November 15, 2006 10:15 AM

Evangelicals, To The North

President Bush, right, shakes hands with Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper in the East Room of the White House after a joint press availability Thursday, July 6, 2006, in Washington.

President Bush, right, shakes hands with Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper in the East Room of the White House after a joint press availability Thursday, July 6, 2006, in Washington. (AP)

(The Nation)  This column was written by Chris Hedges.
When things get bad in the United States, it is reassuring to turn to Canada, a country with a high standard of living, a small military and a national health care plan. Canada always seemed to be, if a bit duller than America, also a bit saner.

But this is changing. The new Canadian prime minister, Stephen Harper, inspired by the neocons to the south, appears determined to visit the worst excesses of George Bush's presidency on his own country. He plans to pull Canada out of the Kyoto Protocol and expand military spending. He defended Israel's massive bombing of southern Lebanon, even as Israeli warplanes bombed a clearly marked U.N. observation post, killing a Canadian peacekeeper. He was the first world leader to cut off funding after Hamas took over the Palestinian Authority. The decision was made despite Hamas having taken power after winning democratic elections that not only were recognized as free and fair but fulfilled demands made by the West. Harper has extended the mission for the 2,200 Canadian soldiers fighting in Afghanistan, where 42 have died so far. He has slashed $1 billion in funding that assists the most vulnerable Canadians, including cuts in adult literacy programs, legal aid to gays and lesbians, and measures to assist unemployed youth, despite a near-record surplus of $13.2 billion for 2005-06. If the Bush Administration launches an attack on Iran, there is little doubt that Harper would line up behind Washington. When the Canadian prime minister was asked about Iran before his recent speech to the U.N. General Assembly, he called Iran "the biggest single threat the planet faces." And he sneers at Canada's long tradition of antimilitarism and generous social services, once calling Canada "a second-tier socialistic country, boasting ever more loudly about its ... social services to mask its second-rate status."

But that is not the worst of it. The prime minister, who has begun, in very un-Canadian fashion, to close his speeches with the words "God Bless Canada," is also a born-again Christian. And Harper is rapidly building an alliance with the worst elements of the U.S. Christian right.

Harper, who heads a minority government, is a member of the East Gate Alliance Church, part of the Christian and Missionary Alliance, a denomination with 400,000 members that believes in the literal word of the Bible, faith-healing and the imminent return of Jesus Christ. Women cannot be ordained in his church, homosexuality is a sin and abortion is murder. Canada, however, is unused to public displays of faith, and Harper has had to tread more lightly than George Bush. But many fear the prime minister is taking a cue from the Bush Administration and slowly mobilizing Canada's 3.5 million evangelicals — along with the 44 percent of Canadians who say they have committed themselves to Christ — as a power base. Harper has spent the past three years methodically knitting a coalition of social conservatives and evangelicals that looks ominously similar to the American model.


The Nation
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by bluestardad November 17, 2006 9:57 AM EST
Hey maybe these Religious Neo-cons will take their countries money, wear thousand dollar suits, and play hide the salami with some page boys too!
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by chris12karen November 16, 2006 6:43 PM EST
What's the big deal if Harper is a Christian and has a bunch of Christians? There are more than enough anti-religion bigots to vote him out if they want to.
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by drcarroll2 November 16, 2006 5:15 PM EST
While the religious right mayve had thier spotlight in the sun in the US, they do not hold sway in Canada. And while they be a PART of the Conservative's party in Canada the religious hold that they had in the States is not matched by that up here. Canadians are by nature moderates, and the conservatives up here reflect that. We do not hand out tac cuts just to the rich, in fact twoo weeks ago our finanace Minister closed the biggest coporate tax loophole in Canadian history and thereby retained billions of dollars in coporate taxes.

What Mr Hedges seems to have a problem with is religious people, being agnostic myself i have no issues with people wanting to be Christians. Mr Hedges has thrown his own religious bias into the Canadian politcal mix without examining the facts. Such as tax breaks for all economic levels, not just the rich, increadeds spnding on Helath care, education , defence whileat the same time paying down our national debt.


Mr Hedges simply hasnt a clue what he's talking about
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by spammenot995 November 16, 2006 4:06 PM EST
(sigh)

First of all, I do not think that Mr. Hedges' opinion piece is against people of faith. I think it is against politicized religious people imposing their beliefs on others via government.

Having said that: Lord God, save us from your right-wing followers. And also save us from those left-wingers who bash people of faith.

