The Surprising Truth of

Christian Nationalism

in Canada

Prepared for COHA

Common Elements of Christian Nationalism

Belief one's nation was founded on Christianity
Nation should be governed by selected "Christian" values
Any divergent from these narrow values are evil
Often: nation was appointed by God for his plan.

Slide adapted from: [What is Christian Nationalism?](https://presbyterian.ca/wp-content/uploads/What-is-Christian-Nationalism-Connection-Summer-2022.pdf) By Allyson Carr, Justice Ministries. From Presbyterian Connection, Summer 2022 edition.

Direct quote, numbered bullets added:

What is Christian nationalism? There are many definitions available but most of them have three common elements.

The first one is believing that one’s nation was explicitly founded on Christianity and should remain that way.

The second element is believing that the nation should be governed by a set of selected “Christian” values (which conspicuously lack grounding in centrally important scriptural calls to love of neighbour or to demonstrating the fruits of the Spirit).

The third one is believing that anything diverging from the narrow values it claims are “Christian” is a sure sign of the work of evil.

These beliefs are often accompanied by the conviction that one’s nation has a special role to play in God’s plan and that if you are not explicitly “for” that plan, you are against it. (This is part of Christian nationalism’s power—it portrays itself as specially anointed, pursuing a holier, more true form of Christianity.)

The emphasis on power— gaining it and keeping it—within Christian nationalism should make people familiar with the Gospels uncomfortable. Explicitly aligning Christianity (or any other faith, for that matter) with political power has never gone well. Conflating Christian and national identity dangerously labels other religions, as well as any Christians who don’t align with the values of Christian nationalism, as outside the nation’s identity and a threat to the nation itself. Under the influence of this narrative the stakes are set as a conflict over the nation’s soul and very existence; a battle of good vs evil that can become all too literal.

Christian nationalism is fundamentally about preserving or returning to a mythic society where there are traditional hierarchical relationships

Andrew Whitehead

Christian Nationalism
in the US

Acceptance of Christian Nationalism

Characteristics

independent from religosity
can muddy statistics
isolating Christian Nationalists fixes stats
As religiosity increases, Christian trend one way
Unless they are Christian Nationalists

Christian Nationalism is a key factor that leads to a schism with other Christians.
As religosity correlated wih anti-LGBT views
Statistics get very muddled on other hot button topics. No clear correlation as religosity increases.
By seperating out C.N. we get two distinct groups
"Do you feel threatened by Muslims physically?"
"Do you think they hold moral values that are less than yours?
Christian Nationalism focuses on the boudaries between the ingroup and out group. Christian nationalists oppose it to protect a Christian nation. Others just think it's against their tradition.

Finally, your third argument is that "Christian nationalism is not 'Christianity' or even 'religion' properly speaking," and indeed that "Christian nationalism often influences Americans' opinions and behaviors in the exact opposite direction than traditional religious commitment does." In fact, as one table in your book shows, in virtually all areas of social policy — everything except personal fidelity to religion — the influences are at odds.

It's a recurring theme we see throughout our book. When we look at different hot-button political wedge issues in the U.S., or we look at views toward nonwhite groups or even non-Christian groups, we find that Christian nationalism encourages people generally to think and believe one way, while once we take that level of Christian nationalism into account, individual Americans who are more religious will actually be moving in the opposite direction.

One example is fear of Muslims. We ask a number of questions about, "Do you feel threatened by Muslims physically?" Or, "Do you think they hold moral values that are less than yours?" The way I explain it is that if you could take a carbon copy of me and the only thing you change — increase or decrease — is my Christian nationalism, then I will be more fearful of Muslims as you increase that. But if you took a carbon copy of me, and my level of Christian nationalism stayed the same level, and all you increased or decreased was my religious practice — as you increase my religious practice, I would actually feel less threatened by Muslims. So these things aren't one and the same. While many Ambassadors and Accommodators are religious, it isn't necessarily their religiosity that's causing them to view immigrants or Muslims or nonwhite minorities this way. It's their Christian nationalism.

https://www.salon.com/2020/02/29/sociologist-andrew-whitehead-how-christian-nationalism-drives-american-politics/

Christian Nationalism defends a particular version of religion and government.

The more power you give to people with a narrow world view, the narrower our freedoms becom. Often more narrow than supporters originally thought.

Christian nationalism, we find over and over again, doesn't encourage an ability to compromise or to work together across differences or to find a common way that we can all agree on. For them it's more and more about trying to defend a particular version of religion in the public sphere. So it's really difficult to have a pluralistic democracy, which should be founded on compromise, when increasingly Christian nationalists desire their way or nothing. So that has deep implications for our democracy.

https://www.salon.com/2020/02/29/sociologist-andrew-whitehead-how-christian-nationalism-drives-american-politics/

Christian Nationalism in Canada

Canadian dominion myth

Dominion of Canada
Claims Canada is a Christian Nation
Myth

Ged Martin, who writes:

As late as 2 February [1867], the draft bill spoke of ‘the Kingdom of Canada,’ but the [British] foreign secretary, Stanley, objected that a monarchical style ‘would wound the sensibilities of the Yankees.’ The delegates then pressed for ‘Viceroyalty,’ which [Secretary of State for the Colonies] Carnavon thought was ‘open to grave objection,’ before retreating to Dominion which was ‘somewhat in opposition to the institutions on the other side of the border,’ but not offensively so. [Lord] Derby [Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs] thought the term ‘rather absurd,’ perhaps thinking of Psalm 72, which spoke of ‘dominion also from sea to sea and from the river unto the ends of the earth.’ Not even British Columbia was that far away.

