Ep. 79: Should Christians Be INVOLVED With Politics? w/ Bruce Clemenger

Andrew Marcus:

Hey, INDOUBT Audio World, Andrew here. We’ve got a great program. We have Bruce Clemenger, who is the Senior Ambassador and President Emeritus of the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, and we have a great conversation today. We’re talking all things Canada, all things politics and faith. How do Christians take a stand? What does it look like? How far is too far? We’re going to do a deep dive on what’s happening in our country, and how we can respond graciously and truthfully. We hope you enjoy the program. God bless.

Amazing. Well, you’ve been on the program a few times with INDOUBT, but for those who are newly watching this program, tell us a little bit about who you are and what you’re up to these days.

Bruce Clemenger:

Sure. Well, good to be with you. I’m with the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, which is a national association of denominations, Christian organizations and individual churches. We do a range of things. We do a lot of research on church and faith trends. We do a lot of work amongst our affiliates on issues like racism, indigenous reconciliation and so on. We have a magazine and a lot of podcasts of our own. And then, we also have an office in Ottawa called the Centre for Faith and Public Life, and there we engage on Parliament Hill with MPs and senators, and also, we work before the courts.

I was president for about 20 years, and now I’m President Emeritus, we call it Senior Ambassador. I get to do a lot of interesting things. I still oversee our court cases. I still work with the CFPL staff, Centre for Faith and Public Life staff, on some of the policy issues. I do a lot of work, actually, ecumenical and interfaith as well. I’m a senior ambassador. I do a lot of external representation on behalf of EFC, two other entities, and also the legal and policy work.

Andrew Marcus:

Praise God, man. I absolutely love what you’re doing, that you are being salt and light. I’m so grateful for your passion and your heart behind what you’re doing for our country. God bless you. Let’s go through some questions. The first one I have is we see this rise, this increase of secularism in our country. How do we navigate this as Christians in today’s world?

Bruce Clemenger:

Yeah. Secularism is a much fought over word. The root is what it means to be secular. And originally, the idea of being secular was being non-church. In the Middle Ages when a university that was run by the church became independent of the church, it was deemed to be secular. Priests who worked with the people and not within the church itself were secular. Think of today, often churches start up a grade school on their facility and the church board runs as the board of the school. And over time, quite often, the school becomes independent. It’s still in church property, it’s still a Christian school, but it’s no longer controlled by the church. That’s what secular originally meant. And now, it comes to mean non-religious. When something’s secular, it means it’s not supposed to be influenced or shaped or particularly, I should say, tied to religion.

Quite often now we talk about having a secular state. That means that the state is not being controlled or directed by any one religious denomination, by any one religious sect, but it’s supposed to stay neutral. It’s laws and public policy are not rooted in any biblical text or any religious text or religious idea. They’re supposed to be based on the reasons that would be acceptable to everyone’s society, whatever faith they belong to. Secular can mean different things. It can mean abstinence. It means the state has no dealings with religion whatsoever. It can mean that it treats all religions fairly so it’s non-sectarian. Or it can mean that it actually becomes a little more aggressive, starts imposing a certain range of what they consider secular values or universal values in the public square. Whatever you breathe privately, you need to follow those values publicly.

Just an example, so in Ontario, the French government does not fund religious independent schools. That’s the abstinence side. Whereas in BC, as you know, religious schools get at least partial government funding. They go for more the fair side. Canada’s summer jobs issue, so a number of years ago, a number of our religious organizations were denied Canada’s summer jobs because they failed to agree with a series of values that the government wanted them to attest to. In that sense, then the other meaning where the government’s imposing a set of values that you must subscribe to in order to get government benefit. Yeah, it changed the meaning. But basically, my concern is that rather than this non-sectarian approach to governments where they try to treat as best they can all religions seriously, there’s no constitutional barrier in Canada to governments engaging with religious organizations.

Salvation Army, I think it’s the largest social service provider in Canada, and a lot of its money comes from government, municipal, provincial, federal, even though it’s still a religious denomination. There’s no barrier to that engagement. The concern is that when the government shifts from being non-sectarian to either try to preclude any engagement with religion whatsoever on matters that are for the public good or when it starts imposing a certain range of values that you’re required to subscribe to in the public square, and that’s where the tension comes.

