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.
Wandering over from another thread…
“Back up your points. Back up your points. Back up your points. Back up your points. Back up your points.”
It’s that authority problem again.
You can’t expect people who don’t already agree with you to take your word for it; especially when your words are harsh or condemnatory.
Humanism advocate the human sacrifice of abortion – much worse than sacrificing goats.
Here’s an example. I’ve met a lot of people who would self-identify as “humanist”; and not a single one *advocated* abortions. Many of them recognized a right to them, and wanted to keep them “legal, safe, and *rare*”, and viewed them as tragedies.
Now do you see why people want you to back up what you say? Otherwise, you give people no reason to trust you at all who do not already agree with you.
If I want people to agree that environmental legislation has done good things, I can say “Since we started legislating emissions controls and water treatment controls, the Cuyahoga River hasn’t caught on fire for decades and the skies above L.A. are much clearer.” And then we can continue arguing on facts on the ground, rather than accusations tossed back and forth about unprovables.
That’s governance; the rest is philosophy or theology, which, while fun to debate, is not quite as concrete a thing.
Yup, Steven. As you know when you keep reading the thread, I dealt with the matter.
Actually, I don’t see that — to which thread are you referring, then? Not the one we were engaged in before, nor here, that I can see.
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.
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Steven has a good point with his suggested answer, “Since we started legislating emissions controls and water treatment controls, the Cuyahoga River hasn’t caught on fire for decades and the skies above L.A. are much clearer.” The problem is you do answer but many ignore the answers and ask some other accusation. When you do give an answer such as Steven suggested, you’d get; Can you prove the river hasn’t caught on fire or that the skies are cleaner?
Do you see where the frustration comes in Steven? If you think Christian Governance has some hidden agenda there is no proof which would adequately answer your queries, so at some point the answers become flippant in response to accusatory questions. If there is no measure of trust then there are no adequate answers.