Christian governance for Canada – Visit with ChristianGovernance in Listowell on November 6th
Christian governance in Canada – Big thinking for a big nation…
How many different ways have Christians tried to influence politics and impact our culture over the past couple of decades?
How successful have we been?
Not very, so many Christians have become demoralized. But wait…
- Some efforts have not been successful because they operated from a defensive posture instead of from a recognition of Jesus Christ ruling as King of Kings.
- Some strategies have been ineffective because people have pursued political goals which have remained elusive because reform needed to begin – and still does – at the personal level, in the Church and within the culture.
So how do you address these and other challenges when you want to impact the culture and public policy for the Kingdom of God?
First, you have to seek to have a Biblical strategy. You can’t simply invent a strategy then hope to “baptise” it with the blessing of God by praying over it. God rules over the means as well as the ends, and the Bible has direction for both.
Secondly, one has to develop a model that incorporates spiritual and material realities, that personalizes God in real time. Referencing the Lordship of Christ has to be more than a platitude. How does the recognition of the Lordship of Christ impact real public policy? I know some of you reading this are Catholic, but those who are informed Protestants know that a primary reason we oppose the position of the pope is that we believe that Christ alone is the Head of the Church, and that He is sufficiently active personally in history so He does not need a human representative. This affirmation of the personal working of Christ in history also has very significant implications for the nature of civil government.
Thirdly, Christians must avoid being operational socialists. We must resist the temptation to pursue political control that does not reflect what God is doing through us within the broader culture. If we are not doing the hard work of evangelism and intergenerational discipleship, and if we are not raising up children who want to impact areas of education, law, business ownership, management, the arts, science and other vocations as much as they want to impact politics, then we are imbalanced – we are testifying to a faith in horses and chariots – the humanistic god of civil government – rather than faith in God and His organic work in culture through His people. We don’t avoid the political realm, but we must not put our faith in it, by putting an inordinate number of our eggs in that basket.
ChristianGovernance is the Canadian organization that has this vision to advance the Lordship of Christ and the relevance of God’s law for 21st Century Canada. Our vision is not simply for a “baptised” moralism. We have a genuine vision to see the Lordship of Christ affirmed throughout Canada. And as we already noted, one way of doing that – which already has wide support across Canada – is by resisting authoritarianism and promoting a renewed and strengthened democratic commitment to decentralized government. That may sound boring, but not when you consider the direct assault being levelled against this democratic tradition by human rights commissions across Canada?
Barely anyone outside of a Judeo-Christian tradition is resisting this onslaught.
ChristianGovernance is pursuing this vision in two ways: through Practical Apologetics and through Political Action. We are very committed to engaging the political process and impacting public policy. But we are even more committed to discipling Christians and the nations, so apologetics and Biblical worldview training are foundational commitments that we are pursuing with conferences, Biblical worldview youth camps and regular analysis of issues and current events.
Did you know that the Bible talks about 4 different types of government, each authoritative in its sphere?
They are civil government, church government, parental government and self-government.
Most people today, including Christians, only talk about civil government as government. Is it any wonder, then, that most people operate with a presumptive socialist perspective?
In contrast to the socialistic vision of civil government, the Biblical vision is of self-government under God.
And that is going to be where we start at our meeting in Listowell.
What does self-government mean? Hint: it’s what we Christians understand as personal responsibility, sanctification, godliness. But we need to look more seriously at what the self-government ethic is; why self-government is so important to public policy; how it contrasts to the humanistic status quo and its emphasis on the power of the state.
Then we need to look at the implications of the failure of self-government, at what happens to society and the role of the state, or civil government, when our commitment to self-government declines. This is a huge topic, so in Listowel we will just focus on the human rights commissions and the human rights industry and the role it plays in Canada in the growing power and interference of the state in our lives.
We will also talk about the dangerous paternalism of the current provincial government, and the key issues ChristianGovernance will be addressing in the upcoming provincial election: education reform, abolition of the Ontario human rights commission and tribunal and the outrageous scandal involving environmentalist-based energy policy and the way it is gouging so many Ontario ratepayers.
