Religion

Forcing Folks to be Free

Robert Joustra

September 12, 2016

Doug Saunders in the weekend’s Globe and Mail calls for public prejudice for the greater good, but the idea isn’t new with him, and we’ll see a lot more of it in the days ahead. Saunders’ incredulity over Mohammad Nouman Dasu, lobbying to exempt his children from music classes, has the smell of that fire.

Hardly the sun sets in the West these days without some new attempt at what Jean Jacques Rousseau might have mistily called “forcing folks to be free.”

Doug Saunders in the weekend’s Globe and Mail calls for ...

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‘Inclusion’ to the Exclusion of Religious Freedom

Peter Stockland

July 15, 2016

It’s worth, though, heeding the emerging voices warning us that freedom’s loss is as much, perhaps even more, a function of shifts in language almost too subtle for timely detection. In an exclusive interview with the Catholic Register, Canada’s former Ambassador for Religious Freedom – and now most welcome new colleague at Cardus – noted that his former bailiwick has been recast by the Liberal government into a muddle called the Office of Freedom, Human Rights and Inclusion.

We’ve become habituated to associating loss of freedom with decisive, often violent, acts.

It’s worth, though, heeding the emerging voices warning us that freedom’s loss is as much, perhaps even more, a function of shifts in language almost too subtl...

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The New Scientism: Still Fighting the Phantom War

Doug Sikkema

May 5, 2016

This book is about the war between science and religion: about how science has won this war so thoroughly that it can explain why religion will not go away, why there are people who choose God over science.If this sounds absurd, that's because it is. Really, a "religious" person could make the same case on the same grounds simply by inverting the key terms.

[This review was originally published in Convivium Magazine and in Books and Culture.] It's a curious irony that the champions of scientism are some of the most vocal advocates of change and progress yet they so rarely change or progres...

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Silent Night for Religious Intolerance

Peter Stockland

December 22, 2015

The bad news was the letter concerning the persecution of about 230 million Christians worldwide faced with “daily threats of murder, beating, imprisonment, and torture.” An estimated 400 million more Christians face appalling discrimination in housing and jobs. In poised yet implacable words, these esteemed leaders of their two faiths laid out the case that even in a world awash in the blood of tormented minorities, virtually every credible human rights observer agrees Christians experience religious persecution more than any other faith group on a global scale and in absolute numbers.

There was good news and bad news around an open letter released in...

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Global Warming and Group Think

Peter Stockland

November 30, 2015

For whatever truths science might settle about whether or not the globe will warm in future, their political extension will require resort to pathetic fallacy: the waters must rise because David Suzuki sighs. The reduction shows itself in the very shorthand used to frame the discussion. What was once carefully defined research into the specific effects of human activity on the atmosphere has now elided into a three-word mission: stop climate change.

Something to watch during the Paris climate summit is the way in which wind and rain become a mix of fact, faith, moralism and imagination.

For whatever truths science might settle about whether or not the globe will warm in future, their political e...

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Paris: Avoiding the Knee-Jerk Reaction

Ray Pennings

November 23, 2015

Islamic Terrorism? | Much is being made as to whether reporters and politicians dare to use the phrase “Islamic terrorist,” for fear of indiscriminately grouping non-violent and violent Muslims into one category. The violent backlash against Muslims (and, sadly, Sikhs and Hindus) in Ontario has already shown the trouble this can perpetuate.

Simplistic solutions to national security and the refugee crisis are available to anyone with a social media account. Most of these “solutions” fall woefully short because they fail to take religion seriously. And there are challenges for all of us—whether ...

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What's next for Canada's Office of Religious Freedom?

Robert Joustra

November 19, 2015

It’s moving month in Ottawa’s capital, and we already have a few clues of what’s coming and what’s going. The legacy of the Liberal Party of Canada is one that has always taken human rights very seriously. Liberal internationalism, classically, has human rights and the dignity of the human person at the centre of its global agenda.

This article was originally published in Embassy, and is reprinted with permission.

It’s moving month in Ottawa’s capital, and we...

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A Double Standard Where There Are No Standards?

Peter Stockland

September 24, 2015

Leaving aside the question of whether it’s possible to have a fair double standard, it seems to me there is a more compelling question for Catholics—and all Christians. It’s this: should we care about the double standard we face? Why? Gerson’s text typified the phenomenon. It centred on a flap that arose at a Calgary school board meeting when a Catholic trustee challenged the newly invented writ of transgenderism.

