Why do Christians get criticized and denigrated, ignored and erased？
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Summary
The secular, postmodern, post-national left may hate Christmas, but it's a holiday that all Canadians should celebrate, even if you're not Christian. In this special Christmas week edition of The Candice Malcolm Show, host Candice talks with Ray Pennings about why Christians should celebrate Christmas.
Transcript
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The secular, post-modern, post-national left may hate Christmas, but it's a holiday that
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all Canadians should celebrate, even if you're not Christian. I'm Candice Malcolm and this is
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The Candice Malcolm Show. Hi everyone, thank you so much for tuning into the program. Now,
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It really helps us out. Now, listen, folks, we are living in post-modern, post-nationalist times.
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Just listen to Justin Trudeau. His dream of a post-modern, post-nationalist Canada has come
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true. The secular value of a separation of church and state has been taken to an extreme limit here
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in Canada. It has led to the complete removal of religious symbols, religious concepts, and
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religious festivities from the public square. Just look at Toronto. They no longer have a Christmas
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market. It is now called a winter festival winter market. The strange wordplay doesn't apply to any
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other religious groups, but it does apply to Christians. So why do Christians get criticized
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and denigrated? Why do they get ignored and erased? And can we completely erase Christianity from our
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modern society? Can we divorce our values, our norms, our morality from their Judeo-Christian roots?
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And should we? Well, the political left says enthusiastically yes to all these questions,
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but I believe there's a growing appetite for learning more about our traditions, our norms,
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our values, and the attitudes and how they build up our modern day society. You see it more in young
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Canadians and certainly you see it in new Canadians. So for a special Christmas week edition of the
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Candice Malcolm Show, I would like to welcome Ray Pennings to the program. Ray is the executive vice
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president of CARDIS. CARDIS is a think tank based in Ottawa that focuses on human dignity, strong families,
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religious freedom, formative education, and healthy communities. Ray has led a number of large
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research projects at CARDIS over the years and was the lead author of Death is Natural Reframing the
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End-of-Life Conversations in Canada. In addition to authoring CARDIS reports and columns, he's also
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written several chapters in several publications. So Ray Pennings, thank you so much for joining the show.
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Okay, so let's start with a very simple, very basic question, and that is why do we celebrate Christmas
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and why is it an important milestone not just for Christians but for our entire civilization?
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Well, why does any society celebrate a holiday? It's to bring to its attention, the collective
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attention of the country, something that it deems to be important. And certainly, you know, there are
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various holidays that celebrate various figures in history. I don't think whether you're a Christian
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or not a Christian, few would argue that the birth of Jesus 2,000 years ago in his life has been one
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of the singular impacting things in the world. So, you know, just from a matter of history and
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historical literacy and understanding that there's a historical element to it. But it isn't just an
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indifferent thing. Obviously, for Christians in particular, the incarnation of Jesus Christ,
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God becoming human, is at the core of the Christian religion. And that has been historically and
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remains today the most prominent faith in Canada. There are many people for whom it doesn't have that
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same meaning in a personal sort of sense, but the values that come with that, the sense of giving,
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you know, God sent his only begotten son as a gift into the world, the notion of giving, the notion of
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love, the notion of sharing, all of these things that are embodied in the Christian faith are brought
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to light in terms of this day. So it's an entirely appropriate day to have as a public holiday, whether
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One of the things I see that I find so fascinating is that you see people that come to Canada from other
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parts of the world, other societies, other religious backgrounds, and they love Christmas. They take part in
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it. You know, I mentioned off the top that the Toronto Christmas market has been rebranded this
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year as the distillery Winter Village. And I've heard from friends who come from immigrant families
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about how disappointing it is, people who aren't Christian even, because they love Christmas. They
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love the trees, the lights, the, like you said, the festivities, the idea of giving, and just the whole
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holiday season. And they get disappointed when they see this sort of political correct crowd trying to
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erase it. So why do you think it is, first of all, that people who aren't Christian love Christmas in
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so many instances, more so in some instances than the Christians themselves? And then the second
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question, why is it that in a country like Canada, in a city like Toronto, we have this instinct to try to
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erase our own culture and our own, in our own holidays? Yeah, let me, let me answer this, the second
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question first and deal with the negative. So why is it that those who by and large, you know, are secular
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people within a historic country that was based on Christian traditions, you know, find them so offensive
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and seek to remove all references to that in public life? It was interesting, the polling we released in
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November with the Angus Reid Institute, highlighted the fact that we asked the question, do you think
