I’ve spent a few years blogging about bad behavior in religious circles. A couple of those years have been spent starting to trace the movement and players in the religious right in Canada.
Next week a book is hitting Canadian shelves which is long overdue. While scraps of information are found in academic journals, church and ministry newsleters and bloggers across the country pick up on some of the colourful Canadians which make up our religious right; to date other than an 2007 Walrus article by respected and award winning journalist Marci McDonald, the copious information we see pumped out in the US have not been available to Canadians interested in the intersection of politics and fundamentalism.
Blogs have been the go to place for information, media has been busy with it’s melt down, cut backs and corporate driven stories. Canada’s religious right has often been a dismissive smirk on an overworked editors face. Bloggers and their readers have faithfully plugged away, often in their own echo chambers.
Until now.
On Tuesday, the day about 900 people will gather in Ottawa to see and be seen at the National Prayer Breakfast, Random House will be holding a book launch in Toronto. A book many people who follow politics, media and religion have been waiting for. Whoo hooo! For those of posting here and there, The Armageddon Factor The Rise of Christian Nationalism in Canada is going to be our encyclopedia. I am genuinely hoping this book will take people, their politics and their agendas out of blog posts and into more of the public consciousness.
Dots will be connected.
I’m looking forward to reading Ms. McDonald’s book. There are people all over Canada I’m already happy for. They’ve spoken up, they’ve faithfully chronicled, they’ve warned and analysed. It takes a certain innate talent to read the signs of the times, to sense a bigger story and in 2007 I understood Marci McDonald had touched on a issue that was not going away.
Now in May 2010, her innate sense and her formitable skills have come together in a book which is going to be a reference for thousands of us watching the political landscape being shaped.
Here is a taste of The Armageddon Factor The Rise of Christian Nationalism in Canada
The Toronto Star: How Canada’s Christian right was built
From the moment I began this book, I was confronted by skeptics who insist that a truly influential religious right could never take root in Canada. For some, that denial seemed like an exercise in wishful thinking, a refusal to face the possibility that the idea of the country they cherish — liberal, tolerant, and not given to extremes of action or belief — might not be in sync with the changing reality. Others argued that if a Christian right did exist here it would have burst fully formed on to the political scene, a carbon copy of that in the U.S. — raucous and confrontational, openly pulling the strings of the Conservative party and captained by outspoken television preachers with millions of viewers ready to respond to their bidding. But the American movement has had more than three decades to take shape and flourish; by the time scholars and the mainstream media noticed, it had already infiltrated nearly every level of government from school boards to the Senate, often by stealth.
People so familiar to BDBO guest poster Rick Hiebert are mentioned in The Star teaser:^)
In this country, where the CRTC has kept the reins on religious broadcasting and Catholics make up a larger proportion of the faith community, the emergent Christian right may look and sound different than its American counterpart, but in the five years since the prospect of same-sex marriage propelled evangelicals into political action, it has spawned a coalition of advocacy groups, think tanks and youth lobbies that have changed the national debate. The “sleeping giant†that Capital Xtra! magazine had warned against in 2005 is now up and about, organizing with a vengeance that will not be easily reversed. As Faytene Kryskow, leader of Christian youth lobby called 4MYCanada, told a parliamentary reception, “We are here, and we are here to stay.â€
Pingback: How Canada's Christian right was built – Marci McDonald at Bene … - Christian IBD
So how much credibility can be given to Maclean’s now: http://www.macleans.ca/columnists/article.jsp?id=7&content=20061002_133701_133701
Someone should ask them what crow tastes like…
It looks like Macleans has become a magazine you can feel comfortable in wiping your butt with… You definitely won’t miss much, unless of course you try using the glossy pages, but then again, that may be too much information and of course, too graphic for some readers…
Thanks for posting about this. Her Walrus articles are excellent. I think I am first in line on the library wait list for when it arrives. After reading the family, I was thinking that it was important to read such a study about the Canadian aspect of this.
Well over due I say.
It is time for people to see the connections between the
“squeaky clean” types like David Mainse and the more radical right wingers, Mainse has been getting an easy ride for too long because of his ability to put on a facade of reasonableness.
I hope light gets shed on the more notorious elements of the “chirstian” right like the late Ken Campbell, one of the most hateful “christians” ever who had links with even worse elements of the radical right in this country.
The article you linked to Tim is from 2006.
There is a more recent statement from Paul Wells.
2009.
Here you go.
http://www2.macleans.ca/2009/07/09/second-thoughts/
Thanks for that article Marci !!
Look at Israels ultra religious right and see what it is doing to that country
Read what religion has done in countries like Pakistan , Afghanistan
Check out what Muslims are doing to Europe.