The headline on a recent column by National Post editor Jen Gerson asked whether Catholics face an unfair double standard.

Leaving aside the...

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The Fraught Line Between Faith and Politics

Peter Stockland

April 17, 2015

As with any judgment that must walk the fraught line between faith and politics, there are some findings that should properly raise warning flags. But in general, it seems very much of a piece with the Court’s laudable work in last month’s Loyola case.

Before the Supreme Court’s Saguenay decision becomes shorthand for assaults on religious freedom in Canada, the point needs making that is a thoughtful, fair-minded, and overall welcome ruling.

As with any judgment that must walk the fraught...

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Miracle Worker

Ray Pennings

April 6, 2015

But it’s not only at Easter and in relation to life’s “big questions” that miracles are relevant. If it weren’t for the reality of miracles, I, for one, would find the challenges that confront us each day to be overwhelming and beyond my capacity.

Easter is when Christians celebrate the resurrection from the dead of a man from a tomb just outside of Jerusalem 2,000 years ago. There are lots of arguments to be raised as to why this should be considered reliable history but at the end of the day all of...

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Total Victory?

Naomi Biesheuvel

March 20, 2015

“It’s a total victory for the school, for parents and for the [education] ministry because it upholds the full society’s value,” said John Zucchi, an appellant in the case and father of a former Loyola student. “It took seven years but I can say I never lost faith, never lost hope.” . .

Canada’s Supreme Court ruled on Thursday in favour of Montreal’s Loyola High School, finding the Quebec government violated the Jesuit institution's Charter-protected freedom of...

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No steps back, no steps forward

Peter Stockland

March 19, 2015

But in a 4-3 split decision, the Court also rejected the private Catholic school's proposal for an alternative to the so-called Ethics and Religious Culture program mandated by the Quebec government in 2008.

The Supreme Court of Canada says Montreal's Loyola High School had its Charter religious freedoms violated by the Quebec government's refusal to allow it to teach a program from a Catholic perspective.

But in a 4-3 split decision, the Court also reje...

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Happy are those

Peter Stockland

March 18, 2015

Fr. de Souza and Dr. Weigel at the March 17 eventIt took the future Polish pope much of his youth even to decide to become a priest, Weigel told an audience at Toronto's Tyndale University College and Seminary. Interviewed on stage by Convivium's editor-in-chief, Father Raymond J. de Souza, Weigel pointed out that once young Karol Wojtyla did undertake his priestly mission, he harboured no desire to ascend through the hierarchy of the Catholic Church.

At Tuesday's Cardus-Convivium event, author George Weigel described Pope John Paul II's life as the "finger of Providence pushing him along a path" of discernment.

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Acquiring a Faith Literacy

Andrew P.W. Bennett

February 25, 2015

The following interaction between myself as Ambassador for Religious Freedom and Mrs. Lois Brown, MP for Newmarket-Aurora during my appearance before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development reflects this idea. -AB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

For part one of this series, please see How to Counter Religion Avoidance Syndrome, published February 23.

...

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How to Counter Religion Avoidance Syndrome

Thomas F. Farr

February 23, 2015

The anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks is a good reminder about the importance of advancing religious freedom around the world. Dr. Thomas Farr makes the connection himself in his compelling testimony to the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Commons from back in 2015. We reprise his testimony in Convivium today.

In the two months since I addressed the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Canadian House of Commons (see the text of my remarks below), the need for Canada to embrace a more active stance on religious freedom has become increasingly, and p...

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Nova Scotia and TWU FAQ

Peter Stockland

February 2, 2015

On January 28, Justice Jamie S. Campbell of the Nova Scotia Supreme Court ruled the Barrister’s Society (NSBS) was acting outside its jurisdiction and violated religious freedom as set out in Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Last year, the Nova Scotia Barrister’s Society said it would not allow graduates of a planned law school at Trinity Western University to practice law in the province unless TWU dropped its community covenant obliging students to refrain from sexual relatio...

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Competing Stories, Inspired Conversations

Beth Green

January 22, 2015

I’ve been there. I went to both private and state schools. As an educator, I’ve taught in a variety of institutions, both private and public, Christian and secular. As a researcher, I have been wrestling with what the relationship is between these differing...

