewhat oversimplified, is to encourage quiet, safe discussions in places that bring together the antagonists and their ‘handlers,’ to talk about the conflicts in ways that diffuse harm and engender understanding. It may be that doing this as a way of life might take a generation or two, just as it took about 40 years for William Wilberforce to end the British slave trade in the early 19th century.

And it may be, as well, that we are looking beyond the present political leaders to change the ways in which politics and governance can be done. ‘Radical’ innovations can be discussed in the kinds of safe places that are being proposed.

They could include such things as:

• Increasing use of early mediation to shortcut disruptive advocacy ‘theatre’ in the parliamentary arena.
• Convening of citizens’ assemblies to explore, in depth, parliamentary reforms that would diminish the destructive aspects of party discipline. Such an assembly occurred in British Columbia in the early 2000s. Its recommendations, tested in a referendum held in conjunction with the 2005 provincial election, fell just short of approval.

Bridging the divide

All of which brings us to something that is happening soon, in Montreal, that could start to encourage the kind of discussion to which I am referring.

Dubbed Bridging the Secular Divide: Religion and Canadian Public Discourse, this McGill University event will take place May 27 and 28. It will bring together several Canadian leaders and thinkers who are involved in faith-political discourse. Included are such people as:

• Mark Adler: Conservative MP and co-chair of the All-Party Interfaith Fellowship.
• Andrew Bennett: Ambassador of Religious Freedom, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade.
• Janet Epp Buckingham: Director, Laurentian Leadership Centre of Trinity Western University.
• Bill Blaikie: Former NDP federal deputy leader and director of The Knowles-Woodsworth Centre for Theology and Public Policy.
• Wes McLeod: Former director of the Manning Centre for Building Democracy’s Navigating the Faith-Political Interface initiative.
• Lori Ransom: Senior advisor for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada.
• Joe Comartin: NDP MP and Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons.
• John McKay: Liberal MP and former National Prayer Breakfast Chair.
• Lorna Dueck: Host of Context with Lorna Dueck television documentary feature show.

These are the names that I believe might be most familiar to OttawaWatch readers. They will be interacting with others from Christian, Jewish, Muslim, native spirituality, Baha’i, Buddhist and Sikh backgrounds, all of whom have experience in interfacing with thinkers, communicators and policy-makers in other traditions than their own.

This next paragraph is taken from the description of the McGill conference, which is available at www.bridgingthedivide.ca.

This conference will explore the role of religion in Canada’s public discourse, in terms of both thought and action. To many observers it appears that our national discourse is increasingly polarized and the civility of democratic deliberation is eroding. Fundamentalisms of many stripes ideological, religious and secular can drown out the more moderate and considered voices. Within this context, how should perspectives that draw from religion inform the national conversation? How do we judge the legitimate and illegitimate role of religion in our public discourse? How can engagement by religious voices make positive contributions to our pursuit of the common good for all Canadians? Where does responsibility rest for changing the current state of affairs? These are questions that call for reflection on both values and practice, as we explore together how to bridge the secular divide.

In case the point is missed, my reason for including this information in a column about reducing political tensions is that frequently religion or faith is seen as both a divisive and a reconciling factor in public affairs. I hope this might be seen as one way of highlighting faith’s reconciling effect.

The role of pluralism

And, one last point: for those who believe that too much inter-faith or inter-ideology talk is to be avoided, I would recommend a reading of Canadian Brian Stiller’s recent blog on an understanding of pluralism, available at www.dispatchesfrombrian.com. The blog is entitled Reminding those who debunk pluralism: What it really is.

Stiller is currently global ambassador for the World Evangelical Fellowship, a role he took on after years as president, first, of the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, then of Tyndale University College and Seminary.

Find a broken wall

This is not a book for everyone. It is a book for leaders of Christian churches, ministries, and organizations. Particularly, it is a leadership manual for those individuals who are called to take on the leadership of deeply troubled churches, ministries, and organizations. In fact, for leaders who are in charge of such troubled organizations — and, sadly, there are many — this book should be required reading.

The books central image is drawn from the Bible book of Nehemiah. Nehemiah found the city of Jerusalem in a very difficult situation and managed to restore the city by rebuilding the city wall and making other important changes.

However, the bulk of the content of Stillers book is not drawn from Nehemiah, but from Stillers own experience. Stiller knows what he is talking about because he has spent his life assuming the leadership of broken ministries and fixing them.