These are practical personal, cultural and political issues all of which can – and should be – addressed in terms of both the Lordship of Christ and God’s law.
And as an important aside, think of how much more interested in Christianity and in God your friends and neighbours might become if they saw that our faith, and God’s interest in their lives, was so much more than simply a life insurance policy.
Is Christian culture possible in 21st Century Canada? You better believe it is!
Can Christianity be put back into Canada’s Public Square? What else would we, as Christians, want to put in there? The life-giving truth of God breathes life to every area of life, not simply to eternal life. Remember, it was God in His Word who said, ‘where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty’. Do we want this liberty only for ourselves or do we want it to have civil-social and economic impacts as well? Do we want to keep it a secret or do we want to share it with others?
Join us at our meeting in Listowel – youth, young adults and older adults – to learn more about how we can impact our culture Christianly and breathe new life into our nation.
We will also be talking about some of the specific projects that ChristianGovernance is developing to educate and encourage Christians with solid Apologetics and Biblical Worldview training. You won’t want to miss it.
There is no cost to attend the event, but we will be making an appeal for financial support.
You will find us at Immanuel United Reformed Church 750 Davidson Ave. N, Listowel on Saturday, November 6th from 6:30-8:30pm.
We need you to RSVP with #’s because we are ordering pizza, drinks and dessert and we need to know how much to buy. So please contact Irma DeVries today @ 519-338-3920 or [email protected] with your RSVP.
How does abolishing the Human Rights Commission further God’s law? Are you suggesting that the freedom to discriminate against women and minorities is good for society?
What kind of backward thinking babble is that?
Funny you should say that, John. Atheists keep fraudulently accusing Christians of wanting to impose their views by the power of the state, arguing instead for reason and education. We argue that any legitimate offences that the HRCs address are properly addressed through such things as education, rather than allowing the state to bludgeon people into submission. You atheists are dangerous state-ists at war with Canada’s Judeo-Christian tradition of liberty and justice.
I never said I was an atheist. Do you call anyone that asks a challenging question an Atheist? Great way to alienate people.
You didn’t answer any of my questions. So educate me… “How does education replace a council or commission dedicated to dealing with human rights abuses”?
I’m in favor of education. But, what happens when education is not enough and people continue to discriminate? If you were a black woman that was refused a job for no fair reason, who would you turn to?
If you really want to sell me a book, it would be helpful if you could at least give a 1 or 2 line answer to the 3 or 4 reasonable questions I already asked. Or if it’s not too inconvenient, maybe you could answer 1 or 2 questions instead of ignoring me in order to have a pissing match with other commenters.
Yes, well you might also take into account the context of your prior posts and the flood of other inane posts we’ve received today from PZ Myers’ disciples. At any rate, I’m most interested in worldview, logical consistency of beliefs and rational analysis. Our position is that the HRCs are inherently illegitimate to justice because it’s people’s business to resolve their own problems with each other instead of running to the state, unless one of the parties breaks the law, and we argue that the law should be based, as it has been, on a Judeo-Christian model with such things as banning fraud, stealing, assault, etc. There’s a new law in town based on a humanistic ethic and called human rights. It is incompatible with Judeo-Christian law. It predicates a very different concept of the state that is interventionist, that requires the state to become excessively and illegitimately involved in inter-personal disputes, that is predicated on groups rights, affirmative action and parity of outcome – all aspects of a socialist political theory. Not equal opportunity, equality before the law and individual liberty.
Like I just said to AHermit, you deal with interpersonal issues between each other and if you can’t resolve them, you move on. Get another friend. Get another job. Get another toaster. Get another house. Get another whatever. The modern political definition of discrimination is very particular. It does not apply to all people. So it gives special treatment in law to certain people (based on group rights, affirmative action) instead of treating people with equality before the law. If that’s what people want, they are choosing a police state approach to law and political governance, and that is what we are seeing more and more in Canada as this system of thought and law becomes more and more consistent and the competing Judeo-Christian based justice system is gradually moved to the sidelines.
Editor:
While I still feel you haven’t answered my first several questions, I’ll try to take your last post as a serious attempt to explain yourself. So, please give me a specific example to help me understand a “new law” that is incompatible with “Judeo-Christian” law.
