Canada's unstated State Religion + RESPONSE & Reply

 Dear ipolitics Editors,

cc Behiels, MacKay, Rowe

I've been drawn to portions of your recent series prompted by a column from the always-provocative Mr Lawrence Martin (author of "Harperland" a caustic expose on the PM-of-the-day, that actually just exposes Mr Martin's rationale for his visceral loathing of Firewall Steve 'the quitter') 

- as always, 'consider the source'.

Keep church out of state or democratic governance suffers - By Michael Behiels | Aug15

Harper’s ideology has little to do with his faith -  By John McKay, M.P. | Aug 16

Mr. Harper and our religious selves - By Paul S. Rowe | Aug 10

May I address the 'separation of church and state' side-issue (as per Mr Behiels piece) that often sidelines our thinking on moral aspects of good-for-the-governed public policy and administration.

I agree with Paul S Rowe when he says "But the separation of church and state was never intended as a means of distancing the individual from the faith that he or she embraces. It was instead aimed at ensuring that ecclesial authorities did not have temporal power", in other words the public policy/assurance of Separation of Church and State simply means that 'there will never be a State Religion in this country'.

With this definition - an assurance to Attestant/Protestants that neither the Church of England, nor the Roman Catholic Church, nor ANY institution of religion (ie man-made & finite explanations for inifinite things) would be officially sanctioned by the government, that adherence to that set of beliefs would never be made mandatory and that no religious institution would have ex-officio positions within, nor special influence on, public administration.

This breaks down in North America today because regardless of the lessons of the American Revolution, the French Revolution or the US Civil War, our struggles with church-state politics has always been between Christians. The "tolerance of all religions" policy was an accord of mutual non-interference amongst Bible-believing denominations - all(almost all) built upon the same foundational Rock.

More to the point today,  this policy of denominational tolerance breaks down again in Canada where we DO have an unstated and unacknowledged, but nonetheless omnipresent and omnipotent State Religion.

Whether we agree/disagree, enjoy/despair on its tenets, "Secular Humanism" -every wo/man d(oes) what was right in his/her own eyes - and its baby-sister/big-brother "Science" (~"we must take back time/history from Moses"~) rule the post-modern era in most of the Western World and sadly, public life in Canada 2012 embodies the quintessence of this we-don't-need-God's-rules-telling-us-we're-morally-ethically-spiritually-errant movement.

Returning the volley of Mr Behiels' summary and conclusion (with obvious amendments):

 "If one (ir)religious group, majority or minority, uses powerful state institutions to impose its (ir)religious beliefs on the rest of society, then this becomes a recipe for a disrupti(on) and ...damag(e) .... "

"If a particular government’s (ir)religious beliefs happen to reflect those of the majority (ir)religion – as is more often than not the case – the government will get re-elected. This means that this (ir)religiously driven majority government will continue to impose with impunity the (ir)religious beliefs of the majority on all minority religious communities."

To maintain stable, productive and democratic governance, it is imperative that pluralistic states adhere to the concept of the separation of church and state. The powerful institutions of the state and taxpayers hard-earned taxes should not be used to advance the (ir)religious beliefs or institutional development of any (ir)religious community."

Whether Mr Harper is a pragmatist or a RedTory or a BlueLiberal in his belief system and/or his governance style is immaterial, what's important for Canadians to recognize is the EXISTENCE and dominance and intolerance of this God-Free Religion in this model country made of gold and liquid gold.

The feel-good-now philosophy that every wo/man d(oes) what is right in his/her own eyes PLUS "not that there's anything wrong with that" pervades our country's courts, public school classrooms, Universities, Human Rights Codes, national media, sophisticated/elite private discourse on public policy as well as in our Lower House, our Upper House, the halls of the PMO/PCO's In-Council community and everywhere egalitarianism and "social democractic" Corporatist/Syndicalism is spoken.

 It is still true that if you don't stand for "something" ... you'll fall for anything. 

rce

A reply from

Michael Behiels, PhD, FRSC

Dear Sir,

Indeed, a fine screed against secular humanism, a mode of reasoned thought born out of the Enlightenment that brought the dominance of the Christian Churches to an end after several centuries of brutal and destructive governance at their hands.

Secular humanism, like democracy, is messy and at times ineffective intellectual movement but it is the best instrument that we have at the moment.  It has and will keep the destructive dark side of humanity from wiping us all out!

If you have another more effective and human governance model please oblige us all by explaining just what it is.

Have a good day.

Sincerely,

--

Michael Behiels, PhD, FRSC

and my reply to the Professor,

To: Michael Behiels <

Thank you for your wholly accurate reply. We all 'gotta serve somebody' -Bob Dylan. I agree as well about the "messy-ness" of human endeavour. The (much belabored) point in my screed was to express my observation that we DO have a State Religion (perhaps I offended you by inaccurately calling it Secular Humanism- if so, I apologize and ask you to overlook that slight-of-nomenclature). Further, I agree with you on the historic malevolence and avarice of the men purporting to be acting in the name of the Messiah Yeshua, but who were actually acting on their own perception of what might further the R.C. and/or C.of E. In my opinion, a church is a collection of "called out ones" (ecclesia) and not an hierarchical power structure of quasi-political/social/military might, comprised of vow-breaking priests/elders/deacons who are determined to maintain their 'superior positions' by keeping their blindly-trusting flock barefoot, pregnant, nescient and enslaved to a fief. I was attempting to express that a god-free "country" does NOT exist in Canada (here I do not mean the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob - never mind the derivative and never-judging G*d presented for guilt-free consumption by money-gathering entities in the tax-free, place of worship business - proffering bland pap to the (dwindling) masses in our anything-goes popular culture of today). My view is that we do 'enjoy' a State Religion and we should acknowledge this new reality, declare Science, Humanism and man-made Laws as our worship-worthy deities and stop pretending otherwise. At one time, British North America WAS a Protestant (i.e.Vehemently-Attestant)/ Christian one, but that is gone. Declare the truth of the situation and let the current 'religion-that-seems-to-dare-not-speak-its-name' abide by the Separation of Church and State policy. This national declaration of our now-unstated 'religion reality' will also make clear why all faiths (except Messiah-following, Bible-believers + the self-styled, and commonly-seen-as-being-Christian denominations/ sects) are tolerated in Canada. I endeavoured to reuse your column's last few paragraphs -with the added prefix (ir) - to make this point on application of the doctrine/dogma of Separation of Church and State . I agree with your logic - I just wish it was universally applied. Rce