Check out how many people have died in religious wars over the ages
Yes that’s right about 75 000.000 and counting .
Open your daily newspaper and find out how many little kids got sodomized last week —>yes again
Wake up, there is no god ,heaven , hell , 69 virgins if you blow up somebodies aunt ,and while you spend all that time looking and waiting for your god , you could have bought your wife some flowers,help an old guy across the street, volunteer a couple of hours at the hospital for sick children etc etc
You don’t need religion to make this world a better place
Pingback: From The Armageddon Factor The Rise of Christian Nationalism in Canada | Religious Right Alert
Hey Timmy!. Zat you?
http://noapologies.ca/?p=2378
Check out the Authours tab and you tumble to the lower depths of the Chacedon Institute and our own christocrats at the ECP Centre (not that there’s anything wrong with that.)
Good for Marci McDonald
And when she met Faytene Kryskow buying some of her CDs for Faytene to take them back and give back her money saying, “I don’t want you to have them” will only fuel Marci for more research.
Faytene is trying to stop people from investigating her. But how she goes about putting this to a stop is backfiring on her.
Faytene didn’t like my good eye just like she didn’t like Marci McDonald.
In both Marci McDonald and myself this adverse reaction from Faytene towards us has only fueled us to investigate her more.
Also, most thaks should be given to Dennis Gruending who started Bene Diction Blogs On. A younger friend told him about The Cry in Ottawa lead him to do a continuous investigation of Faytene Kryskow.
Also, thanks to Rick Heibert who’s also done a lot of really good investigations that I’ve enjoyed reading.
Faytene Kryskow thinks she can treat people like children.
If the shoe was put on the other foot and Faytene Kryskow was treated like a child, how would she react?
Tim here is an email I tried to send to Macleans about them banning me from commenting a while ago because I said something negative about evangelicals but who knows if it got through – I had to guess at email addresses.
It is clear Paul Wells is indeed one of those who carry water for these organizations but seeks not to reveal that.
“Subject: re:McDonald book on Cdn Christian Right
You know Paul,
I think you’ve improved quite a bit since you started at Macleans, however your credibility on this issue is rather suspect given you banned me and my little computer from commenting on anything in Macleans because I had the temerity to make some global comment about evangelicals – the exact same thing we see everyday at Maclean’s and other media outlets where blanket condemnations of Liberals or NDP parties or whatever occurs frequently.
The only difference is that I went after a religious affiliation versus a political affiliation.
Unban me sir, otherwise you are very tainted and biased against any criticism of religious belief – indeed your jihad against me continues to kill me, as it were.
Is this the face of Christianity you represent? Banning and censoring critics?
I note also that often fundamentalists save their most vituperative attacks for female critics though I do not see you as a fundamentalist, I am disturbed at the many attacks on this women and the absolute paucity of evidence against her thesis – tiny little picayune elements may be misinterpreted but the central thesis is clear for all to see – the abortion change in our foreign policy, the punishment is the only way attitude and the fact that Toews and others have stated explicitly “we don’t need evidence” we have (w/30% of the previous vote) “the will of Canadians”.
Those of us of sound mind and body can see the ratcheting towards a fundamentalist dogma being forced upon everyone through pain of the law.
Unban me or all those words you wrote are simply bafflegab to cover your own intolerance to criticism of religious bigotry.
Sincerely,
Michael”
Reply 8 Michael
This kind of attitude can go both ways
Re Paul & MacLeans Magazine
I’ve heard a good amount of criticism at Evangelical Christians
So, anything you’d have to say might be nothing new.
About attitudes going both ways:
When the United Church of Canada formed in 1925 was a start of muting differences.
What I mean, when the Basis of Union was formed are 20 Articles of Religion muted the differences between the Theology of John Calvin (Presbyterian & Congregational) & John Wesley (Methodist & United Evangelical Brethren)
Instead they built on the beliefs of Scheirmacher was a Romantic Liberal from the Moravian Brethren in a part of Germany that is now a part of Poland.
He was the 2nd most popular person to read about in Europe next to Martin Luther.
In Vancouver, British Columbia, I’ve run into some individuals from the United Church of Canada who are rather anti-Evangelical.
An older member of my Church said, “They’ve always been that way!”
The United Church is considered as being liberal.
It seems like they maintain their Liberal Stance.
If this situation is true with Paul & MacLeans Magazine, it may be that some are trying to maintain a more Conservative Stance
yeah but banning me? c’mon, total censorship there.
Hi Michael:
You haven’t been banned, nor to my knowledge have any of your comments been deleted.
Would you clarify please?