POLITICAL VOICE

CANADA: CHRISTIANS SEEK VOICE IN POLITICS
Evangelicals 'mocked'
By Siri Agrell
National Post
Saturday, November 12, 2005

BURLINGTON, Ont. - With its neatly arrayed chairs and Christmas decorations,  the atrium of the Crossroads Centre looks more ready to host a nativity play  than a political workshop.

But 150 evangelical Christians from across the Golden Horseshoe region of  southern Ontario will gather here today, outside the studio where the  evangelical TV show 100 Huntley Club is filmed, for a lesson in political  activism.

"In order to see anything different in Ottawa, we need to see a change in  our culture," said Tristan Emmanuel, a conference organizer and executive  director of the Equipping Christians for the Public-square Centre. "People  need to change. The church needs to change."

In the United States, the Christian community has emerged as an influential  force behind the current Republican administration and the impetus toward  faith-based initiatives.

Mr. Emmanuel believes that a similar move is necessary in Canada, but it is  up to evangelical voters -- not political leaders -- to drive the agenda.

So Mr. Emmanuel is planning a televised town hall meeting in January,  coinciding with a possible election call, when Christian Canadians could  discuss their beliefs and priorities in an open forum.

By organizing events around political involvement rather than partisan  stripes, he hopes party leaders will recognize the electoral advantage of  acknowledging the Christian community in their campaigns.

"They're politicians and a politician won't take a step unless it's  politically advantageous," he said.

Three million evangelical Christians live in Canada, a voting bloc whose  political voice should not be dismissed or underestimated, Mr. Emmanuel  said.

Christians have long been vilified by the Liberal party, he said, a trend  crystallized by the public derision heaped on the creationist beliefs of  former Canadian Alliance leader Stockwell Day.

"People like myself have been mocked over that issue," said Mr. Emmanuel,  who is studying at the McMaster Divinity College in Hamilton, Ont. "You  would never do that with anyone else's religious views."

During Mr. Day's unsuccessful campaign to unseat the Liberals, Mr. Emmanuel  said many evangelical Christians watched as religion was used to undermine  Mr. Day's credibility as a leader, in spite of the fact that both former  prime minister Jean Chretien and his replacement Paul Martin are avowed  Roman Catholics.

But Mr. Emmanuel said he reached his breaking point during the 2004 federal  election, when the Liberal government threatened the electorate with the  Conservative party's "hidden agenda," which he believes was a thinly veiled  attack on Christian beliefs.

"They used a strategy to vilify a natural constituency of the Conservative  party," he said. "Normally you go after your opponent, not a specific  community who might support him."

That was the moment he decided evangelicals had to demonstrate their  political influence, not by throwing their weight behind a specific  candidate but by making their voices heard at all levels of politics.

"Ideally, what we want to be is an organization that defends and advocates  for Christians who want to be involved in the public square," Mr. Emmanuel  said.

To that end, the conference has not invited MPs or would-be candidates to  speak today, but rather Christian activists who believe their beliefs have  been misrepresented or maligned.

"I basically looked at the last 10 years of political marginalization of the  Christian view," he said of the invited speakers. "I think what people will  take away is that this is happening, this mistreatment of our standpoint is  not theoretical."

One of the speakers who will address attendees today is Chris Kempling, a  B.C. teacher who was suspended from his job as a guidance counsellor after  writing a series of letters to his local paper that criticized same-sex  relationships.

The conference will also hear from Stephen Bennett, a U.S. radio  personality, musician and public speaker who has flown to Canada to discuss  his personal rejection of homosexuality. A self-professed "former  homosexual," Mr. Bennett is now married to a woman and has dedicated himself  to reaching out to "homosexuals who want to escape the lifestyle."

Mr. Emmanuel said the evangelical community is not necessarily going to fall  in line behind Mr. Harper's Conservatives.

"I want to be careful not to be too critical, but I think Stephen Harper  could do a better job defending our community," he said. "To be honest, I  was shocked at his inability to fight for his beliefs and to keep the  [sponsorship scandal] in the forefront of the debate."

Contrary to popular belief, he said evangelical voters are not politically  monolithic.

Christians interested in social outreach and other "compassionate  endeavours" might have a natural proclivity toward Liberal or NDP  candidates, he said. But he said it is the public disavowals of religion  that push the evangelical constituency toward the Conservatives.

"If you constantly marginalize us, that's when we could galvanized into one  voting bloc," he said. "But really we're all over the map. We're pretty  open-minded people."