Politics from the pulpit — a bad look

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 25/07/2024 (463 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A FEW weeks ago, Pierre Poilievre went to church in Toronto. Not just one church — three different churches on three different occasions on the same day.

Not just any churches — three different, but similar, evangelical Christian churches of different ethnic groups. He enjoyed a wonderful reception, so much so that he was able to address the congregations from the pulpit on matters like the carbon tax, housing costs, crime rates and the use of pronouns.

I find this picture disconcerting and disturbing on several levels.

Politics and religion are uneasy bedfellows. Politics has no place for gender discrimination, sexism, and exclusion but these are exactly the very issues by which many religions define themselves — many are anti gender-affirmation, patriarchal, and don’t acknowledge other faiths as legitimate.

Democratic politics requires everyone, but not necessarily their views, to be worthy of respect, consideration. and equitable inclusion. Freedom of religion, on the other hand respects the rights of people to practise their own lives of faith but not exclusively. To insist on the separation of church and state is based upon these differences.

I am intimately familiar with the white evangelical Christian mindset because I regularly engage with some fervent followers, and some less fervent apologists.

At its extremes, the beliefs are frightening. God is a white male, and white males are created in the image of God. Their views are not beliefs based on faith; they are deemed absolute truth and reality based on what they claim is a literal reading of the Bible, something which often extends to prophesy and end times theology, or eschatology.

Finally, those who don’t follow their religious beliefs are doomed to eternity in hell. While some would not claim these attitudes openly, they all hold dearly to variations on these themes. And for many, happenings in the U.S. are simply a culmination of those convictions.

Those same ideas allow them to embrace Trumpism, rationalize his open lying, cheating, threats, and insults, and forgive the pastors of their churches for case after case of sexual interference and misconduct. They accept uncritically, and with great confidence, statements like: “God had different plans for Trump;” “But for the almighty God, I should have been dead;” and Marjorie Taylor Greene’s and Lauren Boebert’s “Trump is like Jesus.” The first two suggest that God pulls the trigger on every gun fired in America, including those at mass school shootings, willing death to those who die. The last one is, if people actually read the Bible, blasphemy, claiming or attributing deity to a human being.

The focus on “end times” prophesy, to my way of thinking, is simply an extension of the prior emphasis on predestination and predetermination, relieving followers of any responsibility to think and act lawfully or sensibly. If God has a plan, and it unfolds as it should, then whatever Trump — or what they do, for that matter — is simply out of their hands often explained as “God doesn’t make mistakes.” However, it only seems to work if God’s plan matches their biases and discontents.

Furthermore, today’s would-be prophets conveniently ignore the fact that end times are always linked to antichrists in the Bible — unlawful leaders who deliberately mislead, lie and deceive. These contradictory positions are all based on a very different reading of the Bible than I have.

In keeping with this way of thinking it must have been God’s plan that Biden to be president and Trudeau to be prime minister as well. It’s as if they somehow got by God!

That having been said Poilievre is no Trump, but many of his tactics and antics are too Trump-like to be comfortable, starting with declaring how terrible Canada has become. To be up front, I am no fan of his politics on a multitude of issues from the “personal freedoms” he promised the churches, like freedom from life-saving vaccines and climate responsibility, to defunding the Bank of Canada and the CBC, to opposition to gender affirming care.

On the other hand, unlike Trump, he does seem to be committed to the rule of law. He also has openly refused to play politics with access to abortion and same sex marriage, which suggest he is not in step with some of the key positions of the churches he visited, making his visit even more suspect. Which makes flirting with the evangelical churches a bad look for someone who wants to be seen as inclusive and supportive of diversity — that is neither their intent nor desire.

To sum up, associating with churches as a political tool discredits the churches, the Conservative party, the political process and diminishes Pierre himself.

John R. Wiens is dean emeritus at the faculty of education, University of Manitoba.