New moderator of United Church of Canada wants denomination to think small

 

“We May Not Be Big, But We’re Small.” 

That was the motto of The Vinyl Cafe, a fictional record store owned by Dave, a character featured in the stories of the late Canadian author and CBC radio host Stuart McLean. 

It could also be the new motto for the United Church of Canada, according to its newly-elected moderator Kimberly Heath. 

“Our identity as United Church people is to think of ourselves as big,” said Heath, who was elected on Aug. 9 at the denomination’s 45th General Council. 

For a long time, Heath says, United Church members took pride in being the largest Protestant denomination in Canada; in being a “church that matters.” 

But that was the past, she said. “That idea of ourselves as big is not helping us today.”

Read my interview with Heath in Canadian Affairs.

Mixing aid and evangelism; not a good idea

Should giving out aid and evangelism be mixed? 

That question was prompted by an e-mail I received about a group of rural Christian youth who went to downtown Winnipeg to hand out food and water to homeless people and evangelize them. (“Four people were saved,” they said.) 

I have my own opinions. (No, they should not be mixed.) But I decided to ask some people who have experience with homelessness in the city: Julianne Aitken, executive director at Siloam Mission, and Tobi Jolly, who directs community wellness for that organization. 

Read their responses in my Free Press column. 

P.S. Ignore the headline on the column in the newspaper. I don’t write them. The answer is not complicated for me at all.

New paper describes three stages of religious decline in countries around the world

 

A new paper promoted by the Pew Research Centre describes what it says are the three stages of religious decline in countries around the world. 

In the first stage, people let go of aspects of religion that require more time and resources — things such as attending services. Next, they shed beliefs, partly because they are no longer being reinforced (or policed) in religious settings. 

The last thing to go is identity. People may not attend services or even believe in religious doctrines anymore, but they still call themselves Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus or Buddhist. The authors suggest religious identity hangs on longer since it isn’t burdensome; it doesn’t require anything in the way of time, devotion or resources. 

According to the authors, religion starts strong in rural and agrarian societies. As societies modernize and urbanize, and people become more educated, reliance on religious authority decreases. 

Generational change also drives the shift; each generation tends to be less religious than the previous one, as does religious diversity. 

And the transition from religious to less religious happens no matter what major religion is dominant in a country — Christian, Muslim, Hindu or Buddhist. Some countries are further along (e.g. in Europe), others have further to go (e.g. the U.S.). Canada is near the end of the second stage. 

Read more in my Free Press column.

James Dobson and his complicated legacy, including conversion therapy

Some people, when they die, leave complicated legacies. James Dobson, who died at age 89 on Aug. 21, was one of those people. 

Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, was known across North America for his strong advocacy of a brand of conservative Christian morality that he packaged as “family values.” His views on disciplining children shaped generations of children, especially in evangelical families. 

For some, Dobson was a positive force. But others viewed him in a very different light. This included Christians who were members of the LGBTTQ+ community. Dobson saw homosexuality as sin and he opposed LGBTTQ+ rights and same-sex marriage. At the same time, he promoted the discredited idea of conversion therapy to change LGBTTQ+ people into heterosexuals. 

One person who knows the negative impact of Dobson’s teaching is Lucas Wilson of Toronto. Wilson, 34, is a member of the LGBBTQ+ community and a survivor of conversion therapy. He has compiled a book of stories about the negative effects of conversion therapy, called Shame-Sex Attraction: Survivors’ Stories of Conversion Therapy. 

Read my column in the Free Press about Dobson, conversion therapy and Wilson’s book.

Is traditional religion obsolete, like the typewriter? New book says yes

When I started my career over 40 years ago, I used a typewriter to write all my stories. It worked fine; I had no complaints back then. 

But now I have a computer with a sophisticated word processing program. I could still use a typewriter, if I wanted — it still would work. But for me, like for most people, typewriters are obsolete. 

Is something similar happening in the world of traditional, or institutional, religion? For Christian Smith, one of the premier scholars about religion in the U.S., the answer is yes. 

Like the typewriter of old, the way religion is still organized into denominations and practiced today—appointment-style services with a few songs and a sermon delivered top-down by clergy with no chance to engage the topic during the delivery—is obsolete for many, especially younger people. 

That’s the argument he makes in his new book Why Religion Went Obsolete: The Demise of Traditional Faith in America (Oxford University Press). 

Read about Smith’s new book in my Free Press column.

Winnipeg bride realizes dream of meeting pope

 

Sometimes you just need a fun and uplifting story—like this one, about a Winnipeg bride who realized her dream of a lifetime when she and her husband received a blessing from Pope Leo XIV in Rome. 

Bénédicte LeMaître, 31, and Stéphan Kosowski, 38, who were married on July 25, got tickets from the Vatican to sit in the “Sposi novelli,” or “newlyweds,” section in St. Peter’s Square for the pope’s general audience on July 30. 

“It’s been my dream in life to meet a pope,” said LeMaître. 

But it gets better; after the general audience, Bénédicte and Stéphan received a personal blessing from him.

Read my story in the Free Press.

Sean Feucht: Bringing "revival" to Canada or doing the opposite? Some observations about the controversial American right-wing singer

 

Some observations about Sean Feucht, the controversial American right-wing, anti-LGBTTQ+ and pro-Trump evangelical Christian worship leader, who was slated to perform in Winnipeg’s Central Park on Aug. 20. 

The city refused to grant him a permit for that public space. In other cities where that happened, Feucht claimed he was being persecuted. But was he? Or was he just a victim of his own American hubris for failing to do any homework about Canada. If he had done that, he would have learned we are a different country than the U.S. 

Another thing: Fuecht thinks he is coming to Canada to bring revival to this country. In fact, he will likely end up pushing more people away from Christianity, due to his strident anti-LGBTTQ+ views. 

And finally: His visit, though unwelcomed by many, might be a gift to Canadian Christians. It might prompt them to think that if Feucht’s brand of faith isn’t what they want to look like in society, what does a Canadian form of Christianity look like, anyway? 

Read more about Feucht and his coming to Canada in my latest column in the Winnipeg Free Press.