Juno News - Why do Christians get criticized and denigrated, ignored and erased？

00:00:00.000 The secular, post-modern, post-national left may hate Christmas, but it's a holiday that all

00:00:06.120 Canadians should celebrate, even if you're not Christian. I'm Candice Malcolm and this is The

00:00:10.560 Candice Malcolm Show. Hi everyone, thank you so much for tuning into the program. Now, if you are

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00:00:50.100 out. Now listen folks, we are living in post-modern, post-nationalist times. Just listen to Justin

00:00:56.700 Trudeau, his dream of a post-modern, post-nationalist Canada has come true. The secular value of a

00:01:03.360 separation of church and state has been taken to an extreme limit here in Canada. It has led to the

00:01:09.620 complete removal of religious symbols, religious concepts, and religious festivities from the public

00:01:15.420 square. Just look at Toronto, they no longer have a Christmas market. It is now called a winter

00:01:19.940 festival winter market. The strange wordplay doesn't apply to any other religious groups, but it does

00:01:25.620 apply to Christians. So why do Christians get criticized and denigrated? Why do they get

00:01:30.660 ignored and erased? And can we completely erase Christianity from our modern society? Can we

00:01:37.200 divorce our values, our norms, our morality from their Judeo-Christian roots? And should we? Well,

00:01:43.180 the political left says enthusiastically yes to all these questions, but I believe there's a growing

00:01:48.140 appetite for learning more about our traditions, our norms, our values, and the attitudes and how they

00:01:53.680 build up our modern day society. You see it more in young Canadians and certainly you see it in new

00:01:58.360 Canadians. So for a special Christmas week edition of the Candace Malcolm Show, I would like to welcome

00:02:03.620 Ray Pennings to the program. Ray is the executive vice president of CARDIS. CARDIS is a think tank

00:02:09.580 based in Ottawa that focuses on human dignity, strong families, religious freedom, formative education,

00:02:15.140 and healthy communities. Ray has led a number of large research projects at CARDIS over the years

00:02:20.300 and was the lead author of Death is Natural Reframing the End of Life Conversations in Canada.

00:02:25.980 In addition to authoring CARDIS reports and columns, he's also written several chapters

00:02:29.760 in several publications. So Ray Pennings, thank you so much for joining the show.

00:02:34.540 Thank you for having me. Okay, so let's start with a very simple, very basic question.

00:02:39.680 And that is, why do we celebrate Christmas? And why is it an important milestone not just for

00:02:44.340 Christians, but for our entire civilization? Well, why does any society celebrate a holiday?

00:02:51.160 It's to bring to its attention, the collective attention of the country, something that it deems

00:02:56.580 to be important. And certainly, you know, there are various holidays that celebrate various figures

00:03:02.480 in history. I don't think whether you're a Christian or not a Christian, few would argue that

00:03:08.220 the birth of Jesus 2,000 years ago in his life has been one of the singular impacting

00:03:14.900 things in the world. So, you know, just from a matter of history and historical literacy and

00:03:22.660 understanding that there's a historical element to it. But it isn't just an indifferent thing.

00:03:29.140 Obviously, for Christians in particular, the incarnation of Jesus Christ, God becoming human,

00:03:36.640 is at the core of the Christian religion. And that has been historically and remains today the

00:03:42.480 most prominent faith in Canada. There are many people for whom it doesn't have that same meaning

00:03:49.860 in a personal sort of sense, but the values that come with that, the sense of giving,

00:03:54.900 Christ, you know, God sent his only begotten son as a gift into the world, the notion of giving,

00:04:00.320 the notion of love, the notion of sharing, all of these things that are embodied in the Christian

00:04:05.680 faith are brought to light in terms of this day. So it's an entirely appropriate day to have as a

00:04:12.740 public holiday, whether you're Christian or not. One of the things I see that I find so fascinating

00:04:18.500 is that you see people that come to Canada from other parts of the world, other societies,

00:04:23.020 other religious backgrounds, and they love Christmas. They take part in it. You know, I mentioned off the

00:04:28.760 top that the Toronto Christmas Market has been rebranded this year as the Distillery Winter Village.

