Post 41--ARPA defends parental rights at the Supreme Court of Canada

Important things are happening in the country these days and they're happening fast. So fast, that my intentions for this blog often have to get interrupted due to the speed of urgent events needing to be aired and explained. The following train of events about the development of legal aspects and freedom of education will have important repurcussions in the nation that you need to be aware of if you want to be an active and responsible citizen. I believe the material speaks for itself.    

Note (1): ARPA stands for “Association for Reformed Political Action.” “Reformed” in this context refers to the Calvinist Christian orientation of the group. For more information you can do an internet search and you’ll find plenty. It is a very active national organization with deep grass roots participation. Herewith I pass on to you their latest monthly bulletin.

Note (2):  Once again I deviate from a previously announced intention (Post 39) for this post. I judge this ARPA document to be time sensitive and thus have it jump the queue. I intend to continue that other plan in one or two posts from now. The advantage of borrowing like this is that you don’t have to wait so long in between posts. This one is an easy though important addition. 

On March 24, 2014, ARPA Canada appeared in the Supreme Court of Canada, leading a coalition of Christian schools from across the country, in order to defend Christian education from the continual encroachment of the State. The Loyola case will have a greater impact on a parent's authority in raising their child in the fear of the Lord than any other case in recent history. We are still waiting for a final decision from the Court in this matter. Stay tuned for an update once the decision is released.
In order to represent the interests of independent Christian education and to bring that perspective forcefully to the Court, ARPA Canada built a coalition of Christian schools from across the country called the Association of Christian Educators and Schools Canada (ACES Canada). The ACES coalition includes 313 confessional Christian schools, 11 post-secondary institutions, and ARPA Canada. By receiving intervenor status, we were able to provide written arguments to the Court, on behalf of Christian educators and schools.

What is this case all about? Here follows a basic summary. (To read more about the background of this case, click here.)


The province of Quebec has ordered all schools and home schools to teach a class about ethics and religions. But not only is it telling schools what to teach. It's also telling them how to teach it. All schools, including Christian private institutions, have to set aside their worldview (if that were possible) and teach the course from a secular perspective. They aren't allowed to raise our Lord Jesus Christ above other religions and must encourage students to "create their own religion," among other things.

One school in Montreal, Loyola Christian School, challenged this in court. They won at the first level but lost at the Quebec Court of Appeal. They finally appealed to the Supreme Court and thankfully the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case.

At stake in this case is parental authority itself. Provincial governments are increasingly taking over the role of parents, requiring all students to be taught what it believes is true, and even removing the freedom of parents to take their children out from objectionable classes.

Please continue to pray for the hearts of our Supreme Court justices, that they might render a good and just decision in this matter.

To view a 3-minute video update from ARPA’s legal counsel André Schutten, given immediately following the hearing, check out our YouTube video.

To read some reflections on the hearing from Cardus’ Ray Pennings, click here.

If you want to watch the hearing livestreamed, click here.

To read our written legal arguments (factum) see the PDF linked below.

To read Andre's op-ed published by the Ottawa Citizen on the morning of the hearing, click here.

ACES Factum final .pdf

Post 40—A Break: Humour and Other Ingredients, incl. some Truths (1)

  

The number 40 has strong symbolic meaning in the Book of books. So, this being Post 40 on this blog, I want to celebrate reaching this point by a change of pace, away from challenging, arguing and other fighting words. Note the (1) behind the title. I intend to do a similar post at number 80.  Of course, in the light of earlier promises about promises, this is not a promise, just a statement of intent. As long as it is an intention, I am not obligated to keep it and thus leaves me free. Welcome to a few moments of humour, some truths and other stuff. 

I am also considering ending at least occasional posts with a quotation, humorous or serious, probably mostly without any connection to the subject of the post it ends. If you have some worthwhile quotations you’d like to see on this blog-- humorous, true, just nicely put or whatever-- feel free to flash them to me. I may use them, giving you credit, name and all.

So, here’s the celebrative break:

Thomas Sowell, an American Black, economist, social theorist, political philosopher and author.

            The word “racism” is like ketchup. It can be put on practically anything—and demanding 
            evidence makes you a “racist.”

