Some weeks ago, Peter Bell interviewed me for a second time, primarily on the subject of my second book, We Answer to Another: Authority, Office, and the Image of God, along with several related phenomena, including Catholic and Reformed Christian social teachings, Christian nationalism, and the perennial temptation to use unjust means for desired ends. You can see the entire interview below. This is part of the second season of Bell's series, Sons of Patriarchy.
In my youth I cut my political teeth on the Watergate scandal, which nearly paralyzed the country of my birth for the two years between 1972 and 74. Although my family generally voted Republican when I was growing up, I began to have doubts about Richard Nixon’s presidency after the break-in at the Democratic Party headquarters. As Nixon was implicated in the cover-up, many Americans were increasingly persuaded that he had abused his office, putting his own political fortunes ahead of the Constitution. Three years after his resignation, Nixon admitted in an interview with David Frost that “when the president does [something], that means that it is not illegal.”
Might democracy threaten ordinary politics? The American founders were not democrats in the contemporary sense of that term but were building a republican constitution with limited democratic elements, embodied especially in Congress’ lower chamber, the House of Representatives. Nearly a century later, Canada’s Fathers of Confederation established a constitution “similar in principle to that of the United Kingdom” (Constitution Act, 1867). Here too the new dominion was to be a careful balance of monarchical, aristocratic, and democratic elements, although the term republic was not used for obvious reasons.
Beginning in the 20th century, however, both systems came to be described as democracies without qualification. In Canada, the powers of the nondemocratic institutions, especially the governor general (representing the monarch) and the Senate (appointed by the governor general on the prime minister’s advice), effectively atrophied, with the prime minister gaining more power—all in the name of democracy.
Thirty years ago, Catholics made up 82.9% of Brazil’s population but now account for just over half, 56.7%, according to the 2022 census – whose results on religion were only released on Friday.
Meanwhile, the number of evangelicals has continued to grow, rising from 9% of the population to 26.9% over the past three decades.
Although the growth rate has slowed slightly – rising by 6.5 percentage points between 2000 and 2010, and 5.3 since – the new data shows that, for the first time, at least one in four Brazilians identifies as evangelical . . . .
Christian Courier has just posted my monthly column, titled, Beyond Lament. An excerpt:
After John Diefenbaker’s Conservative government was defeated by Lester Pearson’s Liberals in 1963, [George Parkin] Grant was convinced that Canada’s days as a distinct nation were numbered. Diefenbaker’s reluctance to accept American nuclear weapons on Canadian soil had irked the “ruling class,” whose members determined that he had to go. But Grant believed that Diefenbaker’s only offence was his conviction that Canadian defence policies should be made in Ottawa and not Washington.
I couldn’t help recalling Grant’s Lament as we have been subjected to Donald Trump’s repeated trolling comments about Canada becoming the 51st state of the United States. Grant would express anger at this, of course, but it’s far from clear that he would have rallied the (literal and metaphorical) troops in opposition. His professed purpose in his book was not to make “practical proposals for our survival as a nation,” but simply to lament – to grieve the loss of those traditions that had once made Canada distinctive.
For more than two decades I had my students reading Grant's Lament and writing a paper on it. But at some point I put it aside because of the author's tendency to underestimate the importance of political factors in human motivations. I explain this more fully in something I wrote for Comment just over two decades ago: George Grant and the Primacy of Economics.
Citizenship is not at odds with being a Christian. For Koyzis, the reverse is the case: To be a good Christian, one must also be a good citizen. He references the parable of the Good Samaritan and other examples from scripture on taking care of your neighbor and, by extension, your community. This message is important and bears repeating in the months to come, so Koyzis’ encouragement is welcome.
While the book thoroughly covers the idea and issues of citizenship, it is not exhaustive. Koyzis stops short of going into the weeds of political culture and the nation-state superstructure. He focuses on defining conservative and progressive movements, not just in the United States but in Canadian politics as well.
U.S. Catholic is a publication of the Claretian Missionaries USA-Canada Province, "a global Roman Catholic congregation of priests and brothers who tend to the religious and pastoral needs of vulnerable communities."