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah, that’s wild. We look through church history and we see what is the relationship with Christianity and our country, because I feel like it’s evolved a lot. You look back in the day throughout history, you see people were repeating the Lord’s prayer in schools and there was Bibles in schools, it’s significantly different. How has it evolved over time?

Bruce Clemenger:

Well, since Confederation, the churches have never had political authority in Canada. Like in the UK, you have in the House of Lords, their equivalent of our Senate, you actually have bishops who are appointed to the House of Lords. We have nothing like that. We’ve never had an established church, and clergy have never had any political authority. Now they had a lot of influence. And so even as EFC, we make submissions to the court or to the parliamentary committees as do other faith groups. I mean that’s always been our stance of one of persuasion. However, Canada was predominated by Christianity. I think it was 1946, 67% of Canadians attended church or religious services on a weekly basis and the vast majority would be Christian. And even 1967, the Confederation, the public ceremony in Parliament Hill included the singing of hymn and scripture reading and people reciting the refrain, rededicate yourselves, O Lord, to you.

The premise was that God had bolstered us with a country-rich in resources, and we are but stewards of what God has given us, and we rededicate ourselves to build a society of justice and mercy, compassion and abundance. I mean there was that Christian ethos, but again, in the sixties, you had in Quebec is called the Quiet Revolution, where basically the influence of the Catholic Church, particularly in healthcare and education, quickly eroded. And so they followed France in this strong secular understanding of life and the rest of Canada, probably the sixties through the eighties. And so that’s where the Lord’s prayer being recited into public schools. Well, we ended up with a new Canadian flag without a Christian symbol. Before Canadian flag always had a cross somewhere in it and the new Canadian flag did not. Even though Diefenbaker in 1960, the prime minister would call Canada Christian Nation, there was a commission on biculturalism and bilingualism through the sixties.

And they redefined Canada rather than this religious, the underpinnings of Catholic and Protestant. And they reframed it as bilingualism, biculturalism. And so they shifted the understanding of Canada from its religious heritage through to a different types of heritage. Over time, and again, is it appropriate to have prayers, Christian prayers in a public school? There’s a recent court case out of Quebec a few years ago where a city council was having decidedly Christian prayer to open their city council meetings and the prayer was actually written in the bylaws. And so an atheist who would attend those meetings felt he had to step out for the prayer and step back in. He complained. The Supreme Court said in that situation, absence is the best approach. They thought that was neutral. I don’t think it’s neutral, but they said, no prayer is the best option. Therefore, you have this, and also Supreme Court said that we had a thing called the Lord’s Day Act, which meant you weren’t opening large stores on Sunday, the Lord’s day.

And so the Supreme Court weighed in and said, someone challenged this. And they said, well, you can have a common pause day and name a day of the week, including Sunday as a common pause day, but you can’t root it in any one religious belief or understanding. You can’t call it the Lord’s Day Act, have to call it something else. Again, they said the laws have to be found on secular reasons, not on specifically religious reasons. And so over time, you just had this growing secularization of the public square. And again, the question is when you have that secularization, does it mean, so when you have city council prayer, is it okay to have a rotational? You’ll have different faith leaders from the community open each meeting in a prayer, or do you have to go to abstinence where you have no prayer whatsoever? And that’s the debate we’re in right now.

Andrew Marcus:

Bruce, when you say secular reasons, prompting that, we’re talking about the secular terminology that you mentioned where it’s not so much an anti-faith approach, but it’s an underlying mutual agreement between parties.

Bruce Clemenger:

Yeah. Well let me explain that. It’s a good question. When we as EFC make submission to parliamentary committees, we always frame it in terms of some biblical principle. ‘Cause that’s what we’re there for, we’re to encourage the government to recognize and shape their laws according to biblical principles, not because it’s better for us as evangelicals, but because we think it’s better for everybody. Care the vulnerable, sanctity of human life. We’ll make the argument based on sanctity of human life and we would root that in our understanding of scripture. But there’s other groups, humanists all different faith groups who can understand the principle of sanctity of human life from their own tradition. And so we can still argue about sanctity of human life. It just said you can’t then quote scripture after it. We had a conversation one time and it involved Muslims, Jews, mainline, evangelical, Catholic, Latter-day Saints, Orthodox, and we talked about palliative care and we wanted to encourage the government to increase its support for palliative care.