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the presence of the following groups are beneficial or damaging to Canadian society? And we asked about
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Catholics, Protestants, Evangelicals, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, and atheists. What is interesting is if
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you were very religious yourself, doesn't matter what religion, you were positive towards other
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religions, Jews were positive towards Christians, Christians were positive towards Muslims. As you
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move down, we had four categories of religiosity in terms of your own personal behaviors, and there
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were seven of them that we measured. As you move to the more secular side, by the time we got to the 23%
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of the population that would not check a box and identify with any religion, they would call
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themselves agnostic or atheists, they were negative on the contribution of every other group
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except atheists. So it is, you know, people of faith tend to be far more generous and magnanimous towards
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people of other faiths, even though they profoundly disagree. Nobody checks a religious box. You're a Jew, you're a
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Muslim, you're a Hindu, you're a Catholic, you're a Protestant. And people of faith disagree quite profoundly with each
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other. And yet, they recognize the very positive contribution that people of other faiths are making
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to public life. Whereas what you're seeing is as you become less faithful in your personal life and
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religion isn't there, there's a hostility towards all faiths, and especially the Christian faith, which is
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the most dominant in our society. And of course, it's easy to find reasons. If you want to, you know, you can
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talk about residential schools, you can talk about abuse, you can talk, no institution is as perfect, and
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certainly institutions of faith have more than their share. If you want to find warts, you don't have to look very
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far. In fact, as people of faith, the very reason we are broken sinful is the very reason we have a faith and a
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trust in God along the way. So I think there is, you know, flipping to your first question in terms of why is it that
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people of other faiths recognize? I think they understand that, you know, people, we're not brains
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on sticks. We're not bodies. We are whole people, body, soul, will, spirits. There is a spiritual dimension
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to life. And truthfully, I suspect there are some people who try to deny that element, but the vast
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majority of us, at one moment or another, come to face those questions. Who am I? What am I doing here?
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Why does the world exist? Where am I going? And the offering of an answer to some of those
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questions, even if you disagree, recognizes that dimension of life and I think resonates with,
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especially with people of other faiths. Oh, that's a great segue because the next question
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or one of the questions I wanted to get to, which we can go to right now, is, so, you know, you have
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this sort of secular, I don't know if they're liberal or left or centrist, whatever it is, but they,
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but they feel that we have to continue to take this separation of church and state all the way to
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the end, get rid of any, any religious symbol in public life, any reference to religiosity,
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Christianity. So, so, so, so total, you know, erasing of, of, of all these things from our society.
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But, but, you know, what, what, what's left at that? I think there, we talked about this last time
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you were on the show, but there's sort of a resurgence of interest, a growing appetite of young
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people or new Canadians wanting to know more about the, the root of our, of our values and norms.
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And I, I wonder if you could kind of try to address this question of, you know, what, how far can they
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take this? What will happen if we just try to completely erase Christianity from our society?
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What would that society look like? Well, ironically, as a person of faith and who has spent most of my
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public life identified as a person of faith in public life bringing to bear that, I agree, there
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certainly seems to be a coordinated effort, particularly from the left, but I would highlight
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it's not just from the left. There are some on the right as well, who are, who really want to draw
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that absolute line between what you believe, your values, your belief system, saying that's entirely
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personal and somehow your public life can be just this neutral process, um, sort of thing. Well,
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first of all, philosophically, that doesn't work. Um, I think we all understand there are first
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principles from which you proceed, um, that apply in public life. And even that argument that the only
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acceptable arguments in publics are those which are, um, new, you know, totally neutral and not based
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on any, it's a, it's a logical fallacy in terms of that. I do understand in a pluralistic society
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that there is an onus on those who are people of faith to communicate, not in the jargon of their
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faith, but recognize the context in which they are and communicate their faith in a way that's
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accessible to people who are not of their own tradition. Um, that, that there comes an obligation
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for people of faith to communicate it in a way that's comprehensible. But I think at the core,
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the question, and I think we're seeing this, especially with young people in our, in, in the
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poll I just referenced, we talked about last time, uh, roughly 10% more of people under the age of 40
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talked about there being a role for faith in public life than those who are over 40. Um, those most
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likely to have attended a place of worship or read a sacred text are those under the age of 30.
