Your grasp of Canadian politics never fails to amaze me. You put 99% of Canadians to shame.

While BD and I share the same background and would be considered ‘liberal’ Christians now I can’t see me getting involved in such a group personally. I don’t condemn the idea though. If the prayer group could be ‘non-partisan’ religiously (is there such a thing?) and the prayers were generic then it might work.

Putting a pentecostal thinker with a catholic individual is not that far-fetched here. Coming from a slightly toxic evangelical background I was very surprised when I did my first Catholic funeral as an apprentice. It was far more spiritual than many mainstream Protestant funerals and I found myself spiritually enriched by the depth and sincerity of the music and faith. The focus was on the family (pardon the pun) and mourners and our God.

Sadly I could not say the same about the ‘extreme’ evangelical churches. They used the funeral for a platform to try to convert the mourners. It was, to me, vulgar and insulting and to those of us who worked such funerals, a mockery. It often went on and on ad nauseum.

Perhaps such a prayer group would work in certain pockets of this country. I’d be the last one to judge. It just isn’t for me.

Likewise, there’s a much bigger tent on the Conservative side of the aisle as well; there’s more acceptance of cultural moderates in the Conservative camp than the rough treatment US conservatives give moderate “RINO” (Republican in name only) Republicans.

So, I would think that there is a camp for praying Liberals; since the “culture war” is much more muted in Canada, cultural liberals will have a bit less animus towards folks of faith.

Even the NDP has a non-trivial block of churchgoers; Tommy Douglas was a Baptist pastor, lest we forget.

Such societies are closed in on themselves. This goes counter to the
concept of going into the world . . .

Societies that are closed in on themselves include Essenes, Millerites and Shakers and the FLDS of Texas and elsewhere.

Closed groups do not experience the exposure to the “otherness” of
society at large and this narrows the field of view–like blinders on a horse.

On a personal note, at my high school were students brought in from another area of the city so that they could be exposed during their formative years to the diversity of the population at large.

Then again, remember Christ’s statement to the disciples about going into the world . . . .

Another component to this is that one should look at the documents that founded our respective nations. There was a
different temper of the times at the founding of the two nations and that’s best exemplified by the BNA Act and the Declaration of Independence.

There is an underlying national psyche and such closed societies may be fine for the US–but not for us.