Elie Weisel, author, professor, Nobel Prize winner, political activist and witness to the Holocaust.

            No human race is superior; no religious faith is inferior. All collective judgements are 
            wrong. Only racists make them.

George Bernard Shaw, Irish playright and ardent Socialist.

             A life spent making mistakes is not only more honourable, but more useful than a life    
             spent doing nothing.

            Clever and attractive women do not want to vote; they are willing to let men govern as long
            as they govern men.

Cicero, an ancient Roman philosopher, politician, lawyer, orator, political theorist, consul and constitutionalist.

           A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from 
           within. An enemy at the gate is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner 
           openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely.  A murderer is less to 
           fear.

George Sand, aka Amantine Lucile Dupin, French novelist.

           Charity degrades those who receive it and hardens those who dispense it.

Ralph Nader, American consumer advocate, lawyer and author.

           A society that has more justice is a society that needs less charity.

H. L. Mencken, an American journalist, satirist, cultural critic and scholar of American English.

         It is inaccurate to say I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common     
         honesty and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for any public office.

Rudyard Kipling, an English short-story writer, poet, and novelist.

            A woman’s guess is much more accurate than a man’s certainty.

Unknown

           You can think without speaking, but don't speak without thinking.

  

Nancy Gibbs in Time magazine of May 30, 2011.

            On cover:  “Sex. Lies. Arrogance. What makes powerful men act like pigs.”

            At bottom:  a pig with caption “No offence.”

Lisa McCullough Karstetter—unknown to me. 

(Hope I don't offend anyone!) Over five thousand years ago, Moses said to the children of Israel, "Pick up your shovels, mount your asses and camels, and I will lead you to the Promised Land." Nearly 75 years ago, Roosevelt said, "Lay down your shovels, sit on your asses, and light up a Camel, this is the Promised Land." Today, Congress has stolen your shovel, taxed your asses, raised the price of Camels and mortgaged the Promised Land! I was so depressed last night thinking about health care, the economy, the wars, lost jobs, savings, Social Security, retirement funds, etc ...., I called a Suicide Hotline. I had to press 1 for English. I was connected to a call center in Pakistan. I told them I was suicidal. They got excited and asked if I could drive a truck......Folks, we're screwed.

T. Alsbach, a Dutchman (You believe in tongues?) 

           Statistische verbanden zijn geen causale verbanden, dames en heren psychologen!! Volg   
           eens een cursus logica, argumentatieleer of wetenschapsfilosofie.

Post 39—Public Space for Prayer

            

I want to comment on an article in Mclean about dedicating space for religious practices at McGill University (Feb. 23, 2015, p. 42).  There are two issues in that article that I wish to address, one in this post and the other in post 41. (I interrupt the flow of these posts with a celebration in the 40^th.) 

First, then, there is the problem medical student Ahmer Wali has, namely the lack of suitable space for Muslim prayer on the campus. There is a small room dedicated to Muslim prayer sessions, but it is makeshift and too small, so that there is a long lineup of students waiting to get in. This would make him late for his next class.  So, he occasionally finds a quite spot in the library and politely asks the students to leave the area for him to pray. Most of them are accommodating. Some will pray “under staircases, in storage rooms and in empty classrooms.” In his capacity as President of the Muslim Student Association on the campus, Ahmer is fighting the administration for dedicated space. 

I quite understand the need for dedicated space for the long haul. It makes for more orderly prayer sessions and, hopefully, would accommodate all the religious groups on the campus, though the article is not clear whether Ahmer is struggling just on behalf of the Muslims or on behalf of all the religious groups. I also understand that the struggle for dedicated space is part of the ongoing struggle for religious freedom as Muslims perceive it. Even if Ahmer and his followers do not in principle need such a facility, they would probably fight for it in their attempt to expand their religious / human rights.

What is not clear to me is why these students endure these long lineups or the other cramped quarters like spaces under staircases or why they need to ask other students to interrupt their reading sessions in the library. While they continue to struggle for suitable arrangements, why not turn the entire campus into a mosque?  I have lived for 30 years in a country that currently has some 80 million plus Muslims and I have written eight volumes on Christian-Muslim relations. That’s another way of saying I know something about Islam, more so than most Westerners or Christians.