People - Can't we get along? Live and let live? Do married gay/lesbian couples threaten the marriages of the heterosexual majority? Heck, no. Is a person of faith who speaks openly about his/her beliefs a threat to the freedom of others? Again, no.

To folks of more liberal and/or secular persuasion who may read this: Conservative people deserve the same "live and let live" that you want for yourselves. I have seen people of faith (especially straight white males) marginalized by "political correctness" many, many times. That is every bit as oppressive as the religious right's bashing of people they don't like.

To Christians: Salvation is solely by grace, not good works or certain political or "moral" opinions. If you are basing your salvation on anything that **you** did (including "accepting Christ"), you are most definitely on a shaky foundation. Remember that only God is righteous. We are all sinners who deserve nothing from the Lord. God loves us unconditionally. Our very faith in God is a gift of God. We cannot create saving faith by our own power or reason.

(Disclosure: I am a gay white Christian male who is politically moderate.)
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by annabanana-1 November 16, 2006 3:43 PM EST
Quick, my dear friends to the North.. Get a net. Catch the cuckoo before he can do too much damage. Don't let him make you as nutso as we are.
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by ademeyer November 16, 2006 3:24 PM EST
When religion and politics mix, religion loses. Right wing evangelicals have harmed Christianity in a way that Satan never could. Christ specifically warned against judging others, but now Christianity is associated with the most judgmental, hypocritical attitudes as embodied by right wing politicians. The message of Christ: peace, love, and a personal relationship to God, has been misrepresented by the politicians and their evangelical sheep these last six years, to the point that Christianity is unrecognizable. Now the culture sees Christianity as a wing-nutty political movement, instead of a deep and beautiful spiritual path.
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by random_radar November 16, 2006 3:03 PM EST
Does Mr. Hedges merely hate Christians, or is he proposing to actually feed them to the lions? And when he talks about Harper's power base being a coalition of "coalition of evangelicals, Catholics, and conservative Jews," is he saying that conservative Jews are bad Jews? Is this selective anti-semitism or just politically correct anti-semitism? Talk about toxic journalism! Does the ADL defend all Jews, or just the Jews that do what the ADL likes?
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by tejasdemo November 16, 2006 1:58 PM EST
Looks like Canada is off the list for vacation time now. The wackos have moved north.

Maybe we should build a fence around Canada ?
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by prelgovisk November 16, 2006 1:28 PM EST
"He has quietly but determinedly nurtured a coalition of evangelicals, Catholics, and conservative Jews %u2026%u201C Marci McDonald

So? Are they not citizens of Canada and allowed to vote? Should the vote only be granted to non-Christians and Anti-Semites?

It is time that Marci McDonald accepts the will of the people. They know better than she does what government works best for them.

If he is an elected official, then the people have spoken. Let them pick their leaders at the ballot box.

I guess the liberal media feels that it represents an enlightened aristocracy that knows what is best for us. They are horrified that we should be allowed to pick someone other than those who parrot their ideology. They are a few hundred years behind the times. It is not the House of Lords but the common citizen that chooses our leaders now-a-days. Marci McDonald does not represent a progressive point of view, but a throw back to the anti-democratic views of that predate our independence.

Time to get over the past Marci. More Canadians like Prime Minister Stephen Harper than like you and your kind.
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by thunderclap4 November 16, 2006 12:22 PM EST
All parties become corrupt after they%u2019ve been in power too long and must be thrown out. Just be careful who you replace them with.
The evangelical right has a strong tendency to conflate religion and politics. They have a standard message which makes Christians comfortable. They have wedge issues which make their adherents feel victimized and pushes them towards the Republican Party. In the US, they are aggrieved about separation of religion and state as well as abortion and gay marriage.
Finally, they have a corporate/political message, usually tax cuts, support for Bush%u2019s War and opposition to global warming mediation. Check out WallBuilders for their selective Bible quotes for tax cuts. Pat Robertson has a gem on global warming.
Catholics have an excellent %u201Cjust war%u201D doctrine (google at %u201Cjust war catholic%u201D) that exposes the corruption of Bush%u2019s War. Pope John Paul II condemned it on that basis. It is part of their comprehensive %u201Cpro-life%u201D theology. Yet the last US election featured death penalty, abortion, stem cell research, and euthanasia with nary a mention of the hundreds of thousands of dead civilians in Iraq. It appears that they (specifically Relevant Radio and the Catholic Defamation League) have dropped a doctrine for political expedience.
The evangelical / conservative Catholic vote has become a political arm of the Republicans, with theology taking a subservient role when in conflict with party needs.
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