Jenny Jackson has an excellent piece in the Ottawa Citizen this weekend about a seminar held in Ottawa by the Manning Centre for Building Democracy called Navigating the Faith/Politics Interface.

About 90 people attended. It is run by Preston Manning,  of the former Reform Party. The seminars are designed to help people of faith learn to listen, to drop the rhetoric and to take their time in politics. While Manning gears the seminars to protestant and catholic politicians - people of other faith groups are invited to monitor and participate.

Lessons from the political wilderness

Drop the God talk, tone down the righteous indignation, take your time. Issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage will not be resolved in a single vote.

“There is a hostility toward Protestant evangelicals or conservative Catholics trying to say anything into the political arena. Opponents would be reluctant to attack someone of Jewish faith or a Hindu, but they don’t seem to have same reservation about going after others. I talked to one Muslim woman at the conference who told me, ‘We’re just afraid to say anything. Our image isn’t very good right now, anyway. We don’t know how to express ourselves.’”

“Relate Christianity to your political culture: Be faithful to democratic principles with a Christian commitment; avoid political behaviour which discredits your faith.”

With US groups like Focus on the Family moving into Ottawa with the National House of Prayer and the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada, less mouthy evangelicals doesn’t calm the nervousness much, it translates into the perception of Stealth Evangelism.

(Liberal MP John McKay) says Canadians are spooked by the “merger” of the U.S. religious right and George W. Bush’s Republican party, he said, as faith groups “have allowed themselves to become the handmaiden of the Republicans.”

Roger Robins, professor of history and political science at Marymount College in California, agrees. “It’s the transition of a faith group into a public interest group that makes people nervous.”

One thing Canadians of faith need to understand is that the political system is more geared toward consensus and as such both the voter and the politician are well served to understand that.

But as we are so fond of telling ourselves, Canadians are not Americans. For many reasons, we need not fear that our Conservative party will following the Republican party.

“The American system is different than ours,” says Mr. Manning. “They feel they get sharper, clearer decisions if you push people to one end or the other and they have a huge argument. I think it’s a mistake to confuse Canadian and U.S. evangelicals.”

I’d hesitate to say an anti-intellectualism exists in US evangelicalism as much as fear, isolation and a genuine belief in a culture war. That does not leave much room for respect, consensus, listening or mutual benefit. War is about winning just as much in a political and social arena as anywhere else. I don’t think we can get complacent about the polarizing effect of ‘culture war’ thinking.

The Christian right in the U.S. embrace a constellation of differences, but among many, there is a strong streak of anti-intellectualism that appears from a distance like an unwillingness to listen to reason or anything that falls out of their narrow set of beliefs. Hence the push for creationism and intelligent design to be taught alongside evolution in elementary schools — issues which are non-starters in Canada.

Mr. Manning’s Charm School for Unruly Christians — or What Not to Say

“Don’t be sanctimonious,” he told the group. “You have to advocate righteousness without appearing self-righteous.”

Don’t just chide the other side for society’s failings, take your share of the blame too, he went on.

Stay away from talk of prayer and the Bible, which is likely to scare off political allies and give opponents something to laugh at or hold up in horror, faux or otherwise.

When Jesus delivered his dictums on the Sermon on the Mount, He didn’t just tell people what to do, he identified with their suffering, so they understood why the rules would do them good.

Similarly, in modern politics, it makes sense to start by asking: who is hurt by the status quo?

In the same sex-marriage debate, Mr. Manning continued, religious conservatives should have steered clear of casting homosexuality as distasteful or sinful. The counter-argument came back like a bad bounce in billiards: Gay people need the law to protect them from bigots like you.

The slippery slope

Of course, everyone wants to give everyone else equal time in Parliament. But the problem with considering equality as the first and only virtue is that it makes all behaviours equal, therefore neither good nor bad. The government is never in a position to name something inherently better and exhort the public towards it. Legislators can only cordon off reprehensible behaviour in the laws.

That just will not be good enough as religious fervour grows globally for good or ill. “Faith conflict, in my view, will drive the ideologies of the 21st century, unlike the 20th century, which was the ‘isms’ of communism, fascism, and socialism,”says Mr. McKay.

Lots to think about in this article, as an evangelical I have a sense of relief that there is maturity in our evangelical politicians emerging and counterbalances to FoF and fundamentalist lobby groups.
The lessons are very basic really - the numbers of people of faith in the federal government haven’t changed much; they have always been there and not identified with just one party. Be aware, be respectful, listen, be wise, be gentle, don’t damage others in His name. Jackson ends the piece with irony:

Mr. Manning didn’t mention this, but Jesus goes on to tell the apostles to “Be on your guard against men; they will hand you over to the local councils and flog you ….”

Ain’t it the truth — on both sides of the spectrum of faith.