Do you know any Greek? How many Lego projects have you completed lately? Ever built a fort? Let’s talk Greek, Lego, rock, sand, and structure. And of course, let’s talk authority! I can’t wait share a Biblical perspective on authority with you. True contentment for all peoples and nations comes when we submit to the ultimate authority of Jesus Christ.

Christians have spend the past weeks trying to keep COVID-19 in perspective. But we need to keep our political involvement in perspective as well. What is the primary role of the state? How should Christians interact with political parties? How Christians balance their dual citizenship as citizens of Canada and the Kingdom of God? Join BC Manager Levi Minderhoud has he tackles these questions. Have questions of your own about Christian involvement in politics? Pose your questions on the webinar!

A Reformed Primer

ARPA Canada congratulates all newly elected or re-elected members of the legislative assembly of Ontario.  And we congratulate the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario and its leader Doug Ford for their election victory.

We pray for peace and strength and a time of refreshing for all candidates, as an election can be very physically and emotionally draining. For those elected, may they be blessed as they prepare to take up their work as representatives and legislators. For those not elected, may they experience a smooth return to their work or be able to find new employment.

In keeping with ARPA Canada’s two-fold mission – to educate and equip Reformed Christians for political action and to present a biblical perspective to government – this article speaks both to those in authority and to Christian citizens of Ontario.

Recognizing the source of all authority

We pray that all MPPs and political staff, and indeed all people, may recognize and acknowledge the authority, righteousness, goodness, and love of God. May they endeavor to govern with justice and integrity. May they recognize from whom they receive their position and power and to whom they are answerable.

As Jesus declared to Pontius Pilate, “You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above.” (John 19) So the Apostle Paul writes, “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.” (Romans 13)

Jesus Christ has all authority. Every human authority is subject to him. As he said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” (Matthew 18)

So the psalmist writes, “Therefore, you kings, be wise; be warned, you rulers of the earth. Serve the LORD with fear and celebrate his rule with trembling.” (Psalm 2)

Every person is ultimately responsible and answerable to God for his conduct during the campaign. Yet we know that the outcome of every election is ultimately in God’s hands.

Praying for rulers, being good citizens

The Apostle Paul writes, “I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people – for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.” (1 Timothy 2)

ARPA Canada invites Christians to pray for all those in positions of authority. Please pray for new MPPs as they take up their role. Pray for wisdom for Doug Ford and his team as they organize a new government, assign individuals to Cabinet positions, and decide their legislative agenda. Pray for the Opposition too, that they may perform well the important task of holding the government to account and scrutinizing its policies through debate.

We urge Christians to speak up and to talk with MPPs. Christians’ engagement in politics should be thoughtful, winsome, and loving. At times, there are policies that ought to be exposed as foolish. Even then, Christians should not insult or disparage people, but speak the truth with clarity and conviction while respecting every person as created in God’s image.

Remember the words of Jeremiah (29:7), “But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.”

Governing Canada’s largest province

Human nature is fallen. Our hearts are prone to pride, greed, and lust for power. It’s not a happy reality, but it is worth reflecting on for everyone taking up a position of power.

Ontarians have witnessed the effects of our fallen nature in several ways in recent years, from lies and deception used to obtain and retain power, to irresponsible and deeply damaging public policy choices. Though such conduct and choices do not surprise us, we are right to urge people in government to do better. Let us pray that MPPs hire staff with integrity, and that both MPPs and staff alike may maintain their integrity and be granted wisdom to govern well.

Government is and ought to be “God’s servant for your good” (Romans 13). People in government need to discern what is good. ARPA Canada respectfully submits that several important bills from the last decade indicate that the government of Ontario has failed to discern what is good, right, and just.

For many people, the first thing that comes to mind is likely Ontario’s financial mismanagement. Indeed, ARPA Canada believes it is irresponsible and selfish for this generation to spend so much borrowed money. Ontario has a serious debt issue that must be addressed. However, there are several other issues that tend to get less attention, but are terribly important. These have to do with fundamental freedoms of religion and expression, and with how we understand and legislate with respect to sexuality and gender.

ARPA Canada urges newly elected MPPs and their staff to consider the issues we have identified in our “Ontario Election Report” and to peruse the resources provided there. Please consider what you can do to set things right.

May God guide and bless the government of Ontario.

