Her name was Debbie. I cannot recall her last name, and I have only the vaguest recollection of what she looked like. But I still recall vividly how she was the one person who stepped out of the classroom every morning while the rest of us recited the Lord’s Prayer. 

It was the 1970s in suburban Toronto. It was taken for granted that every day started with the principal announcing “Please stand for the singing of ‘O Canada’ and remain standing for the Lord’s Prayer” over the PA system. Debbie would step into the hallway after the anthem’s last line “on guard for thee”, and step back in after the “Amen”.

To the sensibilities of most Canadians now, it seems almost impossible to imagine such an overtly Christian practice being normative and unquestioned. It is like remembering that it wasn’t so long ago when people were free to smoke in their offices and on public transit. Canadian society has shifted hugely within my lifetime from being, at least nominally, a “Christian society” to today’s post-Christian and even post-faith society.

“From where I sit, the Church feels tenuous, and the Christian faith feels as if it’s simply not part of the public or private discourse at all.”

Secularism is now the norm of political discourse, and faith is considered to be a matter of personal choice and observance. Quebec’s secularism laws are surely the most pointed example of this norm. Among the many differences which make the thought of Canada becoming the 51st state unimaginable, the fact that Canadian politics is, except on the fringes, indifferent to matters of faith is high on the list.

And yet Christianity is hardly invisible in Canada today. In the 2021 census, just over half of Canadians self-reported that they are “Christian”. This is a significant decline from two-thirds in 2011, but it still means that the majority of Canadians have enough of a sense of attachment to the Christian faith to identify themselves as Christian when asked. Moreover, virtually every Canadian small town has at least one prominent church building on or near its main street; church steeples in Canada’s major metropolises are not completely obscured by the skyscrapers. And Christians are never far from the latest news cycle. 

As I write this, the Canadian news media’s eyes are trained on Rome, watching the health of the Pope. His trip to Canada in 2022 was a major media event, tied as it was to the legacy of Canadian churches and the scourge of residential schools. Canada may be post-Christian, but Christians and the Church (particularly when they fail, and God knows they do!) are still very much in Canadian consciousness.

I sit (and write) from within the Church and within the faith, and from the perspective of two of Canada’s mainline denominations (the Anglican Church and the United Church, which this year is celebrating its 100th anniversary). 

I see congregations heading toward closure, and at a faster pace given the disruption that COVID presented to worshipping communities. A few congregations are holding their own, and even prospering in a limited way, but these are the exception, not the rule. From where I sit, the Church feels tenuous, and the Christian faith feels as if it’s simply not part of the public or private discourse at all.

Maybe, though, just maybe, this is exactly where the Christian faith needs to find itself. Marginalized, even ignored. Disdained, and even detested. Called to account for its many failures and hypocrisies and distrusted as a result. Maybe this is where the faith needs to find itself because this is where the Christian faith comes from. 

Christian faith comes from a place of obscurity. It comes from the margins. It comes from a place (a person – Jesus) who stood against the prevailing norms of the day, and who stood against what the world considers powerful, successful and worthy of regard. Maybe it’s time for the Christian faith to re-imagine itself as a set of beliefs and actions which stand outside the institution which bears its name.

The “Good News”

“The core of the Christian gospel lifts up everything and everyone who is cast down, and stands up to everything, and everyone who exercises power without mercy and justice.”

Gospel. Although the word was, originally, a Christian word, Christians do not have exclusive custody over it. (Indeed, the Simpsons and Dr. Seuss both have their own “gospels”.) The word means, simply, “good news”. At its core, the Christian faith is about “good news”. That assertion, in and of itself, must seem distorted to all of those who have suffered violence, hatred, prejudice, disdain, and more at the hand of Christians. It must seem ludicrous when set against the view that the Church only exists to judge, to exclude, and to condemn.

What is this good news, in fact? It is the good news that a wayward child who squanders their father’s money in wasteful and selfish living and is welcomed back into their parent’s arms with a no-holds-barred embrace. It is the good news that those we look down on and figure are good for nothing are actually the ones who will stop to help us when we are in distress. It is the good news that those who are poor, and ignored, and scorned, and aggrieved will, in the end, find comfort. It is the good news that the powerful and mighty who lord that power over others, will be brought low, and the meek and lowly will be lifted up. 

The core of the Christian gospel lifts up everything and everyone who is cast down, and stands up to everything, and everyone, who exercises power without mercy and justice.

The president of the United States claims to act from a place of Christian belief, but when asked to provide any substantial reflection on what he calls his “favourite book” (the Bible), is unable to utter anything specific. 

During his recent inauguration, the Episcopal (Anglican) bishop of Washington, Mariann Budde, called the president to account right in front of him, with strong and direct gospel language. 

“In the name of God”, she calmly exhorted the President, “I ask you to have mercy on the people of our country who are scared now.” She specifically mentioned undocumented immigrants, gay, lesbian, and transgender children. 

The president railed against the speech, as did many others professing the Christian faith. But other Christians applauded her courage and saw her sermon for what it was: a statement of the gospel, of the good news.

I doubt any Canadian bishop (Anglican or otherwise) will have the same kind of pulpit to preach the good news to our political leaders. But there are still thousands upon thousands of individuals who attend worship, even infrequently, and who are invited to preach the good news.

The good news that every human being is created in God’s image and is deeply loved by God; that even our worst moments are not enough to separate us from God’s love. The good news that we are called to lay down our grudges, our anger, our prejudices, our biases, and our fear.  To embrace the stranger, and give aid and comfort. 

Maybe, just maybe, as Canada becomes more and more multicultural, multiracial and multifaith, the role of Christians will be to stand for justice, and diversity, and acceptance, and unselfish love. Not in a way that grasps for a cultural power and position the Church once had. But in the way of Jesus. Who came not to be served, but to serve.