Category Archives: Politics

The Anglican Church of Canada and politics

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This is on the website of the Niagara diocese:

The current Canadian Government has called an election for October 14th 2008. The Church does not take any positions on the various parties and candidates that are running. Obviously each ballot that is cast, must be done so according to the conscience of the individual.
However, as a Christian community and as an Anglican Church we can at least pose questions that should be addressed during the upcoming weeks.
The first thing that we would like to do is encourage every citizen in this country to exercise their responsibility to vote. We all must contribute to the future of Canada by exercising our vote.
Secondly, we will place some resources as they come available in the column on the right. These are for discussion and they are guides.

There is only one entry on the ‘Resources’ sidebar: Eight Ways to Make Poverty an Election Issue
Which, when you click on it, takes you to the website of Make Poverty History.
Now, gently reader, take a wildly haphazard guess as to which political party endorses Make Poverty History?

Why, the NDP, of course!

“The NDP will continue to work with progressive parliamentarians from all political parties and civil society efforts such as the Make Poverty History campaign dedicated to ending poverty around the world and here in Canada, to make 0.7 by 2015 a reality,” said McDonough.

I bet that comes as a shock to everyone. And, of course, it makes nonsense of the statement above “The Church does not take any positions on the various parties and candidates that are running”

Which brings me to the point of all this: the Anglican Church of Canada has ceased to be a Christian organisation; instead it is a political one, albeit a particularly ineffective specimen.

c/p Essentials blog

The Palins: what it really means to be pro-life

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Damian Thompson at the Telegraph gets it right.

At 5 am this morning I woke up from a nightmare, reached blearily for the laptop, clicked on a video link and heard what, for me, were the most important words of the US election campaign so far: “And we were so blessed in April – my husband and I welcomed our littlest one into the family, a perfectly beautiful boy named Trig.” (My italics.)

The outspoken Sarah Palin may, for all I know, mess up the Republican campaign and/or make a bad Vice-President of the United States (though I doubt it). But please, don’t anyone tell me that those words were political rhetoric. And don’t dare suggest that when Todd raised Trig’s arm in a tiny wave it was a stunt.

The adjective “blessed” and the adverb “perfectly” really mean something in this context: they show that love can overpower the natural human reaction to the birth of a baby with a serious mental handicap.

Todd and Sarah Palin aren’t in favour of “choice” – but, when they were told in advance about Trig’s condition, they made the right one. As a result, Sarah may well receive extra support from Christians. Good. Isn’t that how public figures are supposed to attract votes in a democracy – by acting according to their principles?

I like George W Bush. So There.

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This is why:

He is an evangelical Christian.

He is anti-abortion. Although single issue politics might be a Bad Thing, this holocaust of innocents needs to take centre stage.

He acts on his convictions even when they are unpopular.

He thinks freedom is better than autocracy.

He fought the war in Iraq for the right reasons; see the previous point.

His English is better than the average left-wing North American television news reader.

Michael Moore hates him.

From the National Post:

The Strongest Tribe by Bing West is a masterpiece of battlefield reporting. West was on the front lines when American troops beat insurgents back block-by-block in Ramadi, Fallujah and Baghdad. He describes the failures of planning and strategy that pushed Iraq to the brink of anarchy in 2004 and again in 2006 – and the strategic changes that brought the nation back to some semblance of normalcy in 2007 and 2008.

Critics of Bush often use hysterical moral language to attack the man: evil, Nazi, warmonger, monster, tyrant. History, I believe, will judge him in more nuanced terms. Bush is, in a phrase, a reckless optimist. His unwavering faith in the goodness within human beings and the redemptive power of freedom led him into a bloody and unwise adventure, one that resulted in the slaughter of untold thousands of innocent Iraqis. Yet that same sense of moral courage also led him to stand by the unfinished project when the lives of millions more hung in the balance. But not for Bush’s bold January, 2007 decision, there is no telling what sort of hell would by now have engulfed Iraq.

When we consign this man to the history books, let’s be sure that both sides of the story get told.