Sol Invictus
05-18-2010, 04:47 PM
MAY 15, 2010 | ERIC VOLMERS | CALGARY HERALD
Marci McDonald will join Donald Gutstein, author of Not a Conspiracy Theory, for Prophecies and Profits: Do Christian Nationalism and Business Propaganda Threaten Canadian Democracy? on Tuesday at 7 p.m. at The Unitarian Church of Calgary’s Panabaker Hall.
The tricky part about writing an urgent book that deals with an emerging political movement is that the movement will inevitably continue to emerge after your publisher’s deadline has passed.
The release of Marci McDonald’s The Armageddon Factor: The Rise of Christian Nationalism in Canada (Random House Canada, 419 pages, $32), might seem impeccably well-timed to coincide with recent events. In the past few weeks, moves by the federal government seem to add credence to her argument that Canada’s religious right has become an increasingly powerful force in Ottawa due to the cosiness that exists between Prime Minister Stephen Harper and a growing network of well-organized Christian conservatives.
But trying to fit these developments into the book as deadlines loomed became a source of anxiety for the author.
“The overtures to the religious right by this government have been so many and so overt, unlike four years ago, that I couldn’t keep up with the headlines,” McDonald says. “It was dazzling. At least, I don’t have to make that argument that ‘despite appearances, there is something going on beneath the surface.’ Well, it’s not beneath the surface anymore.”
McDonald was able to slip in a reference to how the Christian social-justice group KAIROS had its funding cut off in the fall of 2009, which she says was a result of the long-serving group participating in a boycott against Israel. But other evidence of the religious-right’s influence in Ottawa continued to pop up in the weeks leading up to Tuesday’s release date, all arriving too late to be included in the text.
For instance, there was the Harper government’s recent announcement that Canada would refuse to support abortion in foreign-aid projects, a move that stunned political observers. There was also the federal government’s refusal to fund Toronto’s Gay Pride Parade, a decision that critics saw as further evidence of the Conservatives’ eagerness to pander to anti-gay sentiments of the evangelical right. The government, for its part, has denied that any of these moves were ideological.
But, for McDonald, it all seems to fit nicely into an argument the Toronto journalist has been formulating for more than four years. In 2006, when she wrote an article for Walrus magazine on the same topic, it was met with cynicism in many quarters. Surely Canada was too tolerant, too well-informed and too diverse to be affected by the sort of clenched-fist Bible-thumping defined by Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson in the U.S.
“Four years later,” she says, “I haven’t had anyone say that to me.”
The Armageddon Factor is billed as the first in-depth look into Canada’s religious right, particularly a Christian nationalist movement that longs to turn back the clock on social progress. These forces are nothing new, of course, but McDonald argues that the network has become increasingly sophisticated in the past few years and has unprecedented access to Ottawa.
Given that parts of Alberta are referred to as Canada’s “Bible Belt,” it’s not surprising that the religious-right movement has both historical and modern ties to the province. Politically, it was certainly home to early devotees to the cause. As important figures in the movement, McDonald points to former Alberta premiers and radio preachers William (Bible Bill) Aberhart, who was sufficiently swayed by the apocalyptic ranting south of the border to found the Calgary Prophetic Bible Institute in 1927; and his former student, Ernest Manning, who took over both Aberhart’s fire-and-brimstone radio show and Alberta in 1943.
“There probably is more American influence in Alberta than there is in some provinces,” says McDonald. “The early revivalists from Chicago and the Midwest made regular visits up to the Prairies. So a lot of the dispensationalist credo was spread early and the radio shows were listened to. Ernest Manning listened to William Aberhart on the radio and was so entranced with what he heard that he went to Calgary from far away and signed up for his first class at the Calgary Prophetic Bible Institute. So there was a history.”
She also discusses modern activists such as Brian Rushfeldt, the self-described “nuts and bolts guy” for the conservative Canada Family Action Coalition, a Calgary-based lobby group led by outspoken Toronto evangelist Charles McVety.
That group was behind loud and well-funded protests over same-sex marriage that began in 2004. McDonald points to the legalization of same-sex marriage as a turning point for the religious right, allowing them to recruit social conservatives from other faiths while giving them a harder resolve to have their voices heard.