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An ARPA Three-Part series on Church and State in Canada

By John Sikkema and André Schutten

Two weeks ago, in the first of our three-part series, we discussed foundations. We explained that God divides human authority between at least three institutions: the family, the church, and the state. Their authority or power comes from God and is limited by Scripture. The church must defer to the state in matters of state jurisdiction but cannot defer to the state in matters of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, particularly the preaching of the gospel and the exercise of church discipline (known as the two keys to the kingdom of heaven).

Next week, in our third installment, we will discuss the local church as a legal entity – an entity that owns property, enters contracts, hires employees, buys insurance, and so on. Is there a preferred model for setting up and governing our churches as legal entities?

In this, our second instalment, we examine the how of church discipline. What procedures are fair? We do not, however, intend to offer a comprehensive procedural guide to church discipline. Rather, in keeping with this series’ focus on the relationship of church and state, our focus is more specifically on this question: Can the civil courts supervise the procedure of church discipline, provided they don’t interfere with the substance of a church’s decisions?

So, let’s continue the discussion.

PART II: Scripture, not state law, instructs us how to do church discipline

About a month before the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the Wall case (see more on that case in Part I of this series), the Gospel Coalition Canada published an article by Pastor Paul Carter titled “How to Do Church Discipline (Without Getting Sued)”. Pastor Carter explains the importance of church discipline, particularly, the importance of doing it well. His article contains several important points and plenty of practical wisdom. We’re grateful for his thoughtful engagement on this important matter. Nevertheless, we thought he raised a few issues that merit further discussion and nuance.

Pastor Carter suggests that Wall is a unique case because it examines the “economic impact of church discipline on the disciplined member, separate and apart from issues relating to procedural fairness.” In fact, however, the case is very much a dispute about whether courts can review a church’s decision, and its decision-making procedure in particular, in the absence of a legal claim, such as a property dispute or lawsuit for breaching a contract. (An allegation that a church decision impacted you economically or emotionally is not a legal claim.)

But Pastor Carter still sees Wall as a reminder “for churches to remember that when they conduct formal church discipline, they are required to abide by the principles of natural justice.” Otherwise, he warns, “[T]hey may find their decisions being reviewed and overturned by the courts.” He then outlines four principles and explains why they are important to the church discipline process, namely: (1) the need for adequate notice, (2) the principle of impartiality, (3) the opportunity for self defence, and (4) the need for any decision or action by the church to be clearly explained.

Pastor Carter explains the dual intent of discipline as “(1) protecting the integrity of the ministry of the Church and the name of the Lord in the community (Romans 2:24; 2 Peter 2:2) and (2) restoring the individual into fellowship pursuant to Luke 17:3 and Galatians 6:1.” He concludes, “Church discipline is a good and helpful thing when it is done wisely and in accordance with the teaching of Scripture and the principles of natural justice. Done correctly it is an expression of loving concern for our brother or sister in Christ. Done incorrectly it exposes the church to the judgment and censor of the courts.”

Adding nuance to Pastor Carter’s argument

We agree, of course, that discipline must be “in accordance with the teaching of Scripture,” but would caution about teaching that churches are also bound by “natural justice”, as it begs the question: Who or what is the authority on what natural justice requires? In the context in which Pastor Carter uses the term, the answer appears to be: civil judges. And according to civil judges, the requirements of natural justice vary significantly depending on the circumstances. Principles of natural justice as articulated by judges may line up with biblical principles of fairness. However, it is also possible that they diverge. This may become more of a concern as our legal culture pushes for new approaches to fairness that demand special treatment and differentiated rules depending on the identity of the person in question.

Therefore, two points need to be made clear. First, the Church is answerable to Christ, not the courts, for both the substance and the procedure of church discipline decisions. Second, the Word is sufficient for teaching us how to do church discipline.

The courts, in fact, have recognized this and have consistently declined to interfere with church discipline per se, recognizing it as an ecclesiastical matter, as we explain in more detail in our factum to the Supreme Court. Pastor Carter affirms that, “irrespective of Wall”, civil courts “have the right to review the actions and decisions of church councils”. With great respect to Pastor Carter, that statement is somewhat misleading. We don’t take Pastor Carter to mean that civil courts have a God-given right to review church decisions. So we take him to be saying that, rightly or wrongly, the common law of Canada recognizes the courts’ right to review church decisions – but even that would only be true in a very limited sense.