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Uh, there is, and I, I think the word you mentioned the word authenticity. I think that's at the heart
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of it. I think people understand deep down that there are questions and that they have, and that
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life is better lived when we can be open, honest, have civil, respectful discussions about the, the
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most fundamental things, the things that are most important. And in fact, as we go through that
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process, we in fact will create a flourishing society that's respectful for all. Excellent. Just talking
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about what, what it is that Christians actually believe in. Cause I, I think there's a lot of
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misinformation out there about the central tenants of the Christian doctrine. I know that
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whenever it comes to the sort of legacy media and their depiction, uh, their depiction of Catholics
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or Christians more broadly, they sort of tie it to, uh, intolerance or bigotry, uh, specifically
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about maybe gay rights or these kinds of things. Do you think that the portrayal, the public portrayal,
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the media portrayal of Christians is unfair? And if so, uh, you know, what, what, how would
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you like to correct that record and how can Christians push back to, um, correct the record
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Absolutely. Let me, let me provide two points of my answer. Back in the, um, 2019 election,
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there was an aha moment where some, some journalist asked Andrew Scheer, the lead, then leader of the
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conservative party, if he considered homosexuality to be a sin and he sort of got trapped and it was
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a four day story. Had I been in that situation and asked, I would have asked the reporter, I'm happy
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to answer that question, but first tell me, what do you mean by sin? Because the notion is that,
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you know, Christians are somehow righteous and other people, non-Christians are sinners or something
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of that, you know, the Christian teaching is that we are all sinners. Um, that's the, you know,
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there, and in the sense, you know, there's a text in the Bible that even our prayers are to be prayed
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of and our repentance is to be repented of. If sin is missing the mark of divine perfection,
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everything I do, including reading my Bible and going to church falls short of the mark,
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which is the essence of the Christian gospel that you don't rely on yourself. You rely on the
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righteousness of Jesus Christ instead of yourself. Um, the substitutionary nature of Christ
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Christ is at the heart of the Christian gospel. He paid for my sins and he lived the perfect life
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that I'm not living. And so I go to heaven because of what he did, not because of what I do.
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That's the core of the Christian message. That's the gospel. That's the good news.
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And so there was a sense in which, you know, when, when people say is, is X, Y, or Z,
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Z sin? Yes, it is. Everything I do falls short, but the good news is there is hope for everyone,
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regardless of where you are. And I think, I think the temptation is to, when we talk about God in
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public, to sometimes take these theological terms that have meaning, and then we turn them into
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public and somehow, you know, the criminal is the sinner and the good citizen who votes and pays
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their taxes is the righteous one. Well, that's not the biblical story at all. That's a misportrayal
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entirely of what Christianity is about. The Christian message is, first of all, that every
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person is a created image bearer of God. They have dignity and worth. And that doesn't matter what
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ethnicity, what gender, what sexuality, whether you are the worst person who, you know, has the
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criminal record of multiple life sentences, or you're the most pious person and competing with
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Mothers of Teresa for sainthood. All of us bear the image of God. That gives us dignity and worth.
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All of us have sinned. All of us fall short of the divine standard. And there's salvation available
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to all of us through Jesus Christ. That's the Christian gospel.
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Excellent. Okay. So we've sort of talked about Christianity on an individual level, on a personal
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level, what it can do, the sort of deeper questions that it answers and existential questions that aren't
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answered through the secular world, but are through the religious world. I want to talk a bit
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about religious institutions and the roles, the role of Christian churches, what they do,
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the role that they can play in society when it comes to building community, helping those who
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are less well off. Do you think that churches should play a larger role? Do you think that they do
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sufficient work? What would you like to see the church do that they don't do now, and perhaps
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things that the government does that you believe that the church ought to do instead?
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Well, let's start by just establishing what the church actually does. Religion in Canada is the
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ninth largest institution. It's $67 billion of GDP. It's tied to religion and religious institutions.
