Speaking on the June 5th edition of CBC Radio's As it Happens, Eaton said this, unprompted: "I'll raise something and I'm sure I'll get thousands of letters now — you know, why is the United Church, you know, their boycott against Israel, well, is that helping the poor, educating the poor or giving people a hand up? Or is that political work?"
A few moments later she answered her own question: "I think it's political work." Asked by interviewer Carol Off whether the United Church should be audited, Eaton continued: "It's none of my business. But I just think that's it's pretty strange, wouldn't you say, that a church is taking (the) political action of boycotting a country?"
Off came back with this: "Churches take up a lot of causes — they go after politicians about poverty, they go after them about abortion laws. Do you think they should cease and desist from all of that?" To which the good senator replied, heaving herself directly into the deadfall trap: "I think yes. I don't think that churches should take political stands. I think they should be more about helping people and giving people succour."
Secularism, it seems, has finally hit ground zero: The churches, all churches — whether liberal, evangelical, left or right, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, Mormon, Jain, Zoroastrian or Jedi — no longer have any business speaking up about public policy or political issues, apparently. If they do they risk being lumped in with other quasi-political charities and think tanks now fallen under the gimlet eye of the Conservative government.
Why should any of these organizations — The Fraser Institute, The Pembina Institute and the like, as well as churches, temples, mosques and a staggering 86,000 registered charities — receive exemptions from paying business tax? Why should they be allowed to issue tax-exemption receipts to donors? And why, to get directly to Eaton's point, should churches get a pass on playing politics when, say, the Suzuki Foundation does not, any longer?
It's a fair question. It's a discussion worth having. It's also a can of worms the Conservative government, of which Eaton is a representative, would have been wiser to leave unopened. Once the layers of old wallpaper start coming off, it's difficult to stop scraping until you're down to the lath.
In the January/February 2006 issue of Faith Today, a publication of the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, Stephen Harper wrote this: "In recent years, some politicians and commentators have asserted that in order to maintain the separation of church and state, legislators should not be influenced by religious belief. Leaving aside the fact that the separation of church and state is an American constitutional doctrine, not part of Canada's legal or political tradition, the notion of separation refers to the state not interfering in religious practice and treating all faith communities impartially. It does not mean that faith has no place in public life or in the public square."
Indeed. Not only does faith have a role in the public square today, whether it is overt or quiet — a number of Conservative MPs are devout Christians, including the prime minister himself — but it always has. One could argue, in fact, that both the Conservative Party of Canada and the New Democratic Party have Christian DNA — to be precise, Baptist.
"Bible" Bill Aberhart, founder of Alberta's Social Credit movement, and his successor Ernest Manning, father of Preston Manning, were both Prairie Baptist preachers. So was Tommy Douglas. J.S. Woodsworth, who founded the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, precursor to the NDP, was a Methodist preacher. Their movements, Prairie populist reactions to the misery of the Great Depression, were not all that dissimilar, initially. In Ernest Manning's day Social Credit's more statist polices were set aside — but his faith never was. He was quite public about it, during the whole quarter century in which he was premier of Alberta.
Nor has faith ever been set aside by Preston Manning, founder of the Reform Party, which of course evolved into the current governing party. Here's Manning in the United Church Observer, speaking to journalist Frank Dabbs: "I've read a lot but I've hardly read anything twice except the Bible. Jesus's teaching has shaped my life at every stage." Indeed the Calgary-based Manning Centre for Building Democracy — a non-profit think tank, incidentally — runs a program to help people of faith, any faith, effectively translate their beliefs into political action.
In his book, The Blaikie Report: An Insider's Look at Faith and Politics, NDP legend Bill Blaikie — an ordained minister in the United Church — writes about how, in his first House of Commons stint between 1979 and 1984, he teamed up with five other Christian clergymen who were also MPs: Stanley Knowles and Jim Manly, also United Church ministers; Bob Ogle and Andy Hogan, both Catholic priests; and Dan Heap, an Anglican priest. Additionally there were "other lay members," Blaikie recalls, who "also saw themselves in continuity with the social gospel tradition of Tommy Douglas and J.S. Woodsworth." Hmm.
Today's NDP is a dominantly secular party — yet its policy positions quite often dovetail with those of the United Church, the most progressive and overtly political of the major Canadian protestant denominations. Likewise evangelical Christians, most notably Charles McVety, of the Canada Family Action Coalition, have long been robust and vocal supporters of the Conservative movement.
Manning believes that people of all faiths who get involved in politics, in hopes of articulating their principles, soon become kindred spirits, despite any theological differences: "All faith groups are threatened by a militant secularity," Manning told the Observer, "that says they are completely irrelevant and if they are going to hold religious beliefs they should do so in private." Indeed.
And now that view apparently extends to members of Harper's own party. But does it extend across the board? Or just to charities and churches whose political views conflict with the government's?
Picking a fight with the churches, any churches, would be a colossally dumb move for this government. Tighten up on the books, by all means. Reinforce the rule that says registered charities — whether religious or secular — should devote no more than 10 per cent of their resources to political work.
But then, for Heaven's sake, leave the churches alone. Let them say what they please, about what they choose. What was Senator Eaton thinking?
Original Article
Source: edmonton journal
Author: Michael Den Tandt
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