I just did with reference to affirmative action and group rights. Anything derivative of such theories is incompatible with the Christian principle of equality before the law. so any law or public policy that gives special consideration to people based on race or colour or sex or “sexual orientation” or family status or ethnicity or disability, etc. for the purpose of fulfilling quotas and establishing supposed parity of outcome between such groups and whoever is considered the normative standard of privilege – I supposed white, anglo-saxon, heterosexual male Catholics and Protestants. Furthermore, “anti-discrim.” law is inherently discriminatory because it only works one way – only (prospective) tenants can use it against landlords, not landlords against (prospective) tenants; only employees can use it against employers, not the other way round. It’s all based on the socialist group rights theory of systemic historical discrimination that needs to be rectified by the power of state intervention because free people, making free choices are just not producing the outcomes that satisfy social engineers.
John M: SE is a bit overwhelmed by atheist attacks so maybe I can help him out with an example; slavery is endorsed in both the new and old testaments. Liberal human rights fanatics have impinged on the rights of slaveowners by denying their godgiven rights to own other people: clearly incompatible with “Judeo-Christian” law.
Offences like stealing, assault, fraud, rape, murder are not labeled human rights but we have laws against them so something doesn’t have to be labeled a human right to be a violation of a law in the justice system that is managed by the state. The original rationale for criminalizing rape was not that it violated the victim’s human rights, it was because it violated her as a person and was objectively wrong as a violation of God’s law. Objecting to something like rape as simply a human rights violation is demeaning and unsatisfactory. It’s a violation of fundamental justice.
There should be no additional laws in the justice system to manage human rights. Human rights shouldn’t be adjudicated by the civil government. Violations of human rights are mostly about unfairness, hurt feelings, and interpersonal conflict that isn’t anywhere close to the threshold of violence. The state has no business interfering in these things. Saying it does has led logically to the realm of hate crimes where the state pretends it has the divine power to read people’s minds, along with many attempts to enforce censorship against conservatives and Christians, grossly demeaning homosexuals for example by equating verbal objections to their behaviour with actual violence, insisting that the state direct limited resources to combatting such verbal expressions through censorship so that they don’t have enough resources left to address real cases of harm.
Editor:
I took two points from your last post:
1. Special Consideration for less privileged people is incompatible with Christ’s principles.
2. Anti-Discrimination principles are no good because the persons in power (employer’s, landlords) can’t use the laws to sue prospective employees or renters for applying for jobs or housing.
Am I understanding this correctly?
Not even close, John.
1. Special consideration for less privileged people IN LAW BY THE STATE is incompatible with CHRISTIAN POLITICAL THEORY.
2. MODERN LEGISLATED anti-discrimination principles are DISCRIMINATORY AND THEREFORE INHERENTLY HYPOCRITICAL AND LOGICALLY INCOHERENT AS ILLUSTRATED BY THE FACT THAT THEY CANNOT BE USED IN BOTH DIRECTIONS, E.G. BY LANDLORDS AS WELL AS BY TENANTS. THIS ALSO MAKES ANTI-”DISCRIMINATION” LAWS INHERENTLY INCOMPATIBLE WITH THE PRINCIPLE OF EQUALITY BEFORE THE LAW SO A PERSON HAS TO PICK THE ONE OR THE OTHER. IF HE PREFERS ANTI-”DISCRIMINATION,” THAT’S HIS BUSINESS, BUT I PREFER EQUALITY BEFORE THE LAW AND I WILL PUSH VIGOROUSLY FOR THE PRESERVATION OF THIS PRINCIPLE IN CANADIAN LAW.
Can you step down a minute from the “theory” and give me a laymans solid example of how removing a law that states “You cannot refuse a tenant because they are a minority” can be replaced by Christian Political Theory?
John, it’s called private contract. If a landlord has a place to rent, he advertises it, someone responds to the ad. If they don’t want it, they keep looking. If they do, they consider his terms. In other industries, there might be negotiation of the terms. If there isn’t agreement, one or the other party walks and there’s no deal. Whether the person’s a so-called minority or not shouldn’t even enter the equation in terms of establishing different terms for how they go about coming to an agreement. And if it does for the landlord or the tenant, and it becomes an unreconcilable issue, then they part ways and move on. End of story.