00:04:34.660 And I've heard from friends who come from immigrant families about how disappointing it is,

00:04:39.960 people who aren't Christian even, because they love Christmas. They love the trees, the lights,

00:04:45.320 the, like you said, the festivities, the idea of giving and just the whole holiday season. And they

00:04:52.200 get disappointed when they see this sort of political correct crowd trying to erase it. So why do you

00:04:59.040 think it is, first of all, that people who aren't Christian love Christmas in so many instances,

00:05:04.340 more so in some instances than the Christians themselves? And then second question, why is it

00:05:10.820 that in a country like Canada, in a city like Toronto, we have this instinct to try to erase our own

00:05:17.620 culture and our own holidays?

00:05:19.400 Yeah, let me, let me answer this, the second question first and deal with the negative. So

00:05:24.400 why is it that those who by and large, you know, are secular people within a historic country that

00:05:31.680 was based on Christian traditions, you know, find them so offensive and seek to remove all references

00:05:37.020 to that in public life? It was interesting. The polling we released in November with the Angus

00:05:41.760 Reed Institute highlighted the fact that we asked the question, do you think the presence of the

00:05:48.440 following groups are beneficial or damaging to Canadian society? And we asked about

00:05:52.920 Catholics, Protestants, evangelicals, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, and atheists. What is interesting is

00:06:01.740 if you were very religious yourself, doesn't matter what religion, you were positive towards other

00:06:07.720 religions, Jews were positive towards Christians, Christians were positive towards Muslims. As you move

00:06:14.220 down, we had four categories of religiosity in terms of your own personal behaviors, and there

00:06:20.000 were seven of them that we measured. As you move to the more secular side, by the time we got to the

00:06:25.660 23% of the population that would not check a box and identify with any religion, they would call

00:06:31.800 themselves agnostic or atheists, they were negative on the contribution of every other group except

00:06:38.040 atheists. So it is, you know, people of faith tend to be far more generous and magnanimous towards people

00:06:47.780 of other faiths, even though they profoundly disagree. Nobody checks a religious box. You're a Jew, you're a

00:06:54.380 Muslim, you're a Hindu, you're a Catholic, you're a Protestant, and people of faith disagree quite

00:07:00.680 profoundly with each other. And yet they recognize the very positive contribution that people of other

00:07:06.440 faiths are making to public life. Whereas what you're seeing is as you become less faithful in

00:07:12.160 your personal life and religion isn't there, there's a hostility towards all faiths, and especially

00:07:18.000 the Christian faith, which is the most dominant in our society. And of course, it's easy to find

00:07:22.760 reasons. If you want to, you know, you can talk about residential schools, you can talk about abuse,

00:07:26.620 you can talk, no institution is as perfect. And certainly institutions of faith have more than their

00:07:32.800 share. If you want to find warts, you don't have to look very far. In fact, as people of faith,

00:07:38.520 the very reason we are broken, sinful is the very reason we have a faith and a trust in God

00:07:44.760 along the way. So I think there is, you know, flipping to your first question in terms of why

00:07:52.140 is it that people of other faiths recognize? I think they understand that, you know, people,

00:07:57.800 we're, we're not brains on sticks. We're not bodies. We are whole people, body, soul, will,

00:08:05.120 spirits. There is a spiritual dimension to life. And truthfully, I suspect there are some people who

00:08:12.860 try to deny that element, but the vast majority of us at one moment or another come to face those

00:08:20.240 questions. Who am I? What am I doing here? Why does the world exist? Where am I going? And

00:08:25.580 the offering of an answer to some of those questions, even if you disagree,

00:08:31.600 recognizes that dimension of life. And I think resonates with, especially with people of other

00:08:37.800 faiths. Oh, that's a great segue. Cause the next question, or one of the questions I wanted to get

00:08:43.100 to, which we can go to right now is, so, you know, you have this sort of secular, I don't know if

00:08:48.720 they're liberal or left or centrist, whatever it is, but they, but they feel that we have to continue

00:08:54.340 to take this separation of church and state all the way to the end, get rid of any, any religious

