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.
The one regret I have about Canada is that during it’s formation as a country it didn’t address religion as strongly as the founding fathers of the US Constitution did. What we need is a clear wall of seperation of church and state and the ideas stated on this site have no place in Canada and are more suited to a theocracy such as Saudi Arabia or Iran.
“the abolition of the human rights law code, to be replaced by God’s law” , what a horrible idea, Shariah Law is all you need to know to know that this will put Canada back to 3rd century thinking.
“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. ”
Why is everything a ‘war’ or ‘battle’? If anything, its a conflict of ignorance vs. enlightenment. Groups like yours continue to push myths and fairytales as fact, meanwhile incredibly intelligent people are out in respective fields completely dedicated to finding answers and truth. What science has brought to the table in the last 100 years has pushed the writings of the bible to a point of irrelevance that we have never seen before and belongs on the same shelves as greek mythology.
“ChrGov is committed to this explicitly Christian vision for the benefit of all Canadians.” Once again, the arrogance of the christian faith shines bright as ever. Who cares about your vision? We are a distinctly multi-cultural country, mixing all faiths and cultures, so to say that one religion is for the benefit of ALL canadians is pretty gross.
I’m really pulling for your failure as an organization.
Jordin,
1. Keep reading. We believe in separation of church and state. We believe this more than most humanists. Most humanists/socialists believe in nothing but the state, and the state is their church so there is nothing to separate from. You mean that you believe in the sep. of religion from politics, but you use the erroneous language of state and church, which means something very different. It’s impossible to separate religion/worldview/beliefs from politics, so it’s a non-issue. That notion is simply a cover for the real atheist/humanist agenda of separating the state from the Christian religion.
2. As with most other atheists/humanists commenting, you lump Islam and Christianity together as though the distinctions aren’t relevant. That kind of superficiality shows me that you are an anti-thinker who is simply parrotting convenient myths promulgated by the atheist subculture. Keep reading before commenting.
“Most humanists/socialists believe in nothing but the state, and the state is their church so there is nothing to separate from.”
Really? Have you ever heard of anybody sacrificing a goat to the state? Who says “being a humanist, I naturally WORSHIP the state”. You can’t just SAY things. Back’em up, otherwise it just sounds disingenuous.
Ian, did you ever find out who put out these pathetic humanist/atheist talking points? “Back up your points. Back up your points. Back up your points. Back up your points. Back up your points.” I wonder if they believe in reincarnation. They sure go around in circles enough…
Humanism advocate the human sacrifice of abortion – much worse than sacrificing goats. I hope you’re not going to subject us to the same blather as other atheists this week, claiming we didn’t answer your question or back up our points simply because they chose not to accept our position.
Oh, OK, you pulled that from my comment to Gabriel, a new commenter on the site. That followed several posts I made back and forth with a “joe agnost” with the post entitled, “(Atheism’s) socialism is a philosophy of failure” and, in my thinking, was therefore a continuation of what already transpired there, so you’ll find my earlier comments to which that refers in that thread.
Look, after accusing me of being a state-worshipper, it’s not going to convince to say that “you have an a priori grudge against our arguments and cannot see the truth”. What do want me to do with that? NO, I don’t accept it. I’ve just been slapped with an accusation, and I have nothing to argue against. You just SAID I was a state-worshipper. I’d see myself differently; for example, I support getting the government out of excessive moralization in areas such as, I don’t know, deciding whether or not the entire concept of pregnancy termination is always evil.
But I’m often wrong! Hell, I love to be wrong. Opens me up to new ideas! But I need an ARGUMENT, and you didn’t give one. You just threw bombs.
Gabriel, you need to think like an adult, not like an atheist. You’re another guerilla warfare tactician, trying to wear down your enemy. If you’d treat our website like any other website and look around instead of treating only one of our webpages as though it by itself should present our entire arguments. Surf around and read the other pages and you’ll have lots of information to answer your question.
Gabriel, you really should do yourself a favour by separating yourself from the intellectually vapid atheist cult of North America. Their disciples have thoroughly embarassed themselves with their mindless, cookie-cutter, parroting, myth-promoting, hallucinatory nonsense on our website. They couldn’t come up with an argument to save their lives so they engage in subversive guerilla warfare. It’s the same thing, person after person as though they are all disciples of the same grand pooba. No independent thinking. You are sounding like that too. Don’t be sucked in. Christianity is true. God is God. And He has sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to pay the penalty for the sin of His people so they can be redeemed and made new for now and eternity.
Nice to see that you can treat me so condescendingly, I’m sure that’s what Jesus would have wanted. I’m an intellectually vapid cultist state-worshipper who supports human sacrifice on a broad scale. Lovely.
But can you understand why I’m not going to read every article on your site (by the way, I have read a number of them)? The reason is that from what I’ve weaned, this is not a place of fair and respectful debate. Issues like abortion and, hell, whether or not god even exists, are delicate and should be engaged with maturely and politely. You could be wrong. Christianity could be a simple instantiation of cultural mythology which will someday disappear. Or you could be right, and an eternity of bliss will great you in the afterlife. I’m NOT saying that all ideas are equally plausible, just that a respectful temperament can do no harm.
As for your accusation that atheists all spout the same drivel, try finding a similarity between Chris Mooney and PZ Myers. Notice the number of holy texts we accept = none. Atheism is strictly non-prophet.
Lastly, I wouldn’t want to burden you with an infinite “back that up” regress. Nonetheless, you should really provide links to articles that make your case clearly when you make a statement as obviously inflammatory as this one: “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.”
Gabriel
You ask Site Editor to back up something which seems quite obvious. I don’t mean to sound aggressive but your asking him to supply links to back up Humanism’s god is the state, seems like asking for links to prove humans have noses.