The relevant Muslim fact that I wish to single out here is that Islam does not require special dedicated spaces for prayer. The whole world can be turned into a mosque. At prayer time, a Muslim can simply stop whatever he is doing, spread out his prayer mat and go to it—anywhere, in any public or private space, in the market, along the road or street.  So, my advice to Ahmer is to simply spread out his mat wherever he finds himself at prayer time and pray. 

That advice may sound preposterous and even offensive to secular Westerners, while shy Christians would cringe with fear and embarrassment. Few Christians would have the courage for such public display of spirituality, but, generally, Muslims are not that shy. They are proud of their religion and tend to do all they can to display and demonstrate it. I have seen them pray under every imaginable circumstance on the edge of the most crowded conditions. So, Ahmer, why do you make it so difficult for yourself and your followers? While other students are strolling into the classroom, just kneel on your mat in the corner and pray. You’re waiting in a lineup for a bus? Just move aside and pray. Islam makes it so easy. 

Or could it be that the paralyzing influence of secularism is also taking its toll among Muslims as it has among Christians?  Is that why Muslim students seek to find private places where others don’t see them?  I wonder….

I am a Christian missionary and offer you a professional insight. Though many in this secular country would be offended by and scoff at such public displays of religion, there would be quite a number who will be impressed and who will start wondering and asking questions. That would provide an opening for you, an opening that will not develop if you hide yourself.

Why do I as a Christian missionary offer this advice? Because in a secular society like ours, if one religion is suppressed, others will suffer along with it. We do not need to trivialize our differences, but we do need to stand together in the face of our common opponent. A defeat for one religion along these lines is a defeat for all religions.

 
Ahmer, if you come across this article, feel free to contact me at www.SocialTheology.com. I will try my hardest to get it to you. 

Post 38--Secular Pseudo Tolerance

Hi, I’m back! Took a trip south of our border and was pressed for time in expanding my website,  < www.SocialTheology.com >, specifically the “Boeriana” page.  Check it out sometimes.

Continuing from the last post, many Muslims are surprised when their religion is considered intolerant of other religions and worldviews.  Look at history, they will argue, and you will see that when Westerners, usually equated with Christians, persecuted Jews in past centuries, Muslims gave them space to flourish, especially in Andalusia, the name for Muslim Spain of some centuries ago.

Christians react to this Muslim claim of toleration with equal surprise. Don’t they know their own history?  Where are the Christian communities that thrived in the past in countries now majority Muslim?  What happened to them and why?  Abraham Kuyper’s explanation in the previous post may not be the complete answer, but it certainly represents one of the major factors. 

So, now we have two surprised parties, Christians and Muslims.  But there is a third: the Secular community that currently is the reigning worldview in the West. While much of the Christian community accuses Secularism of intolerance, its adherents are dumbfounded about that charge. Why, Secularism represents the apex of freedom and human rights. It is the solution to every form of discrimination in this world, including that of Christianity and Islam.  Having observed and experienced this attitude for some decades now as a Christian, I am not surprised about this anymore, but certainly amazed, no matter how many years I have observed and experienced them.

Amazed about what? At the blindness of Secularists at their own intolerance, very much parallel to Muslim intolerance! I have friends among them whom I love very much, but my amazement remains in tact. Not only do they disagree with me, but they simply do not understand my arguments about their intolerance—as I have said above: just like Muslims. 

An example is Michael Den Tandt, a Vancouver Sun columnist for whom I have considerable respect and whom I generally enjoy reading (Jan 9/2015, B7). He described both “Orthodox Wahabism with its sharia law, stoning, female genital mutilation and chopping off of hands and heads” as “a barbaric facet of Islam.”  Christianity came under the same condemnation for its Spanish Inquisition. So far, so good. As a born-again Christian, I agree. He then asserted that “the two are alike, fundamentally the same, if freedom of thought and respect for the human spirit are the standards of comparison.” 

