Stockwell Day spoke at New Life Church in Kelowna this morning. He is the Member of Parliament for Okanagan-Coquihala; the Foreign Affairs Critic for the Conservative Party of Canada and a former leader of the party. He was speaking from Mark 12:30 "and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength."

In a nutshell he said the church has had the faith to pray but lacked the faith to act on those prayers. It has loved the Lord with all of its heart but failed to love the Lord with all of its mind. Loving God with your mind means that you think about what's best for society and do your utmost to make changes for the better. This is why Stockwell Day went into politics.

Over the past 60 years, the church in Canada has abandoned the public arena to secularism. It has acquiesced to an implicit separation of church and state as it has been defined by secularists. That is, separation is about freedom FROM religion not about freedom OF religion. Thus they (e.g. Freedom From Religion Foundation) see there is no role for people of faith in the public square.

This is not what the concept meant when the principle was enshrined in the US Constitution. At that time it meant that the government should not establish a state religion, not that the church should not participate in the affairs of governing the country.  

The abandonment of the public square by Christians has not always been the case in Canada. A number of the framers of the Canadian confederation were devout Christians. 

Mr. Day explained that in Canada we live in a democracy, which is a form of government that is invested in the people. Thus when we pray for those in authority over us, we are not just praying for our rulers, we are praying for ourselves since we govern ourselves.  Thus we have the privilege in Canada unlike other countries to actually BE the answer to our own prayers.

Unfortunately over the recent past, the Christian church in Canada has  preferred to absent itself from direct participation in politics, preferring prayer only. This has resulted in a vacuum of moral leadership in government.

The point really hit home when Mr. Day shared his frustrations about the defeat of Private Members Bill C-313. It sought to raise the Age of Consent to Sexual Activity from 14 to 16. It was defeated this past week by the combined forces of the Liberals and the NDP.  

Canada already has one of the lowest ages of consent. For most countries it is 18 or older. Police forces had supported the bill since it would have made their jobs easier in the pursuit of sexual predators that prey on young teens over the Internet. A good blog that is following this debate is doxology.

Mr. Day's message reminded me of my dialogue with the Christian musician Steve Camp about cultural engagement and the involvement of Christians and churches in the political arena. Mr. Camp is steadfastly against churches being involved in politics. He feels it detracts from their primary responsibility to preach the gospel. See my articles on this debate

-         The Scandal of Steve Camp's Mind

-         Steve Camp thinks I am Misreading his Mind.

-         Steve Camp gives me a piece of his Mind!

To be fair, Steve has said that there is room for politicians to be Christians. However he is adamant that it is not the job of churches to seek to reform society through politics. He sums up his position by quoting Jesus' words from John 18:36: "My kingship is not of this world; if my kingship were of this world, my servants would fight, that I might not be handed over to the Jews; but my kingship is not from the world."  

N. T. Wright has a very different take on this passage. You can read his view here. He states,

So when Jesus says, “My kingdom is not of this world,” he doesn’t mean it has nothing to do with the world. It means he’s not getting orders from the world, but for the world — from God for the world — as he said, “My kingdom come, on earth as in Heaven.” So when we then read Paul with our eyes open to what was being said about Caesar in the first century A.D. — and we have to remember that the Caesar cult was the fastest growing religion in Paul’s world, and in many of the cities where Paul went there were temples to Caesar or the imperial family, and this was the burgeoning thing, this was the new, exciting religious development in the first century A.D. — then we discover that much of Paul’s language about Jesus is designed to say, “Jesus is Lord, and therefore Caesar isn’t.” And he’s teasing his heroes. He’s not setting out too detailed a program yet, but he’s teasing them into saying that it’s Jesus who commands their basic allegiance, that it’s Jesus who is enthroned on Caesar’s cross, if you like. The weapon which Caesar uses to torture people has become the imperial throne of the new emperor – which is a most fascinating theme in Paul.

So when it comes to Christians and churches getting involved in politics which am I to believe? Stockwell Day, a Canadian Christian member of Parliament? N T Wright, one of the world’s top New Testament scholars? Or Steve Camp, Christian musician and prophetic blogger?

After Mr. Day finished speaking our pastor, Kim Unrau read an excellent quote that sums up this discussion. It is originally from the book Classical Apologetics by Arthur W. Lindsley but it was used in this more recent book Love Your God With All Your Mind: The Role of Reason in the Life of the Soul by James Porter Moreland. I end with it because it sums up pretty well the challenge for the Canadian church as it wrestles with the question and the potential consequences of cultural engagement.

The church is safe from vicious persecution at the hands of the secularist, as educated people have finished with stake-burning circuses and torture racks. No martyr's blood is shed in the secular west. So long as the church knows her place and remains quietly at peace on her modern reservation. Let the babes pray and sing and read their Bibles, continuing steadfastly in their intellectual retardation; the church's extinction will not come by sword or pillory, but the quiet death of irrelevance. But let the church step off the reservation, let her penetrate once more the culture of the day and the . . . face of secularism will change from a benign smile to a savage snarl.