00:08:59.280 symbol in public life, any reference to religiosity, Christianity. So, so, so total, you know, erasing

00:09:06.300 of, of, of all these things from our society, but, but you know, what, what, what's left at that? I,

00:09:12.860 I think there, we talked about this last time you were on the show, but there's sort of a resurgence

00:09:16.060 of interest, a growing appetite of young people or new Canadians wanting to know more about the,

00:09:21.280 the root of our, of our values and norms. And I, I wonder if you could kind of try to address this

00:09:25.660 question of, you know, what, how far can they take this? What will happen if we just try to

00:09:30.800 completely erase Christianity from our society? What would that society look like?

00:09:36.100 Well, ironically, as a person of faith and who has spent most of my public life,

00:09:40.500 identified as a person of faith in public life, bringing to bear that, I agree. There certainly

00:09:48.520 seems to be a coordinated effort, particularly from the left, but I would highlight, it's not just

00:09:54.900 from the left. There are some on the right as well, who are, who really want to draw that absolute line

00:10:00.860 between what you believe, your values, your belief system, saying that's entirely personal and somehow

00:10:08.560 your public life can be just this neutral process sort of thing. Well, first of all, philosophically,

00:10:15.640 that doesn't work. Um, I think we all understand there are first principles from which you proceed,

00:10:22.140 um, that apply in public life. And even that argument that the only acceptable arguments in

00:10:27.640 publics are those which are, um, new, you know, totally neutral and not based on any, it's a,

00:10:34.880 it's a logical fallacy in terms of that. I do understand in a pluralistic society that there is

00:10:41.540 an onus on those who are people of faith to communicate, not in the jargon of their faith,

00:10:47.260 but recognize the context in which they are and communicate their faith in a way that's

00:10:51.960 accessible to people who are not of their own tradition. Um, that, that there, there comes an

00:10:56.500 obligation for people of faith to communicate it in a way that's comprehensible. But I think at the

00:11:02.360 core, the question, and I think we're seeing this, especially with young people in our, in,

00:11:07.500 in the poll I just referenced, we talked about last time, uh, roughly 10% more of people under

00:11:13.140 the age of 40 talked about there being a role for faith in public life for those who are over 40.

00:11:18.960 Um, those most likely to have attended a place of worship or read a sacred text are those under the

00:11:24.220 age of 30. Uh, there is, and I, I think the word, you mentioned the word authenticity. I think

00:11:29.080 that's at the heart of it. I think people understand deep down that there are questions and

00:11:33.940 that they have, and that life is better lived when we can be open, honest, have civil, respectful

00:11:40.840 discussions about the most fundamental things, the things that are most important. And in fact,

00:11:46.040 as we go through that process, we, in fact, will create a flourishing society that's respectful for

00:11:50.720 all. Excellent. Uh, so just talking about what, what it is that Christians actually believe in,

00:11:56.280 because I think there's a lot of misinformation out there about the central tenants of the Christian

00:12:02.160 doctrine. I know that whenever it comes to the sort of legacy media and their depiction,

00:12:06.880 uh, their depiction of Catholics or, or Christians more broadly, they sort of tie it to, uh, intolerance

00:12:14.380 or bigotry, uh, specifically about maybe gay rights or these kinds of things. Do you think that the

00:12:20.380 portrayal, the public portrayal, the media portrayal of Christians is unfair? And if so, uh, you know,

00:12:27.200 how would you like to correct that record and how can Christians push back to, um, correct the record

00:12:33.720 about what they actually believe in? Absolutely. Let me, let me provide two points of my answer.

00:12:39.220 Back in the, um, 2019 election, there was an aha moment where some, some journalist asked Andrew

00:12:47.120 Scheer, the lead, then leader of the conservative party, if he considered homosexuality to be a sin.