While you’re at it, can you give me an example how any anti-discrimination law has reversed itself on you in a detrimental way?
Why? Why is that relevant?
Ok, you’re last question first.. It’s relevant because I can’t think of any examples where an anti-discrimination law SHOULD be applied in reverse. Discrimination is only in the hands of those in power, authority, or the majority. It simply does not happen in reverse.
Regarding the Landlord and the applicant, you bring in the concept of “Private” contract. This is fair as long as the “Private” invitation is not made “Public”. If you put your ad in the general newspaper, it is no longer a Private invitation or contract.
Your last two comments reflect a very particular worldview or philosophy and its expression as political theory so, as you’ve demonstrated, you can’t escape theory. And nothing is “simply” or self-evident. Of course ordinarily defined discrimination can take place in reverse. A prospective tenant can see an ad in the paper for an apartment, arrive there and sees two guys kissing each other, clears his throat to get their attention and says he wants to talk to the landlord about the advertised rental. One of the kissing guys says they are the owners, and the prospective tenant, not wanting homsexual landlords walks away. You’re right, the politically defined concept of “discrimination” in use by today’s governments that was carefully defined to reflect the socialist premises of affirmative action and group rights is not violated by such a decision by that prospective tenant, and so there is no mechanism in human rights theory to prosecute the tenant. But in the normal usage of the term discrimination by John Doe, that would be considered discriminatory.Today’s establishment leaders exploit this known understanding of the term to advance their own state-ist political agenda which is based on a very different – and anti-equality before the law – understanding of the term.
Your definition of public vs. private is an innovative distinction that has only been popularized by the growing state-ist/socialist mentality in recent years. I go into more detail on this matter of the diff. definitions of public in my book No Sacred Ground, and why the definition you posit is so dangerous to fundamental liberty in Canada.
I need to think about this. Should the potential tenant be penalized for wasting the time of the gay owners? Who has the position of power in this situation? Did discrimination occur in this example?
Have a good night. Thanks for your responses (well, at least the latter ones).
Site Editor,
I don’t believe any of these embittered PZ Myer nutcakes and fans I’ve read are actually interested in logic, dialogue, and discussing intelligible worldview solutions. I guess when you’re mentally locked up in a PZ Myers assylum website of pseudo-science, actual conversation with them is seemingly impossible – especially when their arguments and “questions” are inter-laced with insults and vitriol. Why would anybody need to use vitriolic rhetorical devices anyway if they really had air-tight arguments?
I guess I could have been taken captive earlier in life by a PZ Myers type just as easily, hadn’t it been for the grace of God, and Scripture.
RRC,
How right you are. Truth doesn’t require abuse, or mocking, or coercion or any of the methods the atheists are using to foist their religion upon others. Truth only needs itself to stand, because it is true. If there was truth to atheism they would not NEED to resort to the underhanded tactics they are using against this site.
It simply proves the Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life and no man shall come unto the Father, but by Him. You don’t see hoards of Christians going to their sites and abusing the moderators with lies and made up stories such as is happening here.
There is the odd one who asks good questions but there are so many abusive non thinkers, it is almost impossible to engage them. Probably, that is the game plan of their master so none of his servants will start to think for themselves.
RRC,
I went and looked also and it was just angry, angry junk. They have an intense hatred of Christianity, some of it, seemingly, stemming from us knowing right from wrong. With so much hatred and bigotry, being shown by most atheists, it is no wonder those kind commit the atrocities they do when they become the authorities.
Editor:
I’ve had a chance to think.. While I am not a fan of quota systems, the purpose of anti-discrimination laws is to protect ALL people seeking opportunities from discrimination by other persons in power. In the case of both Landlord/Tenant or Employer/Employee, the person in power is the Landlord or Employer.. to accept or decline an application from someone who WANTS the opportunity to work or live in the place of their choosing.. and to evict or fire the tenant or employee if they were originally accepted.