Not everyone is called to lead broken-down, distressed, and undeveloped ministries (page 24), but Stiller was. He assumed leadership of the Montreal and Toronto branches of Youth for Christ when each was in deep trouble, and he revitalized both. After leading Youth for Christ Canada, he became executive director of the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada (EFC) in 1983 when it was a little known umbrella organization with almost no ministry. By the time he left in 1997, not only was the EFC a highly effective organization, but the Canadian evangelical movement had become an influential factor in Canadian life. Stiller then took over as President of Ontario Bible College when it was bankrupt and on the verge of closing. He turned it into Tyndale University, a vibrant institution with a new $100 million campus.

Two things stand out about this book. One is how frankly open Stiller is about his own failings and the failings of the organizations he restored. For instance, in 1983, he was asked what the purpose of the EFC was, and he recalls, I stumbled and fumbled. I didnt know. (page 83) Unlike authors who offer only sanitized descriptions, he is willing to call a train wreck a train wreck.

The other thing that stands out is the wise insights that Stiller offers which can be applied by leaders of many organizations, whether they are in trouble or not. For instance, Stiller talks about how to focus on vision and avoid diversionary claptrap (page 53); about how to protect an organization from spiritual drift (page 93); about how to deal with boredom, fatigue, or burnout (page 96); about not treating people with different views as enemies (page 144); about admitting mistakes (page 146); about the importance of strategic planning (Chapter 5); and about seeking the good of the ministry instead of self-fulfillment (page 155).

Along the way, Stiller offers pithy comments that remain in the mind to encourage and challenge:

• Endemic among leaders is the tendency to not listen to what another has to say. (page 26)
• Review your schedule for the past month. How much time was given to what you really want to accomplish? (page 53)
• Vision is not a half-baked idea that you ask God to bless. (page 57)
• Faith is risking, knowing that without the help of the Lord Ill fail. (page 69)

Such insights are invaluable for leaders of all kinds. And, insofar as they help followers understand the issues their leaders wrestle with, the book could also be read with profit by followers. Maybe it is a book for everyone.

Find a Broken Wall: 7 Ancient Principles for 21st Century Leaders ($26.96 hard cover, $19.95 paperback) is published by Castle Quay Books.

William Wilberforce

The faith-political approach of British politician William Wilberforce –- who fought the British slave trade in the early 1800s -– might have a 21st century counterpart in Langley MP Mark Warawa.

Vancouver Sun Ottawa reporter Peter O’Neil figured that out when he wrote a March 28 story which suggested Warawa was an unlikely candidate to buck the prime minister’s alleged “iron rule.”

O’Neil saved the good stuff for the last few paragraphs. There he reports on some comments from Tim McCarthy, one of Warawa’s pastors at North Langley Community Church, where the MP and his wife, Diane, attend.

Notes O’Neil:

“I think he’s taking a very courageous stand,” McCarthy said, comparing Warawa’s position to that of English politician William Wilberforce, an evangelical Christian who battled slavery in the early 1800s.

While he has his doubts the anti-abortion movement is close to a breakthrough in Canada, which has been without a law on abortion since a 1988 Supreme Court of Canada ruling, he said Warawa’s battle is worth fighting.

“Even if nothing were to change, my perspective is that we’re not only accountable to history or even to constituents. We’re accountable to God and to doing the right thing.

“Knowing where Mark stands on his faith, and I don’t mean this in the abortion sense but in the integrity sense, if you are given these convictions you have to live with yourself and your relationship with God, according to the choices that you make.”

Warawa’s recent actions have zeroed in specifically on gender-selection abortion, practiced in some cultures because of the inclination of parents to favour male progeny.

He was asked to stand down on giving a member’s statement on the subject in the House of Commons. As well, his Motion 408 on the same subject was ruled ‘non-votable’ by the House parliamentary procedure committee.

Much media coverage has attempted to create a rift between the prime minister’s office on one hand and Warawa and other social conservatives on the other. That contention is based on Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s promise, in the 2011 election, not to allow the abortion debate to be returned to the public arena.

From this ‘perch,’ O’Neil’s Wilberforce reference is a fairer assessment, because it tends to play down a governing party’s internecine struggle.

I agree that Warawa is in this for the long run. So he must keep a balance between the need to speak his conscience and his constituents’ wishes on one hand, and the need to understand that debate on the subject can be shrill at the best of times and ferocious at the worst.

