Guarding over a generation’s future

Standing on guard for Canada is more than a line in a song to me. It is a lifestyle, a life calling, a mandate, as a citizen and as a Christian. As I see the unrest peaking in our present world, where questions are many and answers are few, I feel even more burdened for the next generation’s welfare and future.

Few generations have had to face what this generation has had to face. They are the smallest generation in history. They survived the pill and escaped abortion. They are survivors. They have been raised in the most sex dominated and disease ridden culture in modern history, and many of them have lost their childhood innocence.

My life as a baby boomer was a dream compared to the complexities of surviving in this world. I didn’t have all the distractions. We had one TV channel, and that was black and white. We had phones that we shared with people in the neighbourhood – we could tell when one was listening in. We didn’t have Internet: we had libraries.

Our schooling was not complicated: you listened to your teachers, or you wound up in the Principal’s office. There was a sense of law and order, respect for politicians, police and pastors, and everyone carried a sense of civic responsibility. You could walk the streets and feel safe. You knew your neighbours, and they knew you. We took care of each other.

Religion and public policy

The Encyclopedia of American Religions lists 1,600 different religious groups, with 44% of them non-Christian. Half of these have emerged and been recognized as a distinct belief system since 1960. There are now more Muslims in America than there are Methodists. North America is a different place than it was 30 years ago.

Every belief system challenges for predominance in society. Bill Hybels, pastor of one of North America’s largest churches, stated, “…the law of non-contradiction says that positions that are different from one another cannot be equally true.” Thus, our culture has experienced vigorous debate as to the merit of each religious viewpoint.

Culture is, in the end, the manifestation of what people think and believe. As one of our young scholars stated, “Ideas have legs.” Culture becomes the externalization of a people’s religion. Josef Stalin understood that connection: he said, “Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas?” That belief system strengthened the political, social and ‘religious’ ideology of Communism.

Beliefs influence action. Bad beliefs impact nations. Friedrich Nietzsche, the German atheist philosopher, declared that God was dead, so evil could be redefined from humanity’s perspective. He initiated a definition of evil as “whatever flowed out of weakness.” The Nazi’s adopted his definition and the idea of a Super Race emerged. This resulted in the subjugation and extermination of whoever they deemed to be weak. Ideas have consequences.

A few weeks ago, in CBC’s Radio-Canada television program Enquete, journalist Brigitte Bureau attacked the rights of access certain Christians had to engage the public domain through Parliamentary venues provided to special interest groups and Canadians as a whole. She worried out loud about the undue influence these fundamentalist groups had on government policy.