And, after finding a sympathetic ear in Harper and other Conservatives, McDonald argues they continue a push to have the country’s domestic and foreign policies shaped by a belief that the second coming of Christ, and Armageddon, is fast approaching. The movement’s end goal is a society ruled by biblical principles that forces a narrow view of Christianity into all aspects of public life and excludes minorities they don’t approve of. And in the past four years, she argues, this movement has gained steam as conservative Christians quietly position themselves to change Canada’s social, cultural, educational and even judicial policies.
“All I’m saying is if you see policies coming down the pike that might increasingly turn over social services to churches, or encourage more faith-based education from the federal level, or the provincial level, be aware,” she says. “Start to see where this might lead. As you see the nature of the judiciary changing, there are definite implications and definitely different camps. One side thinks it’s long overdue and the other that is shocked that we might have a judicial consensus that is much more conservative. The same with education and with all sorts of policies.”
McDonald, who reveals herself to be a Christian near the end of the book, is both a former bureau chief for Maclean’s and senior writer for the U.S. News and World Report. And while her topic may seem divisive, she says the book is not a polemic. When asked, McDonald refuses to label the conservative Christian forces at work as “dangerous,” per se, although she acknowledges the “more militant evangelical” groups can give Christianity a bad rap when pretending to speak for the faith.
But mostly, she just hopes the book sparks discussion about a powerful political force that appears to be operating under the radar of the public and mainstream media. This may be wishful thinking. Even before it was released on Tuesday, the book has had the fringe right frothing on the blogosphere.
“It’s not my part to represent one side or the other of the real debate that should be taking place in this country,” she says. “I’m not going to argue for or against a greater role of religion in government. I can certainly warn of the pitfalls and I can say that this is the building and here is some of the examples.
“Yes, I think I probably will be pilloried, and I think I’m being pilloried, in the blogosphere. That’s not unexpected and I hope I can take it with good grace and we can all end up having somewhat civilized conversations out of it.”
evolmers@theherald.canwest.com
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/Armageddon+days+here/3033718/story.html#ixzz0r8KffznZ
Marci McDonald will join Donald Gutstein, author of Not a Conspiracy Theory, for Prophecies and Profits: Do Christian Nationalism and Business Propaganda Threaten Canadian Democracy? on Tuesday at 7 p.m. at The Unitarian Church of Calgary’s Panabaker Hall.
The tricky part about writing an urgent book that deals with an emerging political movement is that the movement will inevitably continue to emerge after your publisher’s deadline has passed.
The release of Marci McDonald’s The Armageddon Factor: The Rise of Christian Nationalism in Canada (Random House Canada, 419 pages, $32), might seem impeccably well-timed to coincide with recent events. In the past few weeks, moves by the federal government seem to add credence to her argument that Canada’s religious right has become an increasingly powerful force in Ottawa due to the cosiness that exists between Prime Minister Stephen Harper and a growing network of well-organized Christian conservatives.
But trying to fit these developments into the book as deadlines loomed became a source of anxiety for the author.
“The overtures to the religious right by this government have been so many and so overt, unlike four years ago, that I couldn’t keep up with the headlines,” McDonald says. “It was dazzling. At least, I don’t have to make that argument that ‘despite appearances, there is something going on beneath the surface.’ Well, it’s not beneath the surface anymore.”
McDonald was able to slip in a reference to how the Christian social-justice group KAIROS had its funding cut off in the fall of 2009, which she says was a result of the long-serving group participating in a boycott against Israel. But other evidence of the religious-right’s influence in Ottawa continued to pop up in the weeks leading up to Tuesday’s release date, all arriving too late to be included in the text.
For instance, there was the Harper government’s recent announcement that Canada would refuse to support abortion in foreign-aid projects, a move that stunned political observers. There was also the federal government’s refusal to fund Toronto’s Gay Pride Parade, a decision that critics saw as further evidence of the Conservatives’ eagerness to pander to anti-gay sentiments of the evangelical right. The government, for its part, has denied that any of these moves were ideological.