It is instructive to note that Harper does not try to ban discussion on abortion. Rather, he tries to keep in check the kind of debate that would turn the House into more of a bear pit than it already is.

In fact, late last week, a joint PMO-Conservative caucus statement announced that a sub-committee would be formed to keep the peace while giving members the free reign they need.

The difference between discussion and debate is essential to understanding what is happening here.

Saint Paul: Reg Bibby

The other two items for this week’s OttawaWatch involve St. Paul University, a Catholic institution a few blocks from Parliament Hill, on the banks of the Rideau River.

Last Thursday, Reginald Bibby, a University of Lethbridge sociologist who specializes in analysis of Canadian religious trends, was at St. Paul to talk about what he dubbed “the resilience and restructuring of religion in Canada.”

Speaking mainly to Catholics in the crowd, Bibby noted that Catholics and evangelicals are benefiting from immigration trends in Canada, while mainstream Protestants are not.

Much of the material in the lecture is contained in A New Day: The Resilience & Restructuring of Religion in Canada, a slim volume that he says is more optimistic – and realistic – than some of his earlier studies (http://canadianchristianity.com/canadian-religion-is-not-going-away-4064/). Readers wanting to get a complimentary e-copy can go to www.projectcanadabooks.com.

Saint Paul: Dispute Resolution

Two evenings later, I returned to St. Paul with Edna, to attend the 25th anniversary gala of the Canadian Institute for Conflict Resolution (), a group that specializes, among other things, in short term courses and workshops in Third Party Neutral (TPN) and Alternate Dispute Resolution (ADR).

CICR was founded by St. Paul, with a fair amount of initiative from Vern Neufeld Redekop, a Mennonite who heads the university’s conflict studies program. The CICR director for the past several years is Brian Strom, a Nazarene by persuasion and a western-rooted son of a former Alberta premier, the late Harry Strom.
Faith-based conflict resolution

There was a method in my selection process for today’s piece. There is much going on in Christian circles these days – especially among Catholics, Mennonites and evangelicals -– that relates to getting serious about conflict study, management and resolution. And it is mostly quite biblical, as well as being sociologically and psychologically healthy.

There is more that is common in relating the lead item to the other two. (Hint: North Langley Community Church is a Mennonite Brethren congregation.)
Stay tuned. You may find in the next few weeks that your humble scribe will offer some interesting prescriptions for parliamentary and societal reform in Canada, based on faith-based conflict resolution concepts. And maybe some comments on how the late Margaret Thatcher fits into all this.

Dr Wiliams Lane Craig

Nobody likes to be called a ‘hater’. Hate is such a loaded word. The dictionary defines it as ‘intense dislike’, ‘extreme aversion’ or ‘hostility’ towards someone or something. It’s the antithesis of Christianity’s core value – love. However, if you stand behind the traditional Biblical stance that homosexual behaviour is a sin, than expressing that view could land you on the wrong side of the law as a perpetrator of ‘Hate Speech’ in Canada. The precedent was set early this year in a ground-breaking case in Saskatchewan (Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission v. William Whatcott) that calls into question our Constitutional right to ‘Freedom of Expression’. The Supreme Court ruled the distribution of anti-homosexual pamphlets was a violation of the hate speech provisions of the Human Rights Code.

The emotionally-charged issue is stirring heated debate in living rooms and church meetings across the world. Can you be a Christian and a homosexual? Is it really a sin? Christians are now increasingly being required to defend their stance on homosexuality as a pro-gay movement sweeps the globe, led by Hollywood’s elite and powerful world leaders like US President Obama.

World renowned apologist, Dr Williams Lane Craig, is widely regarded as one of the greatest defenders of the traditional Christian faith on the planet. Leading Atheist Richard Dawkins still refuses to debate the author of over 30 books. Dr. Craig headlined the latest Apologetics Canada Conference and has been answering critics and Christians at Universities across Canada. He granted Andrew Morrison an exclusive interview on the issue to Canadian Christianity:

Dr. Craig, the pro-gay movement is currently saturating social media and political forums throughout the world – how much of a threat does this pose to Christianity?