Courts may review church decisions where a legal right is at stake. So, for example, if your right to live in your church’s parsonage depended on your remaining the pastor, but your church fired you, a court may then review the church’s decision to resolve the legal issue of whether you still have a right to live in that house. But even then, according to leading case law, you would first have to exhaust the church’s internal appeal processes before you came to the court alleging that the church has breached your legal rights. (See this article for more on that point.) And the court should defer to the church on questions of doctrine or Christian morality.

The Wall case is, in large part, a dispute about whether a religious body is legally obligated to follow the requirements of natural justice (as determined by the courts) where a person was emotionally and economically impacted by a church’s decision, but where a legal right did not hinge on that decision. Mr. Wall had no substantive legal claim against the church – no employment relationship, no contract for services that the church had breached, no property of his that was in the church’s possession, or any other recognized legal claim.

Where Pastor Carter writes, “Done incorrectly, [discipline] exposes the church to the judgment and censor [sic] of the courts,” he appears to suggest that the courts determine whether discipline has been done correctly. However, it is also possible that discipline done correctly (according to the Word) will expose the Church to court censure, or that church discipline done incorrectly (not according to the Word), or not done at all, will avoid court censure. Pastor Carter may be right that the worse the procedure, the more likely you’ll end up in court. Our concern here, however, as in our intervention in Wall, is to be clear on who should decide whether a church’s procedures are right and by what standard.

Principles of notice, impartiality, and hearings are rooted in Scripture

Churches would neglect their calling by allowing the state to define the parameters or procedures of proper discipline. We don’t need the courts to tell the Church to give a person notice that he is under discipline. Christ gives that requirement clearly in Matthew 18, though that process will look different in different circumstances (for example, in instances of egregious sin, as Paul demonstrates in his response to a public incestuous affair).

We also don’t need to look to the state to define requirements of impartiality: God is clear again and again and again that we must judge uprightly, favouring neither rich nor poor, nor native or immigrant, nor widow or orphan, nor straight talker or flatterer, and listening to both sides and giving an opportunity to defend against allegations.

What then? In writing our church orders and establishing procedural rules, do we not employ a practical wisdom that many unbelievers, including unbelieving civil judges, share with us? Yes. Is it not then going a bit far to claim that church discipline should be based on Scripture alone? No. Though all men may share some basic sense of fairness, we are also easily deceived and prone to suppress the truth about what is right and just (Romans 1:18-32). Yet God has given to believers both the Word and the Spirit to overcome this sinful tendency (Romans 8:9-11, 26-27; 2 Timothy 3:16-17; John 20:21-23). We believe that, as with its Confessions, the Church should endeavour to make its teaching on and procedures for discipline nothing more and nothing other than a faithful interpretation, organization, and application of what the Bible teaches.

Pastor Carter is right to emphasize the importance of good procedures. We do well to put in place careful procedures that guard against man’s sinfulness and biases, as Scripture teaches. If our churches need reform in that respect, that reform should come from within the Church and be rooted in Scripture. The solution is not to force procedures on the Church from the outside or (worse) to review specific outcomes from the outside – from another sphere of authority.

State authority on church discipline is counterfeit

What if a court declares a church discipline to be void? Whom does the congregation obey, their elders or the state? Should the elders welcome this unrepentant brother to the communion table the next Sunday morning? Should your church permit him to serve as an elder or even to lead a Bible study? We believe that the Bible teaches that civil judges have no jurisdiction to decide such matters.

Does Christ mean it when He says to the apostles and through them, the Church: “Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven”? Calvin comments:

That no one may stubbornly despise the judgement of the church […] the Lord testifies that such judgment by believers is nothing but the proclamation of His own sentence […]. For they have the Word of God with which to condemn the perverse; they have the Word with which to receive the repentant into grace.

So the power of both keys of the kingdom – the preaching of the gospel and the exercise of church discipline – is in the Word of God, of which men are merely ministers. Calvin comments further, “[The] promise to Peter concerning binding and loosing ought to be referred solely to the ministry of the Word, because when the Lord committed his ministry to the apostles, he also equipped them for the office of binding and loosing.” See also John 20:21-23 on this point. The Spirit equips true Church leaders for this task. Church discipline, like gospel preaching, is “the ministry of the Word” and its substance and authority comes from the Word alone.

Ultimately, Calvin explains, the power to bind and loose, or to forgive or not forgive sins, does not lie within mere men. Rather, Christ speaks through those whom He chooses as His instruments, the office-bearers of His Church. Who then is a civil judge to declare a declaration of excommunication – or forgiveness and restoration! – to be void?