And so we all went around the table explaining, well, why are you concerned about palliative care from your own specific religious tradition? We explained that, but then we came up with common language that we could all agree to and share, language about human dignity, the value of the inherent dignity of human person and the need to care for our brother and sister. And so we all had principles like that. And so we came up with language that we all subscribe to and we had a press conference and try to encourage the government to increase palliative care. In terms of secular, it’s reasons that the broader population can accept. And since that’s part of our role when we engage with our MPs or senators, so you’re talking to your MP and you’re trying to convince them of taking a certain position.

You need to provide them not only with the reasons why you’re concerned or anxious about what they’re going to do or you want to retain a law, but you need to provide reasons that they can then use before their constituency because not all their constituents are going to be people of faith. They’re going to have atheist, agnostics, you’re going to have nuns, you’re going to have all sorts of people. And so they’re going to have to justify why they’re advancing this in the public good. And so that’s part of our task is to take those principles and apply them to the issue of the day and then engage in debate. The same thing in the courts. We don’t usually quote scripture in our briefs to the courts, but we frame our arguments around principles that we think need to be recognized and adhered to in determinations on matters of law.

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah, it’s a really interesting point. I feel like sometimes we want to just throw scriptures at people. What would you say is the main pressing issue with religious freedom right now in our country, in Canada?

Bruce Clemenger:

Yeah. It is when the government starts imposing, it’s those three options of secular, abstinence, which I don’t agree with that eliminates religious expression from the public square. There’s the non-sectarian, which I favor, where you’re fair to all different religious expressions as long as what they’re advocating, it’s consistent with the public good of the general welfare of everyone. But then there’s this more ideological secularism where they’re trying to promote a certain range of values which are not necessarily shared by all. In the political theory, there’s an idea that our constitution or basic principles, the procedures or processes of how we live our lives together under a constitution, that constitution would’ve originally been framed and taken into account the various views, world views, ideologies that were a play within society so everyone could agree with, yeah, here’s a common document of principles that we’ll adhere to guide our lives together.

The danger comes when the government start imposing additional values, which in a sense take sides. Rather than being non-sectarian, they become a little sectarian and they’re taking sides in debates or they’re advancing values that people from different ideologies or worldviews or belief systems can’t adhere to. The premise, Bob Dylan wrote a song, you got to serve somebody, it may be the devil, it may be the Lord, you got to serve somebody. And biblically, that’s true. Romans one talks about it well. You exchange a truth for God and we should serve the creature rather than a creator who’s blessed forever on men. The idea is that we’re all believers in something, and when we engage with our neighbors and if we engage with MPs and senators or we game with judges, we have to realize that everyone’s shaped by some series of basic commitments about life.

And I think in our engagement with our neighbors, religious freedom not only means a zone of freedom where we can exercise our faith, but I think really religious freedom means to enjoy religious freedom, you have to understand what you believe and have the ability to deepen that belief or change that belief. And I think a lot of our neighbors in our society do not actually know what they believe. Things pop up in moments of crisis, but generally day to day, they don’t really think much about that system of beliefs or why they necessarily do what they do in that more transcendent sense. I think part of our task is to help them think that through and engage with them. Say, well, what do you believe? How do you understand this? Probe their beliefs, and then it provides the opportunity for us to talk about our Christian worldview and what Christ means to us and how we engage.

I think it’s that public engagement, the public witness that’s important. And if governments start doing things that curtail that engagement or whether if the government does something that privileges one belief or the other, then I think it’s cross-wide. In Romans 13, Paul talks about governments for our good, to do good, to punish evil, right? It never says that it’s government’s role to impose religion. But in Revelation where the beast emerges, the state which is imposing a certain religion, again, it’s a beast. It’s no longer for our good. I think that’s part of our task is to push back a government, say, hey, God has given us religious freedom. He’s given us the dignity to choose. We can either worship God or not. We can serve God or not. Bible’s replete with examples of people who make different choices. It’s not the state’s job to tell us what to believe. And so that’s where the state has to step away and in a sense, be secular in terms of step away from those decisions. When the state starts imposing certain values, certain premises, then that’s where religious freedom gets curtailed. Some examples, so Bill 21 in Quebec where public civil servants are not allowed to wear religious symbols. It doesn’t impact evangelicals ’cause we dress like everyone else, but there are some faith groups that wear religious symbols. And so they’re now not allowed to wear religious symbols.

