By Lloyd Mackey

LAST WEEK, I talked about the beginning of what might be dubbed ‘summit month' with some words about Forgiven, a National Summit of the First Peoples of Canada.

Today, I talk about two more upcoming faith-based summits, both triggered by Canada's hosting of the G-8 and G-20 Summits in Huntsville, Ontario, and Toronto respectively.

But first, I would like to add to my comments last week about the linking of the first chapter of Marci McDonald's book, The Armageddon Factor: the Rise of Christian Nationalism in Canada (Random House), to the CRUSH (Citizens Rallying to Unseat Stephen Harper) website. There are four points to make.

The first point is that CRUSH reproduced the book's first chapter from the publisher's website without the author's knowledge. When McDonald learned, at the end of a busy cross-country book promotion tour, that her book was linked to the website, she asked the site managers to post a disclaimer. The disclaimer says: "The author wishes to make clear that this does not mean she endorses CRUSH or its aims."

Second, I suggest OttawaWatch readers read the Walrus Blog interview with McDonald. It provides, in my modest view, a balanced and nuanced focus on certain aspects of her book. Particularly, she provides a verbal portrait of the unique and helpful part that Preston Manning has played in the interfacing of faith and politics over the past 20 years.

Third, in order to try to be completely fair to McDonald, I would like to point out that I had written a story one week earlier, entitled "Armageddon author says ‘demonizing' was not her intent." I believe a reading of that column will provide readers with an understanding of why McDonald would want to ensure that she is not associated with the CRUSH website.

Fourth, McDonald assures me that she has never had any partisan associations, and that she has written stories – some of which have been posted on the Walrus website – that have been critical of Liberals as well as Conservatives.

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Now for the summit stuff.

The World Religions Summit, set for June 21-23 at the University of Winnipeg, will shadow the G-8 Summit in Huntsville.

It will bring together several dozen major faith leaders from the eight G-8 nations, with the objective of speaking with one voice – despite their diversity – on such subjects as urging the G-8 to fulfill the Millennium Development Goals.

Those goals, as such bodies as the Canadian Council of Churches and The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada regularly remind us, are to:
• Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger.
• Achieve universal primary education.
• Promote gender equality.
• Reduce child mortality.
• Improve maternal health.
• Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases.
• Ensure environmental sustainability.
• Develop a global partnership for development.

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World Religious Summits have been occurring annually alongside the G-8 Summits since 2005. In Canada, "alongside" means 1,000 kilometres away from Huntsville. The choice of location has something to do with the fact that University of Winnipeg president Lloyd Axworthy is one of Canada's former foreign affairs ministers.

And, as it happens, there is a further symbiotic rapport. When he was in Parliament, Axworthy attended Southminster United Church, where James Christie was the minister. Both men, without being specific, will agree that pastor and parishioner occasionally discussed the relationship between faith and politics.

Now, the tables are turned. These days, Christie is the dean of the theological faculty at University of Winnipeg and the immediate past president of the Canadian Council of Churches (CCC). So the former pastor and parishioner, now fellow academic leaders, have been working together to bring the faith-based summit to pass. Much of the spadework has involved Toronto-based Karen Hamilton, CCC executive director. The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada's president, Bruce Clemenger, and his staff have also been quite been involved, working in partnership with the CCC on this event.

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Charles McVety, president of Canada Christian College, meanwhile, has been putting together a June 25-26 event with an intriguing set of players.

McVety managed to snag rights to the Internet domain name www.g20.ca and has been utilizing it to publicize a Faith and Business Leaders' Summit, to be held on the college's Don Mills campus in Toronto.

Keynote speaker is Karl Rove, who served as chief of staff to former U. S. President George W. Bush.

Others in the lineup include author Grant Jeffrey, radio and television host Michael Coren, Canada Family Action Coalition executive director Brian Rushfeldt and B'nai Brith executive vice-president Frank Dimant.

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Lloyd Mackey is a member of the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery in Ottawa and author of Stephen Harper: The Case for Collaborative Governance (ECW Press, 2006), More Faithful Than We Think: Stories and Insights on Canadian Leaders Doing Politics Christianly (BayRidge Books, 2005) and Like Father, Like Son: Ernest Manning and Preston Manning (ECW Press, 1997). Lloyd can be reached at lmackey@canadianchristianity.com.

June 10/2010