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About $30 billion of that are directly in terms of religious institutions. And there's about $37
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billion of what we call a halo effect. Churches do a lot of counseling. They do a lot of care for
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the poor in their communities. They clean up environments and neighborhoods in terms of youth
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groups and all of those, the replacement costs. And we've done a study on this together with some
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U of T economists and looking at the replacement costs of faith in Canada. For every dollar that is
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spent on a religious charitable receipt from the federal government, $4.77 of public good. If the
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churches weren't there, it would cost us almost five times as much to do what churches are already
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doing. I think most people don't understand that aspect of it. That is actually just taking a look
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at church. We're not extending it there fully to, for instance, religious schools, hospitals,
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a lot of, a lot of our institutions, our universities used to, most of them started with a faith
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background. Even hospitals, you know, Mount Sinai Hospital has a foundation attached to it. And it draws
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from the whole public, but disproportionately the Jewish community that's paying for the MRI machine that
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all of us are using. So the good effects of faith today and the extent to which it's a significant
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part of our society is largely misunderstood or forgotten. So I would say, first of all, let's just
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recognize what's happening. Is there more room? Absolutely. The example I like to use is in terms of
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refugees. You know, there are about a hundred, what we call sponsorship agreement holders. They are
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almost all faith-based organizations and they have the legal right to bring in sponsored refugees to
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Canada. If you compare the record of refugees being brought into Canada under SAH agreements versus
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government-sponsored refugees, the speed at which they come into the community, in which they get a job,
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in which they're self-sufficient. There's lots of studies and lots of data out there, but typically
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three, four, five times as fast. Typically, you know, within a year, a family sponsored by a faith
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group is typically brought in a, you know, I'll just use the example, you know, from my own church
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community in terms of we sponsored a refugee family. You know, there were businesses in the church who went
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out of their way to right away hire this family. There were, you know, the church already has meals
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on wheels and all of the rest. There was the support in terms of English as a second language.
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There was somebody to drive the family around in terms of introducing them. All of this happens.
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None of it's measured in GDP. None of, no dollars change hands anywhere along the way. But within,
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you know, six to nine months, this family's self-sufficient. And they're not at present going
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to our church, and that's not the point. You know, you have many churches who have sponsored Muslims
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and others. They bring them to Canada because these are people in need, and they want to show the love
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of Christ to their neighbor. And that's their motive. And, you know, a significant portion of our
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refugee settlement and the most effective part of our refugee settlement happens in that sort of
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local community. And I think it's reasonably intuitive. We all can understand that how much
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easier it is for any group, even if you're not part of a faith, but, you know, Rotary clubs, some of
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those other service clubs do similar sort of work. When you have these people who are networked,
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when you need the plumber, you don't have, you know, somebody who is, is there and we all pitch in and
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we all make it happen? And there is the building of a sense of community. There is a building of a
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sense of belonging. And these people just adapt in much, much better way. And I think whether it's
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addictions, you know, a lot of churches, Alcoholics Anonymous, most frequently are meeting in church
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basements, you know, drug rehab support groups for various people in crisis of various sorts.
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The number of those sorts of organizations that make life more livable for Canadians and not just
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Canadians who are of faith, all Canadians, the doors are almost always open and welcome to everyone.
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And that's, you know, every faith tradition has an element of being invitational. And so I think much
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of that story is untold. And I think it's a significant part of the social fabric that we call Canada today.
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Absolutely, right. I'll just add to that because I know that so many preschools and daycares in this
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country are operated out of churches. And even, even, even more than that, in my, in my neighborhood
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in Toronto, there is a, a mom and tot group that operates out of a church basement and will pre-COVID
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anyway. And interestingly, I would go and I would meet women that were Jewish, women that were Hindu.