Andrew Marcus:

Could that be like a cross, like wearing a cross necklace?

Bruce Clemenger:

A cross, a turban, a kippah, hijab, whatever that symbol would be. And it doesn’t mean they’re no longer religious, it just means they can’t express their faith publicly. We’re going to court or seeking intervener in case again out of Quebec, and this is where a group called Harvest Ministries International based in BC was trying to have a convention in Quebec City last June, and they had booked the Congress Center. And two weeks before the event, they were going to have over a thousand people, they were planning. Just before the event, two weeks before the Minister of Tourism in Quebec decided to cancel the contract. And reason was that this group is pro-life, and the minister of Tourism didn’t think public space should be used by a group that has values that’s contrary to Quebec, right? And that’s like the Canadian servant jobs, the values attestation, or there’s a medical student in University of Manitoba who was pro-life, never brought his pro-life views into the classroom.

But on his Facebook page, he had missives about why he’s pro-life and discussion about abortion. Some of his classmates saw those and they thought it would create a bad environment for them to be in class with him, even though he doesn’t bring those views into class. And so he was censored and basically kicked out of medical school. Now he’s appealing that, but again, it’s because he had pro-life beliefs and someone with those beliefs shouldn’t be implications that they shouldn’t be in medical school. That’s where it’s on those situations that we need to defend religious freedom and make sure that people can bring their fully religious selves into the public square and not apologize for it, but also work together with public good. Earlier this spring in June, I’m part of a thing called the Canadian interfaith conversation. EFC is a member, so was a Jewish group, Muslim groups, mainline Christian groups, Mahai, Latter-Day Saints.

It’s quite a mixture of faith groups. And we released a statement, had a press conference in Parliament Hill standing together against hate. Again, all of us agree, even though we disagree in a whole range of things, we all agree that hate is wrong and we need to resist and work against hateful rhetoric. Let’s engage with tolerance and respect, but denounce hate. There’s a role for faith groups to play in civil society, in society in general, in advocating for the recognition of human dignity in terms of for us it’s the sanctity to human life. There needs to be space for us to do that. And I think it’s wrong for government to somehow skew the conversation or say, no, you’re not allowed to say that. You’re not allowed to advocate that. Or if you do, we’re going to silence you or suppress you or not allow you to access programs that everyone else can access.

Andrew Marcus:

All right. We talk about governments imposing, and this is obviously going to continue to happen as we go about life. What advice would you give to believers who are just in the midst of this? When do they stand up? How should they stand up?

Skylar:

Yeah, yeah. And I guess I would love to add a question in there. It’s just on a scale of justice that we want to see versus God’s justice, how much justice can we ask for as Christians apart from his?

Bruce Clemenger:

As believers, we’re citizens of the kingdom of heaven, right? Jesus announced, repent, the kingdom of God is near. And that was in two of the four gospels. And so our citizenship is foremost within the kingdom of heaven. And so you are my brothers, we have brothers and sisters, and in a sense we’re anticipating when Jesus will return, the kingdom of God will be here in its fullness. We’re in that in-between time, it’s been inaugurated, it’s begun, but it’s not fully present. And so in the meantime, we bear witness to what the kingdom of God will be like. And I think that’s where some people talk about raising signposts of the kingdom. And so you read through the Psalms regional law of the prophets anticipating what life will be like when God reigns, when God’s reign is full and complete and there is justice and there’s mercy and there’s plenty in terms of food and drink.

And so you have that, it’s a time of flourishing. And so I think that’s what we point to. And so as we advocate for justice, as we seek to care for vulnerable persons, as we seek to promote the importance of human life, I think what we’re doing is we’re saying these are the principles, these are the norms of the kingdom that we serve, and we want to advocate for those in this life. We want to advocate for those in our country as a witness to what we believe. I think that’s where again, we’re citizens, we can engage with our politicians. Revenue Canada actually has drawn the line says organizations can’t be partisan. And I actually agree. I think that’s a good rule. I don’t think it’s healthy for churches, it’s not legal, but it’s also not healthy. It’s not legal according to your charitable status.

