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By Lloyd Mackey
 | | Outgoing mayor Alan Lowe |
AS Alan Lowe retires from nine years as mayor of
Victoria, he looks forward to whatever might be ahead – including the
possibility of running for provincial or federal elected office.
But whatever he does next, he hopes he will be able to
keep a balance in drawing on his Christian faith to inform him in the
various facets of whatever he is doing.
Lowe and his wife Grace are widely known as people who
are Christian. They have worshiped for many years at the Chinese
Pentecostal Church – and recently at Glad Tidings Church, the
‘mother’ congregation of the Pentecostal denomination in
Victoria. The couple has been married 23 years, and have two sons, age 21
and 18.
The retiring mayor believes he is “going to enjoy
being out of public life” for now. He will continue to be active in
his architectural practice, and looks forward to doing some consulting work
in the government relations area.
If he goes into senior government politics, he will
likely tackle things from the centre of the political spectrum.
Lowe muses: “One thing about civic politics is
that you don’t have to follow the party line.” He also speaks
quite a bit about “balance” in political life.
“It is unfortunate that Victoria seems to have
among the fewest numbers of people (relative to population) attending
church,” Lowe points out, suggesting that this factor makes it
important that Christians who want to influence politicians realize that
people elected to office “must serve the whole community.”
That said, he finds that a Christian is able to
“show your faith through actions, show how to be different and to
have joy in the face of dealing with difficult issues. In politics, there
is a lot of hope and faith. And it can be rewarding to see how being in
politics results in serving the community – even when you are at odds
with some of the people in the community.”
Lowe’s values get tested a little at times on
issues like casinos. The only casino in the Victoria area is in View Royal.
That municipality gets the revenue benefit, Lowe notes, while downtown
Victoria suffers the results of people who may have lost their money in
that casino.
Lowe is happy that many churches have responded well to
meeting needs in the social area.
“The issue, in all urban centres, is trying to
work with various levels of government and social service providers,”
he points out. “The Coalition to End Homelessness – which has
involved a fair amount of church leadership input – has worked hard
on both homelessness and affordable housing issues.”
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At the risk of leaving out names, he points to such
organizations as The Church of St. John the Divine, The Mustard Seed and
Our Place as having responded well on a range of issues.
“Homelessness is in your face, and affects the
downtown. And community groups are affected, too, as they work at enabling
a vibrant city core,” he adds.
One challenge Lowe would like to pass on to senior
governments, relative to church matters, comes out of “some churches
being land rich but financially poor.
“Some churches, for example, might want to offer
land available for non-profit housing. That used to happen more often, but
much of the senior government grant money dried up a few years
ago.”
Lowe says being a Christian in civic politics can be a
“mixed blessing.” Some church leaders find it hard not to
“see things in black and white. Municipalities need to deal in gray
areas. And, on the other side, people don’t want you to foist your
values on them.”
That is where balance comes in, he suggests.
Lowe says that his pastors have been good at
“letting me bounce things off them” before reaching major
decisions involving values.
December 2008
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