But I am amazed—not surprised—that he does not put secularism in this line up as equally barbaric and “fundamentally the same.”  Do I need to spell it out for you?  Why, abortion, of course. If that is not barbaric, I don’t know what it is.  The killing of the living unborn for the sake of female and  parental freedom and convenience. Millions and millions of them every year.  Earlier in the article he describes secularism, referred to as “the pluralistic way of life,” as “a good way of life.” Killing the absolutely vulnerable “a good way of life”?!  Millions?!

Den Tandt continues:

“…so too must civilized people today ‘insult’ the conventions of any belief system that tries to impose universal limits on free expression. Either we use the gifts of free thought and speech or we lose them.”  “It is not possible, in one web-linked world, for critical expression not to offend someone, somewhere. The choice is therefore to impose censorship, by self or others, or to accept that all human beings are free to think and speak independently, to criticize, to mock or needle, without fear of anything harsher than a rebuttal, and to gently but firmly insist that adherents of all belief systems get over it, and to never relent.

I’m almost done for the day. Den Tandt ends his article with this exhortation: “So, Islam, like Christianity, Judaism and the rest, just has to grow up. The more people speak, the easier that will get.”  I agree with that sentiment, provided “the rest” includes secularism, the reigning world view in the West. But you try to publicly critique homosexualism and you’ll have the entire secular community, the more educated section of it at least, on your neck not only, but you’ll find yourself in a human rights “court” in no time flat.

I adduce Den Tandt’s article only because it is the latest to come to my attention, but this issue deserves a ten-volume series afloat with the innumerable concrete examples that are out there waiting for exposure. I wonder why Den Tandt left out the secularists for their barbarism and intolerance? I think I know: His secular world view has blinded him to these perspectives and facts.  Michael, open your eyes and get over it!

Post 37--Muslim Pseudo Tolerance (2)

  

Though the subject of the previous and this post was elicited by the Charly Hebdo violence in Paris, and though I continue in the spirit of the last post, that Paris incident now recedes into the background while the notion of “pseudo tolerance” continues as the centre of our attention today.

Freedom and peace?  In Islam? The proof of the pudding, of course, is the experience of non-Muslims living under Muslim regimes There are countless books, tomes and tomes of them, published over the centuries, not the least during our own decades, about how Islam or its adherents, Muslims, undercut and persecute(ed) Christians. Today, Pakistan and the Middle East are prime examples of fierce persecution. 

But destroying a faith community as Islam has done to the Christian communities of North and Saharan Africa and in the Middle East, does not always require the violence of the sword. A century ago, my hero, Abraham Kuyper, wrote the indented paragraphs below in Dutch and I translated them. The period covered by these paragraphs stretch over a long period of time—from the early expansion of Islam to Kuyper’s time of 1900.  And, really, one could say beyond Kuyper’s time to include our own, a century later.  

Even though Muslims exerted little pressure on Christians to convert, the social humiliation inflicted on them in the long run proved to be unbearable.  Persecution steels and stimulates; it fires up a holy enthusiasm and revives heroism, but never-ending social humiliation depletes energy and leads eventually to total collapse.  Imagine being excluded from everything prestigious and honourable, constantly to be treated like an inferior, to be held back at all fronts, to see your family move about with oppressive inferiority, your children robbed of any future improvement, to be walking around in shameful clothes day after day. And then, on the contrary, to see everyone who accepts Islam crowned with honour, helped to advance and gain in power.  This contrast constitutes life-long torture that at the end becomes too heavy to bear.  And then to realize that with only one word it is possible to throw off this yoke, to be free from the head tax, and to open for yourself and for your children the path to honour and power.  And come to think of it, Islam did not demand a lot.  The kiss [of peace] was offered as soon as you call upon Allah and His Prophet.  This is the temptation for which entire Christian families, century after century, have fallen.  To be sure, there has also been courageous resistance and energetic opposition so that whoever digs deeply into this sad history of nameless suffering will experience profound admiration for the toughness and the unyielding spirit with which numerous families preferred this harsh humiliation to denying Christ.  But this fire of holy faith could only glow where faith had sunk deeply into the heart—and that was exactly where the masses were lacking.  For this reason, the masses gradually moved over to Islam, family after family. As the number of Christian families in the cities and villages gradually diminished, it became increasingly difficult for the remnant to hold out.  As apostasy of others became the pattern, your own apostasy seemed less sinful.  And so it was that, with the exception of small remnants, everywhere in Asia and Africa entire nations were converted to Islam.    

