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By Lloyd Mackey
LAST week, I began OttawaWatch by suggesting that: "Conflict resolution -- aided and abetted by faith-based activity -- has been happening in various ways in the last few days."
Then I went straight to the story about Ian and Harold Paisley.
That was the most dramatic story I could tell, yet the least impossible, given that conflicts between evangelicals and conservative Catholics or Jews seem easier to manage than most other contemporary religious combos.
Three other events are worth noting, and I will spend most of my words on the third, in today's piece. - The annual Parliamentary Prayer Breakfast took place May 3 on Parliament Hill and drew some 600 attenders. This year, for the first time, there was a strong interest, on the part of several key Canadian journalists, to report on the event. I managed to miss it this year, for the first time, owing to the need to be on the road to Toronto at the very hour it was taking place.
- The Toronto event was the 50th anniversary convention for Canadian Church Press, whose readership includes at least three million Canadians. Such respected publications as Faith Today, United Church Observer, Catholic Register, Mennonite Brethren Herald, BC Christian News and ChristianWeek are CCP members. The keynote speaker for the anniversary reception was Brian Stewart, a senior foreign correspondent for the CBC. Stewart made a strong and encouraging point of his respect for the various faith-based organizations and people around the world, who are doing something about the major issues of poverty, conflict and other seeming imponderables. By the way, one more evidence of my advancing age came at the CCP, in the form of an honorary life membership.
- The All Party Inter-Faith Parliamentary Friendship Group (APIF) met last Monday, May 7 in a small committee room just a few steps from the House of Commons chamber. And it is this meeting that will take up most of the rest of my words today.
APIF is a re-incarnation of a group that operated for several years, off and on, under the watchful eye of David Kilgour, who held a couple of different foreign affairs regional cabinet posts during his years in the House of Commons. He "retired" before the 2006 election and is now involved in several international issues, including Darfur and the Falan Gong question in China.
But this is only peripherally about Kilgour. Another David has inherited his mantle.
That would be David Sweet, who in an earlier life was the president of PromiseKeepers Canada, the evangelical organization that saw, as its mandate, the encouraging of Christian men to keep their promises to their spouses, families, churches, communities and nation.
Sweet has kept his head low since his election in 2006, in Ancaster-Dundas-Flamborough-Westdale, west of Hamilton, Ontario. And wisely so, perhaps. In the run-up to the 2004 election, where he ran unsuccessfully in the same riding, he was targeted, at times, by some politicians and pundits who believed that one of the gravest dangers to Canadian society was the election of "theocrats" who would turn Canada into some kind of Godocracy.
Well, surprise. Sweet proved to be anything but a Bible-thumping politician. But his own spiritual pilgrimage has made him, arguably, the ideal person to head up APIF.
Its objectives are modest enough. It is to be comprised of representatives of the major political parties and faith groups.
And one of the co-chairs is to be "designated by the governing party," while the other is to be chosen by the group itself. Sweet was the government designate. Rabbi Reuven Bulka, a well-known Ottawa-area spokesperson for the Jewish community -- and frequent host on talk radio shows -- was the group's choice.
Half a dozen people -- and no MPs -- attended the group's post-election inaugural meeting last fall. On May 7, two dozen showed, among them several MPs.
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To me, the surprise at the table was the number of evangelical Christians. After all, our faith is often called into question by others because we seem so rigid in insisting that we are the only repositories for truth. The evangelicals at that table -- and they made up one quarter of the total attendance -- were all known for maintaining the right to communicate the Christian gospel without hindrance. But they all recognized, as well, that the best communication comes, often, with a willingness to listen to others with respect. Further, they had, I believe, an underlying sense that the understanding and resolution of conflict is a biblical mandate.
I want to proceed cautiously, here. Conflict resolution is not our only mandate. And different members of the Christian community are variously good at carrying out other mandates -- such as evangelism, education, nurture, and the list goes on.
But I am conscious of a growing number of Christians who believe that listening to others with care actually opens up the possibilities to share the Christian gospel with others who may well find its claims to be helpful to the meeting of their own needs.
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The others at the May 7 table included people of Jewish, Muslim, Baha'i, Sikh, Tibetan Buddhist and Hindu persuasion as well as at least two other strains of Christianity.
They were prepared to work with a list of objectives that included the following: - APIF will serve as a resource to parliamentarians who want to learn more about faith in general and specific faiths in particular.
- APIF will endeavour to host an ecumenical prayer breakfast or similar event at least once a year.(The first one is tentatively scheduled for November.)
- APIF will serve as a forum to discuss issue of concern and the ways to address these concerns at a parliamentary and public awareness level.
One of Bulka's desires is to see MPs establish yearly events in their ridings to "honour outstanding contributors to inter-religious understanding."
That proposal will take on a life of its own as APIF gets organized.
But Bulka did indicate a bit of background to his thinking.
He suggested that: - In each riding, there is at least one, and maybe more, dialogue groups wherein faith communities talk to each other. These should be consulted to recommend one person who has made outstanding contributions to inter-religious understanding and co-operation.
- The nominee should not be a member of the clergy, but rather, a lay person.
- The award ceremony should be held during the week of Thanksgiving. It could, ideally, be a major event at the constituency office, or at City Hall, or other public venue, with appropriate media to give this endeavour the right profile.
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Lloyd Mackey is a member of the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery in Ottawa. He is also author of Stephen Harper: The Case for Collaborative Governance (ECW Press, 2006), which was named a finalist, this week, in the Life Stories book category of The Word Guild 2007 writing awards. The winners will be named June 13 at a Gala at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario. Lloyd can be reached at lmackey@christiancurrent.com. |  |
May 18/2007
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