Canadian Freedom of Religion

I'm going to respond to your first post, first, since you obviously caught my attention with " hear pastors in Canada have been arrested for just *reading* Romans 2 from the pulpit - no commentary - just reading. "

I think that lots of urban myths circulate the church world, and unless you can find me a link to this, I don't believe it. I Googled every imaginable combination trying to discover this story and came up with nothing.

Since many schools in Canada still say the Lord's Prayer as part of their regular school day and prayers are said in our Parliament, it just seems highly unlikely that any pastors were ever arrested for reading the Bible in their own pulpits.

I know Americans find it hard to believe but I think we have far more freedom of speech in Canada than you guys do in the US. In the first place, our titular head is the Queen of England who is also the head of the Church of England. And our Parliament opens with this prayer.

Almighty God, we give thanks for the great blessings which have been bestowed on Canada and its citizens, including the gifts of freedom, opportunity and peace that we enjoy. We pray for our Sovereign, Queen Elizabeth, and the Governor General. Guide us in our deliberations as Members of Parliament, and strengthen us in our awareness of our duties and responsibilities as Members. Grant us wisdom, knowledge, and understanding to preserve the blessings of this country for the benefit of all and to make good laws and wise decisions. Amen.

It varies from province to province, but many public schools in Canada still open with the Lord's Prayer. Freedom of religion has never meant freedom from religion as it seems to do in the US. Here's a link that provides a summary of prayer in different provinces: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2008/02/13/lords-prayer.html

What I think many American Christians don't realize is that freedom is a two-way street. We have same-sex marriage and that sort of tolerance also flows back to Christians who practise their religion. People just don't get their shorts in such a knot as they seem to do in the US over every mention of public prayer.

The way I see it, American Christians have shot themselves in the foot with their involvement in politics and thinking to impose their beliefs on secular Americans. When you decide that someone else's right are not important, you are also opening a door to having someone decide that your rights are not important. You set a precedent for your own rights to be taken away at someone else's whim. A door lets traffic in both ways. Maybe that is why people generally are more content to live and let live here.

In Ontario, there is now a movement underway to change the Lord's Prayer in schools, but if you read this link, then you will notice a comment by a Jew who recited the Lord's Prayer in public school and his opinion that "it hadn't changed him."

So now just how a pastor could be arrested for reading the Bible when we have prayer in our schools and in our government, is illogical. Interestingly, a recent poll stated that 33 percent of Canadians do not believe in a god whereas only 8 percent of Americans say the same. That's a big difference and yet there is far less dissension and more acceptance here with regards to religion than there is in the US.

Witness the recent Texas polygamy thing. Just how people can go into another person's home with no more than the word of a known liar and troublemaker, and take away, not one child, but four hundred plus children and say there is freedom of religion in the US is beyond me. Which isn't to say that I support polygamy or anything but I'm telling you, that if they can do that there, they can do that anywhere in the US.

Americans like to think of themselves as individualists, and yet, when it comes to alternative lifestyles, be it by way of same sex unions, polygamists or immigrants who speak their own language, Americans want everyone to fit the same cookie cutter mould. Diversity is really not celebrated or much tolerated. Everyone has to be Americanized. We think entirely differently here in Canada where multi-culturalism is celebrated, not the whole melting pot idea.

As far as same-sex attraction and it being a choice, unlike the color of your skin, I don't believe that is true. If birth defects were limited to mobility, you would have a point but people are born sometimes intersexed - as hermaphrodites. So it is possible for people to be born sexually confused in a physical sense and if so, then why is it not possible for people to be born mentally confused about sexuality? We know more than we used to about the human brain but we don't know everything. Christians can be schizophrenic, bi-polar and depressives, without ever once having chosen it in any sense of the word due to something that went wrong in their genetic makeup, so it isn't a stretch at all to think that attraction to your own sex is also the result of something beyond their control.

I am not saying that homosexuality isn't a sin according to the Bible. I am only saying that I don't buy that it is always a choice. It may be a choice for some to experiment, to play with boundaries. There have always been people who wanted to push boundaries, who are thrill seekers and expressing themselves in all sorts of different non-traditional sexual ways, whether with a menage a trois, or with their own sex can also be part of that behaviour. But not necessarily.

I do agree with your last point that the war that is coming won't necessarily be a war fought with weapons but with words and ideas - that actually was the war fought by my ancestors. It wasn't a physical war but a war of ideas. But I also think that when Christians want to take their faith to a political level, they are opening that door themselves. Faith is a private matter.

As far as the laws in Canada are concerned with the issue of conscience, we have conscience laws. A doctor or a pharmacist can freely follow his or her conscience but they must give the patient information on where they can obtain the service they would deny on that basis. Canadians just don't sue like Americans do.

If you think of the different mottoes of our respective countries, there is a huge difference between us - Canadians believe in "peace, order, and good government" not "the pursuit of happiness."

We are far more willing to sacrifice an individual right that we don't really need for the good of everyone.

Layla