Submit for the Lord’s sake to every human institution

To be clear, we are not arguing that the Church is immune from the rule of the state – on the contrary, the Church has erred in the past in thinking this. Criminal law is properly enacted and enforced by the state. Civil judges can arbitrate disputes over civil rights, including disputes over contract or property in which a church or church member is a party (though Paul’s warning to Christians suggests that we ought rarely to make use of these means). Likewise, even a judge, prime minister, or king is subject to the Church’s spiritual authority.

We know that if the Supreme Court gets the answer wrong in Wall, the principle established in law will directly impact faithful churches in Canada. That is why we intervened in this case, even though we disagree with the theology of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. As Christian lawyers and as Christian lay people, we must respectfully but firmly remind the courts and legislatures that they have no authority here. We ask for your prayers for the Supreme Court Justices as they consider this matter and work towards rendering a decision. May God grant them wisdom.

To discuss the subject matter of this article with us and help us understand these issues better, write to us at [email protected] & [email protected].

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An ARPA Three-Part series on Church and State in Canada

By John Sikkema and André Schutten

The back story…

A few years ago, a man named Randy Wall was “disfellowshipped” from the Highwood Congregation of Jehovah Witnesses in Calgary. The elders deemed Wall “insufficiently repentant” for drunkenness and verbal abuse of his wife. Mr. Wall didn’t think this was fair. Wall was a real estate agent and about half of Wall’s customers were Witnesses. But after he was disfellowshipped, they refused to do business with him. So he took the Congregation to court, asking a judge to declare that the disfellowshipping was unfair and should be overturned. The Congregation, however, contended that a civil judge has no business reviewing such a decision. The Congregation lost in the lower court and in the Alberta Court of Appeal.

The Congregation appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada, which heard the case in November. Its decision is pending. At stake is whether the courts will claim jurisdiction to review church discipline decisions. Put another way, the issue is whether the judiciary will recognize that the keys of the kingdom of heaven were given to the Church, not the state.

If the Supreme Court concludes that civil judges do not have authority to review church discipline matters, this case will be at an end, at least as far as the courts are concerned. Alternatively, if the Supreme Court agrees with the lower courts, the matter will be sent back to the lower court to decide whether the Congregation did, in fact, disfellowship Mr. Wall for good reason and through a fair process.

We were pleased to represent ARPA Canada at the Supreme Court hearing and to do our best to present a Reformed perspective on the issues in the case. (Keen readers can read our written legal arguments to the Supreme Court.) This case has raised important questions about the independence of the Church, prompting us to write this short series.

A three-part series on Church and State

In this, the first (and longest) of our three-part series, we discuss foundations. Who has authority and why? Where does the Church’s authority end and the state’s begin? To what extent can the Church submit to the state?

Next week, in our second instalment, we will examine the how of church discipline. How should discipline be conducted? What procedures are fair? Can the civil courts supervise the procedure of church discipline, provided they don’t interfere with the substance of a church’s decisions?

In our third installment, we will discuss the local church as a legal entity. Churches own property, buy insurance, employ people, have charitable status, and so on. Thus they operate as legal entities in the world. Is there a preferred model for setting up our churches as legal entities? Does a Reformed ecclesiology take some options off the table?

Finally, depending on the response this series receives, good or bad, we may publish additional guest columns to further explore these issues.

Let’s get started.

Part I: God’s division of earthly powers

Those who made it to ARPA Canada’s 2017 fall tour will recall the theme, “Who is Sovereign?” Who has authority to direct my actions and yours in a given place or circumstance?

To recap, we pointed to Question 104 from the Heidelberg Catechism as a helpful starting point to answer that question. It teaches us that God requires, in the fifth commandment, “That I show honour, love and faithfulness to my father and mother and to all those in authority over me… since it is God’s will to govern us by their hand.”

The Westminster Larger Catechism says something similar in Q&A 124: “In the fifth commandment, ‘father and mother’ mean not only natural parents, but all superiors […] who, by God’s ordinance, are over us in place of authority, whether in family, church, or commonwealth [i.e. state].”

As Christian citizens, we are called to obey the authority of parents, Church, and State. Which raises the question: what happens when demands of the State and parents conflict? Whom do we obey? And what happens if a court purports to overturn a decision made by your church elders? Whom does the congregation obey?