But, for McDonald, it all seems to fit nicely into an argument the Toronto journalist has been formulating for more than four years. In 2006, when she wrote an article for Walrus magazine on the same topic, it was met with cynicism in many quarters. Surely Canada was too tolerant, too well-informed and too diverse to be affected by the sort of clenched-fist Bible-thumping defined by Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson in the U.S.
“Four years later,” she says, “I haven’t had anyone say that to me.”
The Armageddon Factor is billed as the first in-depth look into Canada’s religious right, particularly a Christian nationalist movement that longs to turn back the clock on social progress. These forces are nothing new, of course, but McDonald argues that the network has become increasingly sophisticated in the past few years and has unprecedented access to Ottawa.
Given that parts of Alberta are referred to as Canada’s “Bible Belt,” it’s not surprising that the religious-right movement has both historical and modern ties to the province. Politically, it was certainly home to early devotees to the cause. As important figures in the movement, McDonald points to former Alberta premiers and radio preachers William (Bible Bill) Aberhart, who was sufficiently swayed by the apocalyptic ranting south of the border to found the Calgary Prophetic Bible Institute in 1927; and his former student, Ernest Manning, who took over both Aberhart’s fire-and-brimstone radio show and Alberta in 1943.
“There probably is more American influence in Alberta than there is in some provinces,” says McDonald. “The early revivalists from Chicago and the Midwest made regular visits up to the Prairies. So a lot of the dispensationalist credo was spread early and the radio shows were listened to. Ernest Manning listened to William Aberhart on the radio and was so entranced with what he heard that he went to Calgary from far away and signed up for his first class at the Calgary Prophetic Bible Institute. So there was a history.”
She also discusses modern activists such as Brian Rushfeldt, the self-described “nuts and bolts guy” for the conservative Canada Family Action Coalition, a Calgary-based lobby group led by outspoken Toronto evangelist Charles McVety.
That group was behind loud and well-funded protests over same-sex marriage that began in 2004. McDonald points to the legalization of same-sex marriage as a turning point for the religious right, allowing them to recruit social conservatives from other faiths while giving them a harder resolve to have their voices heard.
And, after finding a sympathetic ear in Harper and other Conservatives, McDonald argues they continue a push to have the country’s domestic and foreign policies shaped by a belief that the second coming of Christ, and Armageddon, is fast approaching. The movement’s end goal is a society ruled by biblical principles that forces a narrow view of Christianity into all aspects of public life and excludes minorities they don’t approve of. And in the past four years, she argues, this movement has gained steam as conservative Christians quietly position themselves to change Canada’s social, cultural, educational and even judicial policies.
“All I’m saying is if you see policies coming down the pike that might increasingly turn over social services to churches, or encourage more faith-based education from the federal level, or the provincial level, be aware,” she says. “Start to see where this might lead. As you see the nature of the judiciary changing, there are definite implications and definitely different camps. One side thinks it’s long overdue and the other that is shocked that we might have a judicial consensus that is much more conservative. The same with education and with all sorts of policies.”
McDonald, who reveals herself to be a Christian near the end of the book, is both a former bureau chief for Maclean’s and senior writer for the U.S. News and World Report. And while her topic may seem divisive, she says the book is not a polemic. When asked, McDonald refuses to label the conservative Christian forces at work as “dangerous,” per se, although she acknowledges the “more militant evangelical” groups can give Christianity a bad rap when pretending to speak for the faith.
But mostly, she just hopes the book sparks discussion about a powerful political force that appears to be operating under the radar of the public and mainstream media. This may be wishful thinking. Even before it was released on Tuesday, the book has had the fringe right frothing on the blogosphere.
“It’s not my part to represent one side or the other of the real debate that should be taking place in this country,” she says. “I’m not going to argue for or against a greater role of religion in government. I can certainly warn of the pitfalls and I can say that this is the building and here is some of the examples.
“Yes, I think I probably will be pilloried, and I think I’m being pilloried, in the blogosphere. That’s not unexpected and I hope I can take it with good grace and we can all end up having somewhat civilized conversations out of it.”
evolmers@theherald.canwest.com
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/Armageddon+days+here/3033718/story.html#ixzz0r8KffznZ