Political correctness just reigns in this debate. The media and Hollywood are bent on putting a very happy face on this lifestyle and do not really give us a glimpse into this sub culture and how dark and twisted and truly destructive it is. It doesn’t take but a little bit of reading to begin to familiarize yourself with the very shocking facts about the pathological and emotional damage that this lifestyle involves. The cultural attitudes towards homosexual activity have undergone a sea change in recent years so that now someone that holds to a biblical view that homosexual behaviour is immoral is regarded as bigoted, narrow minded and really a wicked person – that is a huge change. It is just another challenge. It’s extremely significant and unfortunately it seems like the church is on the losing end of this battle.

How damaging is this for the unity of the Church and its relationship with secular society?

It could fracture the church because there are certain elements in Christianity that want to accommodate themselves to homosexual practice. But those that who are more biblically faithful will say that sexual intimacy is to be reserved for the secure bonds of heterosexual marriage. It may well be the case that just as our culture’s attitude to pre-marital sex and co-habitation have completely changed from say the 1950′s, so our culture’s attitude towards homosexual behaviour may also change and become widely accepted. In both cases faithful Christians have to say that the culture is simply wrong and this represents a moral decline in Western culture and that a Biblical ethic for sexuality will reserve sexual intimacy for monogamous heterosexual married relationship.

Let’s cut to the chase, can you be a homosexual and a Christian?

Certainly you can, I don’t think there’s any doubt about that. What you shouldn’t be is a confessing Christian and a practicing homosexual. What the Bible condemns is not a homosexual orientation – that’s largely out of your control from what homosexuals tells us. Many of them would love to have a heterosexual orientation and they just find themselves with this orientation. So what the Bible proscribes is homosexual activity and that is proscribed regardless of whether it is carried out by a heterosexual or homosexual person. It’s not your orientation that matters, it’s your behaviour. So a heterosexual person who engaged in homosexual acts is doing something just as wrong as a person with a homosexual orientation who engages in homosexual acts. Biblical Christianity reserves sexual expression for the bonds of monogamous heterosexual marriage and any activity outside of that regardless of that is proscribed. So a person can be a homosexual and be a faithful, practicing Christian just as a person can be an alcoholic and be a faithful, practicing Christian. I hope that just as an alcoholic can get up in one of our meetings and say I am an alcoholic but by God’s grace and the strength of Christ I am dry, I am not drinking, so someone could say I am a homosexual but by God’s grace and the power of the power of the Holy Spirit I’m living a life that is sexually pure and clean before God.

Pro-homosexual advocates would argue that this is denying certain people the right to a loving, monogamous relationship?

In one sense, I think that’s all irrelevant. The question here is about where right and wrong come from. If there is no God then I don’t think there is any absolute right and wrong, anything can be engaged in. But if there is a God, then He determines what is right and wrong. So if we believe in God we cannot ignore what God thinks about the matter. What does God think about this? God has made his will very clear on this. You are not to engage sexual activity of any sort outside of the bonds of heterosexual marriage. These other factors are irrelevant to the moral rightness or wrongness of this issue.

You have been quoted comparing the physical consequences of homosexual behaviour to that of someone who mainstreams heroin. Can you explain those remarks?

Yes, wholly apart from Biblical revelation, I think that you can give arguments that homosexual behavior is morally wrong based upon general moral principles that are almost universally accepted. For example, I think it would be widely accepted that is morally wrong to engage in self-destructive behaviour and that’s why it would be morally wrong for you to start mainlining heroin or become a chain smoker. You are destroying a human person who is intrinsically valuable so self-destructive behaviour is morally wrong. It is very easy to show that a homosexual lifestyle is one of the most destructive and dangerous lifestyles that a person could possibly adopt and that’s why I say it is as dangerous as becoming a heroin addict or chain smoker. Recent studies show homosexuals have a much greater risk of suffering from psychiatric problems than heterosexuals. We see higher rates of suicide, depression, bulimia, antisocial personality disorder, substance abuse and a shorter life expectancy than those in heterosexual relationships. So people who think that this a lifestyle can that be blissfully engaged in without thought to the consequences are fantasising – that’s a dream.

What advice would you give to Christians trying to deal with this issue in a loving and humble manner?

Making this difference between orientation and activity is really critical because what that means is that you can love and accept this person regardless of his orientation what you think is wrong is the person’s behaviour. In that sense, you see that heterosexual single people who engage in premarital sexual intercourse are doing something just as wrong as homosexuals and yet I don’t think that people would think that I have some sort of hatred or prejudice against single people, that would be absurd. So I think that distinction can go a long way to showing that you accept the other person as a person but you think that the behaviour that he’s engaged in is not right.