00:12:51.660 And he sort of got trapped and that was a four day story. Had I been in that situation and asked,

00:12:57.820 I would have asked the reporter, I'm happy to answer that question, but first tell me,

00:13:01.080 what do you mean by sin? Because the notion is that, you know, Christians are somehow righteous and

00:13:07.940 other people, non-Christians are sinners or something of that, you know, the Christian teaching

00:13:12.940 is that we are all sinners. Um, that's the, you know, there, and in the sense, you know,

00:13:18.740 there's a text in the Bible that even our prayers are to be prayed of and our repentance is to be

00:13:22.680 repented of. If sin is missing the mark of divine perfection, everything I do, including reading my

00:13:28.960 Bible and going to church, falls short of the mark, which is the essence of the Christian gospel that

00:13:34.560 you don't rely on yourself. You rely on the righteousness of Jesus Christ instead of yourself.

00:13:41.080 Um, the substitutionary nature of Christ is at the heart of the Christian gospel. He paid for my sins

00:13:48.000 and he lived the perfect life that I'm not living. And so I go to heaven because of what he did, not

00:13:52.800 because of what I do. That's the core of the Christian message. That's the gospel. That's the

00:13:57.720 good news. And so there was a sense in which, you know, when, when, when people say is, is X, Y, or Z,

00:14:04.520 is that sin? Yes, it is. Everything I do fall short, but the good news is there is hope for everyone,

00:14:11.580 regardless of where you are. And I think, I think the temptation is to, when we talk about God in

00:14:19.600 public, to sometimes take these theological terms that have meaning, and then we turn them into

00:14:26.060 public and somehow, you know, the criminal is the sinner and the good citizen who votes and pays

00:14:31.260 their taxes is the righteous one. Well, that's not the biblical story at all. That's a misportrayal

00:14:37.420 entirely of what Christianity is about. The Christian message is, first of all, that every

00:14:42.880 person is a created image bearer of God. They have dignity and worth. And that doesn't matter what

00:14:48.380 ethnicity, what gender, what sexuality, whether you are the worst person who, you know, has the

00:14:55.980 criminal record of multiple life sentences, or you're the most pious person and competing with

00:15:01.300 Mother Teresa for sainthood. All of us bear the image of God. That gives us dignity and worth.

00:15:07.700 All of us have sinned. All of us fall short of the divine standard. And there's salvation available

00:15:13.700 to all of us through Jesus Christ. That's the Christian gospel.

00:15:18.660 Excellent. Okay. So we've sort of talked about Christianity on an individual level, on a personal

00:15:24.160 level, what it can do, the sort of deeper questions that it answers and existential questions that aren't

00:15:28.900 answered through the secular world, but are through the religious world. I want to talk a bit

00:15:33.260 about religious institutions and the roles, the role of Christian churches, what they do,

00:15:39.380 the role that they can play in society. When it comes to building community, helping those who are

00:15:44.780 less well off, do you think that churches should play a larger role? Do you think that they do

00:15:50.000 sufficient work? What would you like to see the church do that they don't do now, and perhaps things

00:15:56.160 that the government does that you believe that the church ought to do instead?

00:15:59.000 Well, let's start by just establishing what the church actually does. Religion in Canada is the

00:16:05.080 ninth largest institution. It's $67 billion of GDP. It's tied to religion and religious institutions.

00:16:12.260 About $30 billion of that are directly in terms of religious institutions. And there's about $37

00:16:19.240 billion of what we call a halo effect. Churches do a lot of counseling. They do a lot of care for the

00:16:27.400 poor in their communities. They clean up environments and neighborhoods in terms of youth groups and

00:16:35.400 all of those, the replacement costs. And we've done a study on this together with some U of T

00:16:41.960 economists and looking at the replacement costs of faith in Canada. For every dollar that is spent on a

00:16:51.280 religious charitable receipt from the federal government, $4.77 of public good. If the churches

00:16:59.360 weren't there, it would cost us almost five times as much to do what churches are already doing. I think most

00:17:06.260 people don't understand that aspect of it. That is actually just taking a look at church. We're not

00:17:12.420 extending it there fully to, for instance, religious schools, hospitals. A lot of our institutions, our

00:17:22.120 universities used to, most of them started with a faith background. Even hospitals, you know, Mount Sinai

00:17:30.740 Hospital has a foundation attached to it. And it draws from the whole public, but disproportionately the

00:17:38.340 Jewish community that's paying for the MRI machine that all of us are using. So the good effects of

00:17:46.180 faith today and the extent to which it's a significant part of our society is largely misunderstood or

00:17:53.220 forgotten. So I would say, first of all, let's just recognize what's happening. Is there more room?