Your “Atheism is strictly non-prophet) was a cute reply, which I assume was meant as a touch of levity, but is it true? Doesn’t Darwin suffice as one of you main prophets? Isn’t he like your Mohammad?
Gabriel, is it fair to say you accept evolution as fact, yet, you have no real evidence of this “fact.” The evidence of man’s evolutionary journey has been proven wrong and often just faked, yet it is still taught in textbooks to our children as fact. If you are honest and wish to engage in fact finding debate then check out responses and debate those. As he has pointed out atheist do not respond to our proofs but skip over such things and attack from a different angle. After a few of these it becomes obvious we are not talking to thinkers but only those who think they are thinkers, which can be summed up with a brief description of closed mined bigots.
“Nice to see that you can treat me so condescendingly, I’m sure that’s what Jesus would have wanted.” That is a peculiar comment. It is something which I may ask of another believer if I think they are being too harsh or judgmental. It is proper for me to ask because I believe that Jesus is the Son of the living God. Jesus said” I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life, no one comes to the Father but by me.” John 14:6 So you see, I believe the Jesus is God, He said “I and the Father are one.” Are you also claiming a belief in Jesus as God?
What critics mean by sensitive means that babies continue to be murdered and tormented youth continue to be led astray into sexual perversion, etc., etc. To accomplish anything worthwhile in this world you have to be a reasoned person of conviction, not a fence-sitter.
Also, notwithstanding the assumption of you atheists that you are the only ones with the right to have strong opinions, we are too, and not everyone who engages in debate is required to do so in a dry, academic fashion. Your last para. assumes our purpose is to be an academic, middle-of-the-road org. trying to appeal to all people. Again you haven’t bothered to read our material at face value. We have beliefs and convictions and this org. exists to advance them. We have plenty of links to such articles when we make such claims, but not every single time for the sake of people who have only started checking us out in the past week. We expect you to do some research on our site too if you’re serious about learning instead of being handed everything on a silver platter. You don’t impose the same criteria on your atheist works. You want to neuter your enemies while giving yourselves free reign in debate. We don’t capitulate to that kind of bigotry over here.
No, atheists don’t treat Darwin like a prophet, that’s a really stupid canard. You do know that Darwin was wrong about a lot of things don’t you? No atheist should have any trouble admitting that. We just know that there is one thing he was unequivocally right about; the development of life through evolution by natural (and artificial) selection. Sceptics really are non-prophet; the moment the crushing majority of Biologists turn away from the theory of evolution, I’ll be right alongside them.
By the way, here is a list of things I’ve accused you guys of:
—zilch—-
Here is a list of things you’ve accused me of:
- Being bigoted
- Being close-minded
- Holding a double-standard
- Worshipping the state
- Demanding human sacrifice on a massive scale
- Leading young people to sexual perversion
- Wanting a free reign in debate while I neuter opponents
- Not thinking like an adult
After this list, you’re going to say that I’m the one who’s poisoned the well in the debate? You guys are something else. You know what? I will accuse you guys of something; projection. You’ve done nothing but frame the debate in such a way as to make me look like a hateful spammer with an axe to grind. But you assume that this is what I want to do because it’s what YOU guys do day in and day out. Well, I’m not like you guys.
This website is a joke. Good luck with your Christian Sharia law, I’m sure it’ll go over great with Canadians.
Gabriel said, ” Socialism – and most of today’s Canadians – recognizes only one form of government: civil government.”
Strange how “civil government” stops being both civil and social when they become fully socialistic, like Germany did under Hitler, or the USSR under Stalin and most successors. Any need for more examples? There are plenty. Or for that matter, what are the numbers of persons murdered by socialism in just the past century? It is in the tens of millions. Socialism needs to be feared and fought against!
Christianity brings prosperity and peace, it is the exact opposite of socialism which brings poverty, darkness of knowledge, lack of liberty and death to millions.
What to argue the USSR isn’t socialist, it is communistic, then tell me what USSR stands for? Hitler’s German wasn’t socialistic they were fascists, what did they call their state? Communism and fascism are obviously identical twins with socialism as their mommy.
Gabriel, I’m not going to go back over previous posts, but as I recall, very few of any such comments were targeted specifically at you; they were references to the implications of atheistic thought; and those that were, were references to “this is the implication of your comments if you were precise in conveying your beliefs and if you carry them through to their logical conclusions.”
You say the intelligible basis for doing anything ethically is “On the grounds that we want to live in an peaceful, co-operative, prosperous society, and that we can only get there if we have some rules about what we can and cannot do.”
So whose definition of “peaceful, co-operative, prosperous”? There is more than one definition of those terms out there so how does a relativist decide between them, and on what basis do you impose your definition on other people, demanding they hold the same views or at least act according to them whether they share those beliefs or not? And if they refuse, how does a relativist – what’s true for me is not necessarily true for you – judge and punish those who act contrary to your ideas of “peaceful, co-operative, prosperous”? And on what philosophical basis to you rationalize your right to judge others who pursue different goals or a different definition of “”peaceful, co-operative, prosperous”?
I’m not an “ism” guy when it comes to ethics. All I can say that you don’t solve the problem by adopting Christian ethics, because it still leaves out Muslim ethics and Judaic ethics and Animist ethics and so on.
For the record, I’m not a relativist. I’m a nihilist who thinks that morals are an arbitrary but highly useful tool we evolved to help us live. And I think we need them now as much as we have ever needed them.
I call Godwin’s law!
People who have absolutely no clue about fascism ,communism and socialism have yet again called out the names of Hitler and Stalin to prove a ridiculous point!
Would you people PLEASE learn some history before talking out your a$$e$!