MDM4M - Modern Disciple Magazine For Men - The Watchman: Standing on Guard for Canada

Modern Disciple Magazine for Men (MDM4M), published in Canada

Friday, November 21st, 2008

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THE WATCHMAN:
Standing On Guard For Canada
(Jer 6:17a)

Faith and the Federal Election It's springtime and love is in the air. Or is that a federal election I smell? Someone tell the Canadian 'Nezzers out there that the writing's on the wall: internal tracking polls, media leaks, cross-country campaign-style appearances by the Prime Minister, and more spin than Linda Blair in the Exorcist.

Why don't we know for sure that there is an election in the offing? Our parliamentary system is designed so that the Prime Minister has to ask the Queen's representative, the Governor-General, to dissolve the current government and give notice of a general election (we call that issuing a Writ). So only Prime Minister Paul Martin knows when Canadians will march off to the polls. No fixed election dates.

Election time in Canada means Christian values head for the closet, too. Not that they're pushed there by an increasingly secularizing electorate. Quite the opposite, in fact, we park our values in the car when we head into the polling station.

I have to laugh every time I hear a Canadian liberal media outlet (usually the Toronto Star or the Canadian Broadcast Corporation) try to scare Canadians about 'hidden agendas' being offered by puppet politicians of the Religious Right. Let's be honest folks, there is no 'Religious Right' in Canada. There's no Moral Majority, no Christian Coalition. Other than a few small, organized groups in the province of Alberta and a few rural pockets in Ontario we are without a united Christian voice.

Don't believe me? There are about 12.8 million Canadians who identify themselves as Catholics. And they tend to vote for political parties that are at the Centre or Left of the political spectrum: The Liberals and the New Democrats.

There are also about 3.5 million Canadians who identify themselves as 'evangelical'. Only 1 in 10 voted in the last federal election making them the worst voter group. Of that 10% slightly more than one-third voted for one of our two (at the time) conservative parties, a little bit more than that supported the governing Liberal Party, and nearly one-third supported the New Democratic Party.

For the US folks reading this, nearly one-third of Canadian 'evangelicals' supported a party that is close to communist in its platform.

"…nearly one-third of Canadian 'evangelicals' supported a party that is close to communist in its platform.""

Clearly, Canadian Christians are not voting. When they do, they are not united at the ballot box. It also demonstrates that we are voting with different priorities. Very often we vote without biblical priorities first or without prioritizing which biblical priorities are more important than others.

Knowing we will face a federal election soon allows us to consider now what our priorities will be. I am sure I will invite criticism but that is a good thing. At least we will be talking (and hopefully not mudslinging).

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