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Our Neighbours' Eyes

Peter Stockland

January 15, 2015

When the art came in, I scrutinized it for subliminal naughtiness—most illustrators are eternal 11-year-olds—and quickly approved it. Soon afterward, a Jewish woman in our research department stopped me in the corridor. The drawing had landed on her desk. She held it up. If she had recited a three-volume treatise on what was wrong with the picture, she could not have communicated more than her tone of voice and six simple words. Clearly, she did not think “this” was right. As soon as I looked at it, I shamefacedly understood why. To my enduring embarrassment, it was a classic caricature of the proverbial hook-nosed Jew looking shifty—or was it pushy?—under a cartoon rabbinical hat. I was simultaneously flummoxed and firmly convicted. Yet I had a firm conviction that the artist responsible—we’d known each other for years—was genuinely ignorant of the unintended anti-Semitic slur. Indeed, when I contacted him he was appalled and apologetic, easily as embarrassed as I had been by the unwitting wrong.

Years ago, I commissioned an illustration for a magazine piece on intermarriage between Jews and Gentiles.

When the art came in, I scrutinized it for subliminal naughtiness—most illustrators are eternal 11-year-olds—and quickly approved it. Soon afte...

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Transparency for the Common Good

Naomi Biesheuvel

December 18, 2014

This cliché is often splashed across social media feeds, encouraging the faithful to take a stand for what is right. But a defensive attitude can also encourage believers to invoke religious liberty on its own merit. "The difficulty with ... an 'opaque' claim to religious liberty is that it allows those who oppose the claim to paint over it their own motivations and their own understanding of the motivations of believers, and to characterize that exercise of religious liberty as if there's something nefarious or untoward behind it, like a motive to discriminate or a motive to oppress. So I think it's important for people of faith to make 'transparent' claims," said MacLeod. "In fact, we're asking for the liberty to do good things in the public, to serve our neighbours, and to obey conscience: duty to something higher than ourselves."

"If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything."

This cliché is often splashed across social media feeds, encouraging the faithful to take a stand for what is right. But a defensive attitude can also encourage believers to invoke religio...

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Reflections from the Camino: Part I

Julia Nethersole and Susan Nethersole

November 7, 2014

Wake up. Eat. Walk. Break. Walk. Eat. Walk. Arrive. Laundry. Eat. Sleep. And repeat. Life as a pilgrim is a funny sort of existence. How can each day be the very same, and yet completely different? The routine, ever-consistent, was at once comforti...

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The First Freedom of the Human Soul

Ray Pennings

November 4, 2014

"I think our literacy may be fairly high ... but our understanding of religion has diminished quite a bit," says Farr. "What we've lost is the anthropology, if you will; the notion that human beings are by their nature religious." . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

At the Transatlantic Christian Council in Washington, D.C., earlier this fall, Cardus executive vice president Ray Pennings had a conversation with Thomas F. Farr, director of the Religious Freedom Project at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and Worl...

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Subpoenaed Sermons

Ray Pennings

October 16, 2014

To reduce this complicated story to its bare essentials, City Council adopted the controversial HERO ordinance in June. Immediately after its adoption, opponents began organizing petitions for the repeal of this legislation; 17,269 valid signatures are enough put the issue to a referendum in November's election.

When first alerted to this story by social media, I checked Snopes to ensure it wasn't a hoax.

...

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Finding a Global Common Grammar

Ray Pennings

October 10, 2014

How can we better engage across cultures? At the Transatlantic Christian Council last month, Cardus executive vice president Ray Pennings spoke with Father Sirico about how to have conversations about faith that can span cultures.

"Very often," says Acton Institute co-founder Father Robert A. Sirico, "even believers and even people who would agree on certain cultural issues speak past each other, or they hone in on parts of the debate and make that as though it were the whole debate....

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The Art of Faithful Persuasion

Ray Pennings

September 23, 2014

At the Transatlantic Christian Council in Washington, D.C., this month, Ray Pennings asked Os Guinness about this topic. Guinness is the author of nearly two dozen books, most recently The Global Public Square: Religious Freedom and the Making of a World Safe for Diversity and Renaissance: The Power of the Gospel However Dark the Times. "I think we should be persuasive—publicly accessible—as St. Paul was," argues Guinness. "So when he's in a synagogue, he preaches from the Torah. When he's on Mars Hill, he quotes Cretan poets and philosophers. We should have that adaptability and flexibility."

When ought we to share what we believe, and when are we just picking a fight?

At the Transatlantic Christian Council in Washington, D.C., this month, Ray Pennings asked Os Guinness about this topic. Guinness i...

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