Sphere sovereignty of home, church and state

To answer these questions, we need a framework to help us grasp God’s good design for social order. A helpful, biblical framework is called “sphere sovereignty.” Here is what it looks like in a nutshell. God has created and mandated three basic spheres of authority in society, each with their own respective roles and responsibilities. These roles and responsibilities are not created by philosophers or academics or lawyers or politicians or judges. These roles and responsibilities are defined and delegated by God.

The sphere of State is sovereign in matters properly within its jurisdiction as given by God (criminal law, national defense, maintaining a fair and impartial justice system, etc.) We can see from passages like Romans 13, 1 Peter 2, Psalm 72 and 82, Isaiah 1, and many other passages that the civil government bears the sword to punish injustice and to protect the innocent.

Another sphere of authority is the Church. It is sovereign over areas within its jurisdiction: doctrine and church discipline. This responsibility was given directly to the Church when Jesus gave her the keys of the kingdom of heaven in Matthew 16:18-19. The keys, as explained in Lord’s Day 31 of the Heidelberg Catechism, are the preaching of the gospel and the exercise of church discipline.

Another sphere of authority is the family. Issues of child rearing – including education – fall within this sphere. This is clearly seen in passages like Deuteronomy 6, Ephesians 6, the fifth commandment, and the entire book of Proverbs. Parents are commanded to raise their children in the fear of the Lord and are given authority to do so.

Of course, it’s not always easy and clear-cut to determine who is sovereign or who has rightful authority in any given circumstance, but there are clear boundaries. Your church doesn’t write the traffic laws or declare its members exempt from them when they travel to church. The state may not dictate what is to be preached in your church. Families are not to avenge wrongs done to their members. And so on. These boundaries are critical. History has taught us that great harm can be done when one sphere encroaches on the role of another.

Ultimately, those who are given authority in any sphere are answerable to God for how they exercise – or fail to exercise – their God-given authority.

Church discipline falls exclusively within the Church’s sphere of authority

The Wall v. Highwood Congregation of Jehovah Witnesses case raises important questions about the boundary between Church and state authority. Now, Jehovah Witnesses congregations are not true churches. For one, they do not confess Christ as God and teach that the Holy Spirit is not a person but a force.

Nevertheless, Witnesses’ congregations interpret and apply some of the very same Bible passages that any Christian church would when it comes to church discipline. The issue in Wall was not whether the Jehovah Witnesses’ Congregation is a true church, nor was it about how the Congregation had interpreted and applied Bible texts relating to discipline. Rather, the issue before the Supreme Court of Canada in Wall was whether the civil courts have jurisdiction to decide whether any church has properly interpreted and applied either the Bible or their own statements of church teaching.

If church discipline falls within the Church’s authority, then it is outside of the state’s authority. Calvin refers to church discipline as “the spiritual jurisdiction of the church” and “the jurisdiction which it has received from the Lord.”   It does not become part of the state’s authority simply because it is done improperly or because it is done (or purportedly done) by a false church.

If a person is excommunicated (the final stage of church discipline, not the whole of it), it is supremely serious. The Heidelberg Catechism, expounding on Matthew 18:15-20, says in answer 85, excommunicated persons “are excluded by the elders from the Christian congregation and by God himself from the kingdom of Christ.” We must understand the purpose and importance of the keys of the kingdom, which Christ gives to His Church, not to civil magistrates.

Consider this key text on who holds the authority of church discipline:

And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. (Matthew 16:18-19)

If Jesus meant to give the keys to the State, he would have said this to Caesar, not Peter. (Jesus refers to Caesar elsewhere in Matthew’s gospel.) And consider this key text on how church discipline should be exercised:

If your brother sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won him over. But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ If he still refuses to listen, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector. Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. (Matthew 18:15-18)

Again, notice the levels of appeal that Jesus lays out. It ends with the Church. There is no further appeal to Caesar. The purpose of discipline is correcting sin, so that the unrepentant member might, as Paul writes, “be saved in the day of the Lord”, so the congregation might be preserved, and so the Lord’s Supper and our Lord Himself might not be dishonoured.

But how does this work? How is it that the Church is given such authority, such terrible responsibility? What if it is used rashly or unfairly or unlovingly?

These are weighty questions. For now, it will suffice to say that the solution to alleged misuse or malpractice of church discipline is not an appeal to the civil courts. The local church (or federation or denomination of churches) should have procedures in place to guard against human error and bias. Historically, in fact, the state has learned much from the Church. Though churches today may be failing in that respect, it is not a problem for the civil judiciary to sort out, just as it is not for churches to take over policing cities if the state does a poor job of it.