From my perch, here in Ottawa, one can catch a glimpse of something new emerging in the field of faith-political interfacing. Its working name is “My Place-Chez Moi.”

It may well be Ottawa’s best-kept secret and not because its encouragers are trying to keep it under wraps. Rather, it is because those giving leadership to the idea are trying to lay their groundwork carefully, so that it can emerge into usefulness sometime between now and Canada’s 150th birthday in 2017

Perhaps the best way to introduce the idea to OttawaWatch readers is to link you to www.myplacechezmoi.ca. Have a look at it. I am certain some readers will say: “This is an idea whose time has come!” Others will scratch their heads.

The catalyst for My Place-Chez Moi is Wes McLeod, who has served quietly over the past two decades as parliamentary assistant to several MPs. Among them were the first ever Reform MP Deb Grey and former Aboriginal Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl. After they both departed the political scene, he directed the Manning Centre for Building Democracy’s Navigating the Faith-Political Interface initiative. Under those auspices, he set up several successful events, across Canada that, among them, brought together hundreds of people to explore that complex issue.

Out of that and several other networking activities that brought together an eclectic range of mostly Christian believers, My Place-Chez Moi began to germinate.

Much of the work done so far has been in the form of brainstorming. Pretty soon, I would guess, some structure will start to form up.

Even without formal structure, MP-CM recently pulled together a series of breakfasts near The Hill, dedicated to providing training in governance and vision for leaders of small faith-based ministries and groups. The commonality of these groups is that they need to interact from time to time with the body politic, in order to do good things to meet human need.

What they do grows out of their Christian commitment. The challenge, on one hand, is to identify how what they have can best be adapted to meet those needs and, on the other, how they can form partnerships with others to bring the necessary resources to bear.

McLeod, in planning the breakfasts, as well as looking ahead to what MP-CM might become, works with a list of over 100 Christian ministries and groups whose leaders have one reason or another to be in touch with Ottawa politicians and bureaucrats. (Full disclosure: This list originated about six years ago, from rudimentary research done by your humble scribe. At that time, there were just over 30 names in the line-up including such familiar organizations as Mennonite Central Committee, Salvation Army, World Vision and the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada.)

From this perspective, the genius of MP-CM will be to bring together from across Canada, across denominational structures and across generations, informed and well-prepared people. The need to develop such partnerships and leaderships rests in the fact that the human needs they can meet are, as it stands, much greater than they have capacity to provide.

Sometimes, around this place, I have heard the expression that Christians become “so heavenly minded they are of little earthly good.” Over against this is the emergence of what is sometimes call “social enterprise”. That expression defines the task of meeting needs from the motivation and actions of community, corporate and faith-based enterprises. It creates an opportunity for Christians to enhance the “earthly good” side of the equation.

I would encourage readers to keep an eye on My Place-Chez Moi, and will do what I can from time to time to highlight its progress.

The Academy Award nominated feel-good romantic comedy Silver Linings Playbook has gotten some extremely high praise and a significant amount of buzz. Starring Jennifer Lawrence (Hunger Games) and Bradley Cooper (The Hangover) it has been nominated for a total of 8 Oscars. But is it worthy?

The film opens with Pat (Cooper) getting picked up by his mother from a court ordered 8-month stay in a mental institute. This opening sequence and the first half of the film are by far the strongest parts of the film, with Cooper in a state of spectacular dysfunction and near incomprehensibility on numerous occasions. Determined to win back his unfaithful wife, Pat begins a disciplined regimen of reading American classics and running.

An unexpected dinner invite sits Pat next to Tiffany (Lawrence), an equally dysfunctional, mentally unstable individual, whose husband has recently died. Sparks fly as they emote their simultaneous physical attraction, and intellectual disdain for each other, arguing about who is more mentally ill. It is this love/hate dynamic, which provides the most interesting tension in the film, with Cooper and Lawrence delivering undeniable on screen chemistry.

However, the movie falls apart as it moves away from complex character study of individuals with mental illness and develops an unlikely and clichéd plot about a wager on a football game, made by Pat’s OCD father (Robert De Niro), and a dance competition Pat and Tiffany have entered. What is more disturbing is that Cooper’s performance suggests such a radical transformation, under the guidance of some equally suspect therapy, as to imply that “love” cures mental illness.