So, I agree that the law does not protect Landlords and Employers. In the case of the gay Landlords, the tenant may want to rent from them because the location or the price is appealing – If they told the applicant he couldn’t live in their complex because he was not gay, the straight applicant would have a clear case against the Landlords. Neither group would get preferential treatment. I think Jesus would uphold that law.
Believe what you like, guys. You and I are miles apart on much more fundamental philosophical foundations. I might present the views more strongly than others but I am reflecting the principles of liberty that the West was built on and that were considered normal until the last few anomalous decades, so you only have to be moderately well read in Western history to be familiar with them, but you treat them as completely foreign concepts that you can’t even represent properly, which shows how narrow your experience and thinking is.
But that aside, go ahead and believe what you like. Embrace discrimination in the guise of anti-discrimination. You have not dealt with the most important issues like rebutting my charge that this approach is incompatible with the long-embraced Western principle of jurisprudence of equality before the law. I’ll fight for equality before the law and liberty and justice, while you fight for this fake reality of discrimination. You can’t even conceptualise my views which in one degree or another were mainstream in the west before a few decades ago, which shows how little intellectual experience you have had outside your own narrow ideological parameters.
Those of us who love freedom and justice will work vigorously to resist the tyrannical agenda of state-ism no matter what guise it comes in, including the ethic of affirmative action, special status, discrimination and “human rights.”
Come on, AHermit, this isn’t grade school. I don’t have to number your paragraphs 1, 2, 3, and answer them like that. I have given you my answers to your comments. You might not like them or be able to comprehend them, but I don’t understand what benefit you get by lying and saying I didn’t answer them. Take it or leave it, but please show integrity and don’t lie.
Hermit,
If we’re talking about people being deprived a livelihood or shelter or services which are available to the general public who else is going to adjudicate?
RRC’s Answer: It’s “human rights” as a political idea that needs to be thoroughly scrutenized and checked for logical defects, not simply allowing extremist ideologues with hurt feelings the power to have a tool of revenge for hurt feelings. The “deprived” case scenarios of people you cite have their liberties already protected by law in Canada and the U.S., and elsewhere where there are beneficiaries of the historic Magna Carta, etc.
John M,
Jesus the Messiah came to this world as a man 2000 years ago and upheld perfectly the Law of Moses, not Immanuel Kant. So, no, Jesus wouldn’t comply with the premise of your scenario.
You can read about a parable of Jesus regarding tenants and a landlord in Mark 12:1-11. The landlord is the victim, and the tenents are brought to justice according to the ultimate adjudicator, God and His Law-word.
Dude!! What the heck does a parable about tenants killing at least 3 rent collectors, including the landlords son, and beating several others have to do with this conversation. That scriptural reference is completely irrelevant to this conversation.
What is your philosophy?
Is it “equality before the law” coupled with “natural law”?
I don’t know any of the other commenters on this site, but I’m also getting the impression that you aren’t answering my questions directly. You can answer one of the above questions with a Yes or No to get started.
The whole concept of “equality” that things like affirmative action try to create is farcical.
For example, an employee can get a HRC to charge a prospective employer of his for discriminating against him because he is paraplegic. The employer could be put on national news and face charges – all because he thought the prospective employee in the wheelchair was not suited for the menial job. “All people are equal, regardless of blablablah or physical disability…”
Or, an HRC can charge an employer for sacking a person because they only spoke rudimentary English and customers had to ask twice or thrice to understand the person. “All people are equal under the law, regardless of blablabla or spoken language…”
We really need to fight against this religion of equality. We are already seeing stomach-turning things like women in mens’ jobs and schoolchildren being taught that they can select their gender. What’s next, 11-year-olds being allowed to run for Parliament? Your guess is as good as mine.
John M,
Sorry I couldn’t answer you sooner. Your question is ‘what the heck does Jesus’ parable have to do with anything in the context of the conversation?’ I was answering your October 22 comment entry where you said I think Jesus would uphold that law.
I was telling you the actual law code Jesus upholds. The parable is an illustration of real victimhood, the real principle of God’s Law applied, and it’s real inevitable judgements – juxtaposed to arbitrary, partial HRC “principles”.