Nor is the civil law the source of the rules and norms for church discipline (see Belgic Confession, Article 32). If Christ, by His Word, has given the authority and responsibility for discipline to His Church, as we have argued in this first article, then we should also expect to be taught by the Word how the Church is to exercise that authority. We will turn to this next week, in Part 2.

The Supreme Court of Canada decided to side with tradition by killing the bid to remove the Queen from the oath of Canadian citizenship. On the other hand, the court decided to forego the tradition argument when they decided to rule against the mayor of Saguenay and strike down as unconstitutional his Christian prayer before town council meetings.

The Supreme Court refuses to recognize the importance of the Preamble to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which states that “Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God”. But that same Court, in a decision two months before, recognizes pledging an oath to the queen as relevant. The court is contradicting itself. As the legal maxim states: Jurare est Deum in testum vocare, et est actus divinu cultus. Translation: To swear is to call God to witness and is an act of religion.

Here are some of the questions asked of the queen at her coronation:

Her answer: “The things which I have here before promised, I will perform and keep. So help me God.”

By obliging newcomers to Canada to pledge an oath to a queen who is herself the maintainer of the laws of God, the court is actually recognizing that ‘Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God’. That ‘supremacy of God’ statement is reflected in the Queen’s coronation oath.

Separation of religion and State? Separation of God and State? Impossible. It just can’t be done. Because God created man as a religious being, man’s whole life is governed by God, including the state by which men try to govern. The question is never, “Will the State be religious?” The question is, “Which religion will the State subscribe to?”.

Judex bonus nihil ex arbitrio suo faciat, nec propostione domesticae voluntatis, sed juxta legis et jura pronunciet. Translation: A good judge should do nothing from his own judgment, or from the dictates of his private wishes; but he should pronounce according to law and justice.

Canadian law (and culture and society) yet has the Christian religion written all over it. But time and time again liberal judges act upon their personal desires to see Canada become not an irreligious country but a country that does not recognize the supremacy of the Triune God.

– Maximus

The following is our latest issue of Respectfully Submitted, a series of policy reports for Parliamentarians. It is best viewed as a PDF (attached). We are printing and shipping this one to all MPs and Senators and encourage our readers to follow up with their MP in the coming weeks to ask for their thoughts about this document.                                         

“Whereas Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law”

–        Preamble to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms

Who is supreme in Canada? Some will point to the justices of the Supreme Court of Canada, others to the Prime Minister’s Office and still others to the people who elect the politicians. But all of them, and all of us, are here today and gone tomorrow.

We may argue that it is ideas which shape a society because ideas don’t retire or die – they have the power to overthrow an empire. Our Chief Justice once wrote that law itself is supreme.[1] But laws change and ideas are like the wind. Progressivism, the unarticulated goal of many legislators, becomes a self-defeating enterprise as the next generation looks upon it with the same disregard that it looked on those ideas before it.

Canada is a nation in search of an identity. We don’t publicly recognize any god as supreme, let alone the Christian God. We follow leaders and ideas for a time, only to move on to the next person or thing that stirs us. But hockey, donuts, and beer aren’t exactly symbols on which to build a nation.

Over the decades Canada has divorced the Christian God from our public institutions and replaced Him with self-worship, state-worship, and earth-worship, among other things. Yet we continue to lay claim to, and benefit from, many of the political and legal by-products of the Christian faith, including fundamental human rights, much of the Criminal Code, and the concept of rule of law.

(more…)

By Anthony Furey Anthony Furey , Ottawa Sun, June 2 2012 : While I was appearing on Sun News last week, Brian Lilley tossed a quote up on the screen from Hall. What she was commenting on doesn’t matter, but how she introduced her statement certainly does: “Ontario’s Human Rights Code is, in a sense, Ontario’s highest law.” Really? Let’s do a little syllogism here: OHRC-related legislation is the highest in the land; Barbara Hall is the head of the OHRC; therefore Barbara Hall is the highest authority in Ontario. (more…)

Charles Lewis, National Post, July 8 2010: When a judge last month ruled that a Catholic high school in Montreal could choose its own religious curriculum, in defiance of an order by the Quebec government, he wrote that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms specifically referred to “the supremacy of God” in its preamble. Now, in the ruling’s aftermath, some are wondering whether that language is out of place in a society that has grown increasingly secular. [Read more]