- Ged Martin, Britain and the Origins of Canadian Confederation, 1837-67 (London: Macmillan, 1995), 282. via 'Rather Absurd'

The Queen said:

no objection … if you think ‘The Dominion of Canada’ a better title for the new Confederation than Canada plain & simple.

Quoted in Ben Gilding, “The Silent Framers of British North American Union: The Colonial Office and Canadian Confederation, 1851-67,” Canadian Historical Review 99, no. 3 (September 2018): 349-93, at 389. via 'Rather Absurd'

S. Leonard Tilley said of his father, 50 years later:

The next morning, as was Sir Leonard’s custom, he read a chapter from the Bible, and that particular morning he read Psalm 72, verse 8, ‘He shall have Dominion also from sea to sea.’ When reading verse 8 of the said Psalm, the thought occurred to him, what a splendid name to give Canada, the word ‘Dominion’ of Canada. When he went back to the sitting of the convention that morning he suggested the word ‘Dominion,’ which was agreed to, and Canada was called the ‘Dominion of Canada.’[2]

‘Rather Absurd’: Christian Nationalism and the Dominion of Canada

Rise in Canada

Small, but growing
CHP & Dutch Reformed Church
COVID-19 protests
Liberty Coalition Canada
Extreme & Radical

CBC Investigates - Inside the fundamentalist Christian movement that wants to remake Canadian politics
"Internal document reveals ambitions of anti-LGBTQ group that is part of populist movement"
Reporter Jonathan Montpetit

Small, but growing. Shares US culture.
CHP & Dutch Reformed Church
COVID-19 protests
"Trinity Bible is one of the most prominent churches in a fundamentalist Christian movement that has gained momentum in Canada, initially by challenging pandemic public health restrictions."

"Liberty Coalition Canada, a conservative Christian advocacy group, is trying to raise $1.3 million to recruit hundreds of Christian politicians and campaign staff to run at all levels of government."[1] with the goal of instagating "the most powerful political disruption in Canadian history." Network of churches.

Some in the movement belong to evangelical "reconstructionism".
Liberty Coalition Canada
"Liberty Coalition Canada was formed in early 2021 by Michael Thiessen, a pastor at Grace Baptist Church in Alliston, Ont., who broke with that church over his public opposition to public health measures in place at the time." Wrote Niagara Declaration.

"Nearly 300 mostly Protestant churches and organizations across Canada, including Trinity Bible, signed the declaration. Liberty Coalition emerged as an effort to consolidate that wave of opposition and defend the rights of Christians."

Focusing on anti-LGBTQ rights.
Extreme & Radical
During a recent Liberty Coalition podcast episode, for example, a host referred to the LGBTQ "world view" as "satanic" and a "godless death cult." "rainbow mafia" was seeking to "brainwash children." His co-host, Matthew Hallick, described queerness as "sexual perversion."

Weasel wording: "Clark also writes that he wants to align Canada's laws with "biblical principles."

"We would want to see people elected to office, and installed in the academies of our country, and in our legal system … who aren't ashamed to consult God's eternal laws when it comes to the decisions that they make," he [Rock] said in a voice memo to CBC News.

Jacob Reaume doesn't know what 'Christian tyranny' could me. Partly 'No True Scotsman Fallacy'. Anything he doesn't like is either not Christian or not tyrannical. Listening to the entire discussion they never make specific policy prescriptions and so can imagine it's free and not catch any slack.

What does "God's Law Reign Supreme" actually mean. Christian Prince.

Listened to podcast. Doesn't know what Christian tyranny would be.

The Indian Act's aims were to assimilate and Christianize the Indigenous peoples.
- Forbade alcohol sales to Indigenous peoples. This lead to Indigenous people drinking in dark allies quickly. This is tyranny against buyer and seller, and resulted in myths about the inability to hold alcohol.
- Forbade religious traditions
- Forbade traditional regalia at public dance, show, exhibition, stampede or pageant.
Canadian heroine Laura Secord couldn't get married at her church because she was neither Anglican or Catholic.

https://pubtv.flfnetwork.com/tabs/search/videos/35597

Christian Tyranny

God's law to reign supreme
Align with biblical principles
Principles of Judaeo-Christian morality (Education Act)
There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.

Niagara Declaration

"Stackhouse, the Crandall University professor, studies evangelical Christianity and estimates reconstructionists account for a small minority of Canadian evangelicals. "It's on the fairly strong right wing of Calvinism or Reform Christianity,"

Reconstructionism: R.J. Rushdoony from US in '70s. "Rushdoony believed that modern societies should be organized around the Ten Commandments. He advocated capital punishment for homosexuality, adultery and abortion. His teachings had a profound influence on the Christian right. He is often credited with convincing other evangelical leaders in the U.S. of the need to oppose legalized abortion, launching the decades-long — and ultimately successful — effort to overturn Roe v. Wade."

"More recently, reconstructionism in the U.S. is often associated with Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho, and its controversial pastor, Douglas Wilson."

"So the goal is for Canada to become Christian. And, if you know your history, for Canada to become Christian again."

"People are trying to force us to go underground, just like we were underground before," said [LGBTQ activist] Russell.

EOP