(This is found in a section of a Kuyper book I have translated into English and published under the title “The Mystery of Islam.” A better title would have been “The Enigma of Islam.” It is currently available free of charge as an ebook from < www.lulu.com > as well as on < www.ccel.com >. I expect to republish it soon on the Kuyperiana page of my website <  www.SocialTheology.com  >.)

So, though for centuries there was a kind of toleration and freedom for Christians, the restrictions under which they laboured eventually wore many of them out.

It is a similar process under which today Christians in the West are capitulating to increasing restrictions, forced privatization and other forms of pressures, especially the pressure of the local variety of “common sense,” that are producing weariness and exhaustion among them. In neither case do these situations represent true freedom and peace. Rather, they represent a slow strangulation of Christian communities that have lost their spiritual vigor and continue to succumb to this process, family after family, individual after individual. 

Post 36--Charly Hebdo and Muslim Pseudo Tolerance (1)

The Charlie Hebdo debacle in Paris evoked another round of discussions, protestations, ravings and rants in the press from both the Muslim and the secular communities. In this post and the next one or two I will talk about Muslim pseudo tolerance. After that, I will turn to  secular pseudo tolerance. Both of them make grandiose claims to tolerance, but both are sadly lacking at that front. 

[Yes, a promise again. Sorry, but I have learned during my “promise and failure” discourses in the past dozen or so posts that I cannot live, let alone write, without making promises—and neither can you. Try living without them and you’ll see! I will try my darndest to keep this one! I am also learning another thing: not to talk so freely about promises so much as intentions. No more of  “I promise…,” but “I intend…,” and always barring more urgent circumstances.] 

One Shafic Bhalloo, in a letter to the Vancouver Sun editor, distanced himself and the entire Muslim community from such Islamist terrorism. He does not like the Hebdo cartoons but finds no justification in Islam for such Islamist violence. “My Islam,” he declares, “is a religion of peace, tolerance and forgiveness.”  

Yes, we know all that. Have heard it many times before as in my series Studies in Christian-Muslim Relations (www.lulu.com where the series is available as an ebook free of charge, all 8 volumes!)  And yes, we also know that at one time Islam was more tolerant than the West. Problem is that, while Islam lost its dynamism or even regressed, the West opened up to allow the flower of tolerance to flourish beyond anything ever seen in history—or so secularists would have you think!

Muslim tolerance has serious limitations even at its zenith. Jews and Christians are tolerated at this zenith, provided they accept Muslim restrictions to keep their faith at home and in church, but definitely not in public or the market place. But that is not freedom of religion, for both Christians and Jews need freedom to engage the public and the market places of the world. If those are considered “no go” areas for them, then they do not have freedom of religion. In fact, such restrictions on them lead to emasculation, a diminishing, and a shrinking, the total effect of which is to trivialize them, to hollow out their dynamic character and to render them unworthy of serious consideration—as has happened in many Muslim countries. 

And then there are the infamous dhimmi provisions that, where half-heartedly applied, turn these Christians and Jews into second-class citizens, sometimes under most humiliating conditions. Again, check that series of mine. 

Muslims do not really extend their “courtesy” beyond Jews and Christians. Hindus, Sikhs and adherents of Traditional Religions as in India and Africa are not even accorded a place to stand in the official Muslim scheme of things. They are a non-people without any human rights, at least, in theory. Sometimes reality forces a certain degree of tolerance for them, as when Muslims controlled large portions of what is now India. Hindus and others were so many that they simply could not be wished away anymore than the US could not wish China away before the ping-pong era of President Nixon. At other times as in what is now northern Nigeria, Traditionalists were tolerated because, as dhimmis in the form of Maguzawa,, they were recognized as a great taxation source.  They were even discouraged from converting to Islam, for that would undercut the legitimacy of the tax regime imposed on them. 