00:17:59.380 Absolutely. The example I like to use is in terms of refugees. You know, there are about 100 what we

00:18:08.420 call sponsorship agreement holders. They are almost all faith-based organizations and they have the

00:18:15.220 legal right to bring in sponsored refugees to Canada. If you compare the record of refugees being

00:18:21.220 brought into Canada under SAH agreements versus government-sponsored refugees, the speed at which they

00:18:29.380 come into the community, in which they get a job, in which they're self-sufficient. There's lots of

00:18:34.500 studies and lots of data out there, but typically three, four, five times as fast. Typically,

00:18:40.340 you know, within a year, a family sponsored by a faith group is typically brought in a, you know,

00:18:47.860 I'll just use the example, you know, from my own church community in terms of we sponsored a refugee

00:18:53.940 family. You know, there were businesses in the church who went out of their way to right away

00:18:59.940 hire this family. There were, you know, the church already has Meals on Wheels and all of the rest.

00:19:06.980 There was the support in terms of English as the second language. There was somebody to drive the

00:19:11.540 family around in terms of introducing them. All of this happens. None of it's measured in GDP. None of,

00:19:17.380 no dollars change hands anywhere along the way. But within, you know, six to nine months,

00:19:22.900 this family is self-sufficient. And they're not at present going to our church. And that's not the

00:19:28.740 point. You know, you have many churches who have sponsored Muslims and others. They bring them to

00:19:36.260 Canada because these are people in need. And they want to show the love of Christ to their neighbor.

00:19:41.860 And that's their motive. And, you know, a significant portion of our refugee settlement

00:19:48.340 and the most effective part of our refugee settlement happens in that sort of local

00:19:52.980 community. And I think it's reasonably intuitive. We all can understand that how much easier it is for

00:20:00.260 any group, even if you're not part of a faith, but, you know, Rotary clubs, some of those other service

00:20:05.620 clubs do similar sort of work. When you have these people who are networked, when you need the plumber,

00:20:10.420 you don't have, you know, somebody who is, is there and we all pitch in and we all make it happen.

00:20:16.020 And there is the building of a sense of community. There is a building of a sense of belonging.

00:20:20.580 And these people just adapt in much, much better way. And I think whether it's addictions,

00:20:26.500 you know, a lot of churches, alcoholics, anonymous, most frequently are meeting in

00:20:32.180 church basements, you know, drug rehab support groups or various people in crisis of various sorts.

00:20:40.260 The number of those sorts of organizations that make life more livable for Canadians and

00:20:45.940 not just Canadians who are a faith, all Canadians, the doors are almost always open and welcome to

00:20:51.780 everyone. And that's, you know, every faith tradition has an element of being invitational. And so I think

00:21:01.700 much of that story is untold. And I think it's a significant part of the social fabric that we call

00:21:07.620 Canada today.

00:21:09.780 Absolutely, Ray. I'll just add to that because I know that so many preschools and daycares in this

00:21:14.420 country are operated out of churches. And even more than that, in my neighborhood in Toronto,

00:21:20.580 there is a mom and talk group that operates out of a church basement and, well, pre-COVID anyway.

00:21:26.900 And interestingly, I would go and I would meet women that were Jewish, women that were Hindu. To them,

00:21:33.300 it wasn't about the religious, you know, place of worship. It was about a place to go for community.

00:21:39.460 And that is what so many people turn to for those kind of facilities as well that just happen to be

00:21:45.620 right in the middle of neighborhoods. I want to end on a final note talking about Christmas. And I

00:21:51.700 know that a lot of the criticism that maybe more conservatives or maybe people on the right have

00:21:57.700 when it comes to Christmas is that it's become too focused on consumerism, too focused on capitalism,

00:22:04.980 and that it's been taken away from the sort of original purpose of the holiday of what you talked

00:22:10.980 about at the beginning, this sort of salvation of mankind. I wonder if you could comment on that.