This week her son King Charles III was in Ottawa to read the Throne Speech opening the 45th Parliament in the Senate's temporary facilities in the Senate of Canada Building at 2 Rideau Street. Suffice it to say that, although the monarch is entitled to read the Throne Speech and perform any number of monarchical duties relevant to Canada, most of these functions are handled by his Governor General, currently Her Excellency Mary Simon.
Canadians went to the polls on monday, 28 April in the 45th federal election since Confederation in 1867. The final results were not unexpected, but they nevertheless represented a stunning turnaround from where we thought a few months ago we would be today. Under former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the Liberal Party had become hugely unpopular, with pundits predicting an easy victory by Pierre Poilievre's Conservatives in the election expected sometime this year. Throughout most of the life of the 44th Parliament, the Liberals ruled as a minority government, a supply and confidence agreement with Jagmeet Singh's New Democrats keeping them in power.
Late last year, it became clear that the New Democrats had wearied of this arrangement and threatened to pull the plug on the government. For readers unfamiliar with Canadian politics, parties with only a plurality of the seats in the House of Commons rarely form coalition governments with other parties. The closest we have come to this at the federal level was the Union Government of Sir Robert Borden formed during the Great War between the ruling Conservatives and dissident Liberals outside Québec. It is exceedingly rare for a party to receive a majority of votes cast, and in recent years it has become difficult for a single party to obtain a majority of Commons seats as well. In many other democracies, a party lacking majority support would negotiate with other parties to form a multiparty coalition government. But not in Canada.
I have now lived through eight papacies. Given that successive conclaves of cardinals generally choose older men to fill the office, the length of a particular papacy is typically fairly short. Pope John XXIII reigned for only five years, yet his legacy has endured in the form of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). The recently departed Pope Francis was on the papal throne for a dozen years. John Paul II reigned for an unusually long 27 years, during which he managed to contribute to the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and its bloc of client states, including his native Poland. In the 19th century, Pius IX broke the record for length of tenure, reigning for 31 years, during which he convened the First Vatican Council (1869-1870), setting the agenda for the Roman Catholic Church into the mid 20th century.
My recent conversation with Carmen LaBerge aired today, on Maundy Thursday. The subject is my recent Cateclesia essay, By Schisms Rent Asunder: The Four Seasons of Church Splits. My previous interview with her can be found here. The programme is called The Reconnect on Faith Radio. I've set the video to begin at approximately ten minutes into the broadcast when our conversation begins.
For years I’ve found myself in this place. I recognize that we need good governance from the officials we elect. But I cannot fully endorse what either of our parties propound nor give unquestioning allegiance to person or party. What is difficult is that I have friends on both sides of the partisan divide who seem to give unflinching allegiance to their party and the people they have elected or want to elect. Often, I find conversations with such individuals futile. There is no questioning allowed and only one side is right on everything. It is particularly disconcerting when my friends resort to lies and character assassination to buttress their political allegiance. I grope for a different kind of political engagement or want to just withdraw.
Citizenship Without Illusions is written for people like me.
Although I'm tempted to make a punny reference to the generation born in the 1980s and 90s, my recent Christian Courier column actually has to do with the finer points of Christian eschatology: Why I'm Not Postmillennial. An excerpt:
Only in recent years have I made the acquaintance of postmillennialists, who expect a gradual advance of the kingdom of God in the present age to be followed by a long period of widespread obedience to his will before Christ returns. As attractive as this prospect appears, I do not find the position persuasive.
Incidentally, I have also written on the topic here—more than can be fitted easily into a 500-word column: Revelation 20 and the thousand years. As for one of the best books on biblical eschatology, you would do very well indeed to read James Skillen, God's Sabbath with Creation, which I reviewed here.
Having grown up with the King James Bible, I was briefly enamoured of the paraphrases of the Bible, including J. B. Phillips’ New Testament in Modern English, from which my mother read to us. Ken Taylor’s complete Living Bible was published when I was 15. (My parents knew him slightly, as we lived in the same town.) I received a copy for Christmas. Over the next months I eagerly devoured it from cover to cover. As easy as it was to read, I was put off to read that “your words are a flashlight to light the path ahead of me” (Psalm 119:105) and repeated references to Asia Minor as “Turkey.” Such obvious anachronisms ruined the paraphrases for me.
