Dec 10
4
ChristianGovernance is unique
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How is ChristianGovernance unique? Why is there a need for ChristianGovernance in Canada’s public landscape today?
- Most, if not all, organizations which explicitly highlight the Lordship of Christ in their mission are strictly evangelistic. ChrGov advocates the Lordship of Christ over every area of life, and we believe this translates into particular perspectives on law, public policy and social order.
- Most Christian organizations which are politically and culturally active have an issue-oriented and man-centered – or anthropocentric – posture, which does not link the reality of God and Christ to the positions they advocate. To illustrate: In attempts to avoid being marginalised as too sectarian, Christian groups have fought for freedom of “religion” rather than freedom for the Christian religion. There is a place for freedom of religion, but having made that central, and not wanting to argue for the cultural and moral significance of Christianity specifically, these Christian groups find themselves in an awkward situation with religious demands from Islam and elsewhere for such practices as polygamy, female genital mutilation and the indiscriminate wearing of the niqab and the burka. ChrGov has an explicitly Christian mission, flowing directly out of a commitment to the Lordship of Christ and the abiding relevance of God’s law.
- Many Christian organizations fear that advancing a specifically Christian cultural and political agenda is, or is seen to be, sectarian. ChrGov denies that a Christian law order and social vision is sectarian. First, we hold that God’s law is of benefit to all people, whether they assent to it or not. Second, the foundational principles for law and social order, principles still affirmed by most Canadians as important aspects of general equity – e.g., the rule of law and equality before the law – are Christian principles. ChrGov is committed to this explicitly Christian vision for the benefit of all Canadians. We also believe that this is an intellectually credible and winsome vision for many non-ideological non-Christians.
- Most Christian organizations are social conservative groups, with any comment on economic and governmental issues being very secondary. Some of these groups are only socially conservative, advancing “liberal” ideas on economic and governmental matters. ChrGov believes that Christianity is a worldview and that, in terms of categories that people are familiar with, this Christian worldview is most closely reflected in a socially conservative, economically conservative and governmentally conservative model.
- The heart of today’s “culture war” is the battle between Christianity and (secular) Humanism. For Humanism, the state is god, so this is also a war against Socialism. This makes one’s view on government very important. Socialism – and most of today’s Canadians – recognizes only one form of government: civil government. ChrGov asserts that God established, and the Bible affirms, four forms of government: self-government, parental government, church government and civil government. This view of government, with self-government under God, rather than civil government, being central to one’s understanding of how to order society, is at the heart of ChrGov’s “conservative” outlook.
- ChrGov seeks to win people over to our way of thinking through discourse and conversion, not by force. Other Christian organizations would assent to the same principle, but when your focus is strictly seeking the reigns of political power, rather than broader cultural and personal reformation, you become socialistic – and unchristian – in strategy. ChrGov’s commitment to a comprehensive, rational and multi-generational approach to reformation is demonstrated in our commitment to Practical Apologetics as well as Political Action.
- Illustrations of positions taken by ChrGov that may be unique from other Christian organizations are: the abolition of Canada’s human rights commissions/tribunals; the abolition of the human rights law code, to be replaced by God’s law; the incompatibility of Environmentalism (as a socialistic and pantheistic synthesis) and Christianity. Other examples could be added to this list, but these are particularly pertinent to current battles in Canada’s public square.