But I think it’s not appropriate for churches engaged in partisan politics. I can’t think of a time in history when the church aligns itself with the state where it worked out well either for the church or the state. Churches need to be careful and just say, but they can advocate for principles, they can advocate for mercy, they can advocate for justice, they can advocate for the well-being of their neighbors. They can engage in food programs and work with food banks and they do ESL and they could do divorce care or loan parent family care. They do all sorts of things. And they can also encourage the government to do things that again, reflect those principles and those norms. And one of those is actually religious freedom because it is something that God has granted. Even Jesus in the garden, before he was arrested, he was wrestling, sweating tears of blood, but at the end he said, not my will, but your will be done.

And so we seek God’s will to be done. And again, scripture, Micah six eight, there’s all sorts of scriptures about seeking justice, loving mercy, caring for the vulnerable, doing good. And that’s what we’re about. And so I think to the degree that we can influence, talk to our MPs and influence government policy, do so, there are Christian MPs, you can join political parties as an individual. There’s all sorts of ways to get involved, but I think we need to keep an eye not only on our own sphere of life and what we’re doing and so on, but keep an eye on the political. That’s a dimension of life and it’s something that has bearing on and shapes the environment within which we function and make sure that we’re also advocating there. And that’s where EFC and other organizations. EFC, our website, we always have submissions to parliamentary committees that we just made.

We’re tracking, have briefing notes and talking points, and sometimes suggested letters to send MPs on issues that we see being debated in Parliament. And again, we always talk about the court cases we’re involved in. For example, we just got intervener sets for the Supreme Court in the case involving prostitution. Right now in Canada, the laws were changed. And basically it’s the Johns who are prosecuted, not prostitutes. Prostituted persons are assumed to be vulnerable and exploited. And so we go after the demand side. And so that’s criminalized. And right now that law is being challenged. The Parliament when it passed that law determined that prostitution was inherently exploitative. That even a person who thinks that they’re in full control and exercise their autonomy, they want to engage in sex for cash, there’s still an element of exploitation there. And the government determined that and then built the laws around trying to restrict or minimize and outlaw different forms of prostitution and actions around prostitution.

That’s being challenged. We’re going to court to affirm what the government decided back in 2014, 2015 was that yeah, it’s inherently exploitative practice. And so that’s when issues come before Parliament, you talk to your MPs when issues before the courts, we seek intervener status. We’re challenging the Quebec government’s denial of a rental facility for that organization because a lot of religious groups in Quebec, particularly evangelical groups, a lot of them don’t have churches. They meet in public spaces. Our public space is now going to be closed to evangelicals because they happen to be pro-life. And so that’s where at some point you talk to the politicians because as a matter of policy, you can also go to court. And that’s what we do. There’s ourselves, there’s others that have constant updates on issues and practical ways you can get involved.

The bottom line is building the relationship. That’s what the younger generations are good at, right? And so you cross lines, right? I deal in multi-faith situations where I know that some of my core beliefs are blasphemy or heresy to people I’m talking with. And they sometimes may think my beliefs are a little crazy and they would see the same thing for me. But that doesn’t mean we can’t engage with each other with respect and that we can’t work together for looking like standing against hate. And I think that’s where across a variety of religious or ideological worldview lines, there’s things that resonate with your neighbors, with the people you engage with. And I think that’s where you start identifying what do we agree on? And do we think what the government’s doing here is, do we think at what our university or high school is doing is consistent with what is good?

Do we think what our municipality is doing in terms of bylaws dealing with housing, do we think that’s healthy or that’s good? And that’s where you can actually build alliances across a whole range of groups and just start asking questions. But it all comes down to building a relationship. And I’ve met with a number of these over the year, and no one’s ever refused prayer. You’ll pray for and care for them and recognize the difficult situation they’re in. They’re trying to balance competing interests to come up with solutions to societal problems that will move us forward in terms of a good society. And so let’s understand them, hear their heart, and commit to pray for them, but also to engage with them on that journey.

Andrew Marcus:

Yes. So good, man. Bruce Clemenger, thank you so much for your time today. We are so grateful for your leadership, your ministry, all that you’re doing in the political world, pointing people to Jesus. Thank you so much for what you’re doing, and thank you so much for your time today.

Bruce Clemenger:

Glad to have the conversation.

Andrew Marcus:

Hey, thanks so much for joining us today. For more great content, check out the In Doubt show on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music, or wherever you stream your podcasts. We hope you enjoyed it today. Feel free to check out indoubt.ca, we have some great resources available to you. Have an awesome day.