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To them, it wasn't, it wasn't about the religious, you know, place of worship. It was about a place to go
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for community. And, and that, and that is what so many people turn to for those kinds of facilities
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as well. That just happened to be right in the middle of neighborhoods. I want to end on a final
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note talking about Christmas. And I know that a lot of the criticism that maybe more conservatives or
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maybe people on the right have when it comes to Christmas is that it's become too, too focused on
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consumerism, too, too focused on capitalism, and that it's, it's been taken away from the sort of
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original purpose of the holiday, what you talked about at the beginning, this sort of salvation of,
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of mankind. I wonder if you could comment on that. I'm, I'm finding myself in a precarious situation
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because my son is almost three, he's starting to kind of understand things, and I, I'm sort of a
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situation of, you know, how, how much of the sort of commercial Christmas do I, do I give him, um, versus
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the sort of more religious, uh, themes. And, and I think it must be hard for, for every parent to sort of
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deal with. So, I, I wonder what, uh, where you stand on that argument and what, what you think, uh, parents
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can do. Yeah, and there are, um, wide ranges of traditions, um, in terms of, you know, family traditions,
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ethnic traditions, um, you know, I come from post-World War II Dutch immigrant family, um, in, in the
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Netherlands, the, the gift-giving part of Christmas is sort of focused on December the 5th, and December
00:23:02.980
the 25th is a religious celebration in which the focus is very much on, um, on church and Christmas
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concerts, and, and that sort of thing, and the religious side. So, they, you know, within the Dutch
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tradition, they have really separated out the gift-giving and the Santa Claus part of it, uh, from
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the religious and made a clear distinction. Many others haven't, and I think, you know, each family
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and, and, and that finds its own way. Um, there can be meaning and symbolism in the giving of gifts,
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and, um, you know, I, I'm certainly not going to be a Scrooge here and say let's, um, but I think
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the celebration of the day is not, you know, the giving of gifts points to a much greater gift
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that is given by God to the world and finding ways to keep that as central as we can. Um, you know,
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for, for my family, uh, for generations, it always, uh, Christmas has always involved a extra church
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service on Christmas Day in addition to the Sunday churches services around a series of concerts. Uh,
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so, you know, it's not unusual within the, you know, week of Christmas to have three, four, five
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different religious Christmas events that even just from a time occupation, uh, when they become
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a priority, well, then you fit the, the gift giving and all that in between. Um, you know,
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if you build everything around the gift giving and you put the religion in between, well, then it
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takes seconds. So I think those are very personal choices that people have to make, but I think
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there are conscious strategies that families can use in terms of saying we are going to make a
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priority of the religious component of Christmas and finding the appropriate ways, um, to celebrate
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that and to remind ourselves and to pass that on to our children. And, uh, when that becomes the
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essential and you, you time some of the other stuff around it, you're also sending the message
00:24:51.980
of what's important. Excellent. Well, thank you so much for your time. Thank you for all of the work
00:24:57.500
you do over at Curtis. Can you, can you give a little plug for Curtis to help tell folks about what
00:25:01.700
you do and, and, and if they want to support, uh, your work, how they can do that? Yeah, well,
00:25:06.140
Curtis is a, uh, uh, think tank. We have seven areas of research, so we do all this stuff you
00:25:11.580
would expect the think tank to do in terms of policy research in a number of areas, um, work in
00:25:16.700
economics, health, education, religious freedom, volunteering. Um, cartus.ca is the website. Uh, we just
00:25:25.380
crossed our 20, um, our, our 20th anniversary. There are literally millions of words of reports
00:25:32.640
and, um, stuff that's on the website, but we really try to inspire hope. We try to put forward
00:25:40.840
positive solutions to some of today's challenges that is informed by 2000 years of Christian social
00:25:46.520
thought, but takes very practical applications on the, um, on the issues that, uh, that we face
00:25:52.240
together today. And, um, yeah, cartus.ca, learn all about us. Uh, there is a donate button if you
00:25:59.260
want, but, um, that's not the first thing we're, we're looking for. We're looking for engagement.
00:26:04.320
We're looking for, um, telling a story and engaging in honest civil disagreement and, uh, discussion even
00:26:10.600
with those who, who disagree and, um, having a constructive, um, discussion that leads to a better
00:26:17.020
Canada. Excellent. Thank you so much, Ray, and Merry Christmas to you and your family.
00:26:22.240
And blessed Christmas to you and to all your listeners. Thanks for having me.
00:26:26.160
All right. Thank you so much for tuning in. I'm Kenneth Malcolm, and this is The Kenneth Malcolm Show.