So, there you go for the freedom and peace that is inherent in Islam.  And I have not even asked about or mentioned the disappearance of large swaths of Christianity in ancient lands or, to bring it closer to home, in the so-called Middle East today. That is hard to reconcile with that alleged freedom and peace.

Post 35--Human Rights Addresses

       

Since I wrote about human rights in the last post, I thought it well to provide you with a partial list of organizations that monitor and create action possibilities on issues of religious freedom.  Note that I said “partial.” I know there are many more out there, but I don’t have their information at hand.  

The major one missing is the Roman Catholic Church, which is all over the place in many shapes and forms, including dioceses, congregations, orders, etc. I just don’t have the time right now to dig into their world. It deserves an entire post for itself. And if we were to go international, you would find hundreds of such Christian websites from all over the world, possibly thousands even.

Check out these websites and you will see a group of very activistic organizations that pursue human rights with great drive and energy without ever flagging. You now have access to a whole new world and may well be surprised at the range, variety and depth of human rights activities in the North American Christian community. 

www.theEFC.ca

The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada is exactly what it says. One of its major points of concentration is the legal protection and defense of liberty throughout all segments of Canadian society. Additional EFC addresses are:

www.faithtoday.ca/digital

Faith Today is EFC’s  bi-monthly magazine in which stories about the above are featured.

www.EFC.ca/TakeAction is a guide to taking actions on social issues, including how to contact your MP—Member of Parliament.

www.theEFC.ca/activateCFPL accesses the EFC’s law and public policy blog.

www.ARPAcanada.ca

ARPA stands for “Association for Reformed Political Action,”  “Reformed” being another word for “Calvinist.”  It does very similar work to that of EFC, but its base is narrower—Reformed churches, and not even all of them.  In distinction from most of the others in this list, ARPA is not owned by any church or groups of churches; it is a group of Reformed church members. It sees itself as a partner to the advocacy programmes of EFC.

www.freedomhouse.org/religion

The Center for Religious Freedom at Freedom House defends against religious persecution of all groups throughout the world.  Its website provides news, action alerts, and background materials.

www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf

The U.S. State Department submits and posts a detailed 192-country annual report on international religious freedom.

www.uscirf.gov

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom was created by the International Religious Freedom Act to monitor religious freedom in other countries and to advise the President and Congress on policies to promote it.  Its report and website feature only a few countries but go beyond description to policy recommendations.

www.cpjustice.org/charitablechoice/

The Center for Public Justice has launched the Coalition to Preserve Religious Freedom as a multi-faith alliance of faith-based organizations devoted to preserving the freedom and autonomy of religious organizations that partner with government or are affected by government regulation.

www.cpj.ca

Citizens for Public Justice is a national, nonpartisan organization that promotes justice in Canadian public affairs. CPJ is convinced that Canada needs to engage in serious reflection on core values and their implications for our public life together--the common good.  Without such debate, the public sphere will continue to be a place for groups to advance their particular interests rather than come to meaningful consensus on how to address important public issues.

www.crcjustice.org

Visit this site for information on what the Christian Reformed Church in both Canada and the United States is doing to promote justice and religious freedom around the world.  It also includes resources on the persecuted church.

www.forum18.org/Forum18.php

Forum 18 promotes the implementation of the religious freedom described in Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  Its website has a searchable archive of its news articles on the most serious infractions of religious freedom--usually of worship--that affect people of all faiths.

www.hrw.org/doc/?t=religion

Religious rights is one of the global issues tracked by Human Rights Watch.  The website includes analysis, news, reports, and speeches.

www.usip.org/religionpeace/about.html

The Religion and Peacemaking Initiative of the United States Institute of Peace facilitates partnerships among faith-based organizations in the resolution of international disputes.  Current and archived programs, events, workshops, and publications are available on the website.

www.councilofchurches.ca

The Canadian Council of Churches engages in a wide range of advocacy. It shares Christ’s mission for reconciliation, peace, dignity and justice for the whole community.

http://www.nationalcouncilofchurches.us/

National Council of Churches in the USA.