What is love? A question too big to be discussed here, however, Silver Linings Playbook is an impassioned plea by Hollywood to return to the faith of the romantic comedy, the happy ending and the cult of a relationship that is the answer to everything… Silver Linings Playbook denies love rooted in commitment or honesty and continues the celebration of love bound up in passion and chemistry.

While the actors deliver up some big performances, in my opinion it was Robert De Niro who stands out. De Niro’s performance demonstrates a consistency and subtlety lacking in both Lawrence and Cooper’s. The two leads, though especially Cooper, present big performances of a subject unfamiliar and often scary for many of us. Without expertise, it can be difficult to determine the authenticity of these performances. However, it is my suggestion that the ability to play “big, loud and crazy” in such away as impresses lots of people is not necessarily the best test of acting ability, but rather great acting is in the subtlety of performance, something that the film lacks generally but is particularly deficient in Coopers role.

Overall, the film is fun and feel-good– starting out quite strongly but getting bogged down in clichéd plot devices. With strong but overrated performances, interesting and clever cinematography, it is the story, which over reaches itself, that fails to deliver a truly earned and satisfying journey. If it wins Best Picture the Academy should be ashamed.

Trinity Western University

It is clear that the debate over Trinity Western University’s proposal for a law school is no longer a debate over homosexuality and religious freedom, but a debate over intellectual competency.

Take the recent article in the National Post from legal scholars who oppose TWU’s proposal for a law school as an example. While arguing for increased Chartered protection for gays and lesbians, they are also very clear in stating that the real issue is TWU’s ability to teach law:

“The crux of the issue is how the discrimination and institutional environment at TWU impacts the ability of the school to teach law. In order to permit entry into a provincial or territorial law society (as determined by the Federation), the law degree program must meet national standards in its curriculum. Those standards require critical thinking about ethical and legal issues. No person can truly think critically from one pre-determined lens, in this case, a lens mandated by TWU.”

Furthermore, look at how Don Dutton, a psychology professor at the University of British Columbia, responds to not only TWU’s proposal for a law school, but its status as a university in a letter to the National Post:

“[TWU] should not only not have a law school — it should not be called a university. Universities in Western tradition support free inquiry. Hence, at a university one could study archaeology and learn, through carbon dating, about human hunter gatherers or early settlements that predate the Christian view in Genesis. One could study anthropology and learn of myriad religious beliefs or study social psychology and learn that these other belief systems had as much grounding in empirical evidence as has Christianity — none. A school that demands faculty believe a certain dogmatic way is incompatible with free inquiry. Not a law school, not a university.”

The ironic part about this whole debate is that opponents of a TWU law school end up appearing much more narrow-sighted in their dogmatic beliefs than TWU’s religious beliefs ever did.

The opponents of TWU argue that a law school should not be “hindered” by religious beliefs that are, in their estimation, merely dogmatic beliefs that cannot be supported on neutral, or as Dutton said, empirical grounds. My question, and the question that many have asked, “is where is the neutral or empirical ground that everyone keeps referring to?” I haven’t found it, and I don’t believe the people who claim to stand on such ground have either.

John Carpay, a Calgary lawyer and President of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, argued in the Vancouver Sun that this neutral ground that Dean Flanagan and other opponents claim to stand on is actually a “government-enforced ideology” that is the opposite of a free society. A free society, Carpay argues, is one that,

“protects atheists and agnostics from government coercion as much as it protects theists. To insist that all law schools (or other institutions) must subscribe to a particular set of beliefs about sexual behaviour threatens the freedom of everyone — including Flanagan’s freedom.”

Similarly, Barbara Kay points out that we can’t find this neutral ground because it simply doesn’t exist. Religious beliefs function in the same way as a secular beliefs – namely, that they do not discourage free-thinking or free inquiry because they is no neutral ground on which such thinking can take place. She says,

“If what these legal scholars say were true – if a “pre-determined lens” actually shuts down the ability to think critically, and that is the rationale for disallowing TWU’s law school – then by the same logic, pretty well every law school in Canada should be closed.”

Identifying our pre-determined lens is half the battle in pursuing free inquiry and free thought. To not even acknowledge that you have a pre-determined lens – whether it is biblical or not – is to be an unwitting slave to that worldview, and an unwitting slave is certainly not the model for free inquiry and intellectual competency.

This is why, as Barbara Kay quipped, “I am betting TWU students will be taught the actual law more objectively than many other schools in Canada.”