00:22:17.220 I'm finding myself in a precarious situation because my son is almost three. He's starting to

00:22:22.900 kind of understand things. And I'm sort of in a situation of, you know, how much of the sort of

00:22:27.620 commercial Christmas do I give him versus the sort of more religious themes. And I think it must be hard

00:22:34.580 for every parent to sort of deal with. So I wonder where you stand on that argument and what you think

00:22:40.500 parents can do.

00:22:42.020 Yeah. And there are wide ranges of traditions in terms of, you know, family traditions, ethnic

00:22:49.460 traditions. You know, I come from post-World War II Dutch immigrant family. In the Netherlands, the gift

00:22:58.740 giving part of Christmas is sort of focused on December the 5th. And December the 25th is a

00:23:04.340 religious celebration in which the focus is very much on church and Christmas concerts and that

00:23:11.620 sort of thing in the religious side. So they, you know, within the Dutch tradition, they have really

00:23:15.940 separated out the gift giving and the Santa Claus part of it from the religious and made a clear

00:23:22.020 distinction. Many others haven't. And I think, you know, each family and that finds its own way.

00:23:28.980 There can be meaning and symbolism and the giving of gifts. And, you know, I'm certainly not going to

00:23:34.260 be a Scrooge here and say let's, but I think the celebration of the day is not, you know, the giving of

00:23:41.300 gifts points to a much greater gift that is given by God to the world and finding ways to keep that as

00:23:47.140 central as we can. You know, for my family, for generations, it always, Christmas has always

00:23:54.500 involved an extra church service on Christmas Day in addition to the Sunday church services around,

00:24:00.820 a series of concerts. So, you know, it's not unusual within the, you know, week of Christmas to have

00:24:08.020 three, four, five different religious Christmas events that even just from a time occupation,

00:24:15.300 when they become a priority, well, then you fit the gift giving and all that in between.

00:24:21.700 You know, if you build everything around the gift giving and you put the religion in between,

00:24:25.460 well, then it takes seconds. So I think those are very personal choices that people have to make.

00:24:30.020 But I think there are conscious strategies that families can use in terms of saying we are going

00:24:34.820 to make a priority of the religious component of Christmas and finding the appropriate ways

00:24:40.020 to celebrate that and to remind ourselves and to pass that on to our children. And when that becomes the

00:24:47.060 essential and you time some of the other stuff around it, you're also sending the message of

00:24:52.020 what's important. Excellent. Well, thank you so much for your time. Thank you for all of the work you do

00:24:57.700 over at CARDIS. Can you give a little plug for CARDIS? Tell folks about what you do and if they want to

00:25:02.980 support your work, how they can do that. Yeah, well, CARDIS is a think tank. We have seven areas

00:25:09.860 of research. So we do all the stuff you would expect the think tank to do in terms of policy

00:25:13.780 research in a number of areas, work in economics, health, education, religious freedom, volunteering.

00:25:21.860 CARDIS.ca is the website. We just crossed our 20th anniversary. There are literally millions of

00:25:31.300 words of reports and stuff that's on the website, but we really try to inspire hope. We try to put

00:25:40.420 forward positive solutions to some of today's challenges that is informed by 2000 years of

00:25:45.780 Christian social thought, but takes very practical applications on the issues that we face together

00:25:52.580 today. And yeah, CARDIS.ca, learn all about us. There is a donate button if you want, but that's

00:26:00.900 not the first thing we're looking for. We're looking for engagement. We're looking for telling a story and

00:26:06.980 engaging in honest civil disagreement and discussion even with those who disagree and having a constructive

00:26:14.820 discussion that leads to a better Canada. Excellent. Thank you so much, Ray, and Merry Christmas to you

00:26:21.300 and your family. And blessed Christmas to you and to all your listeners. Thanks for having me.

00:26:26.100 All right. Thank you so much for tuning in. I'm Kenneth Malcolm, and this is The Kenneth Malcolm Show.

Juno News - December 22, 2021

Why do Christians get criticized and denigrated, ignored and erased？

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