Christmas at Mike and Alice's

      Hope you are finding time today (Christmas) or this week to remember the birth of the world's Saviour and that you have been well all this past year! Thank you very much to all who kept in touch with us this year by fb and other ways. And if you weren't able to, we understand. Life is (too) busy! Alice and I have had (another!) very interesting year with its share of highlights and lowsomethings … not sure whether the word here is supposed to be "lowlights" – probably not!

Milestones
      We remember most of all that this past year my mom and died: Mom in the spring; Dad a couple of months ago. These were sad losses for all of us six children and all the other family. But by the end for both of them their quality of life was gone, and I think that we were all ready to leave them in the care of God till we will see them again.

After Dad's funeral, Mike third from left with all his siblings.

      Nick became a full time student in Architectural Technology at George Brown Community College in Toronto. Yeah Nick! He is working at a restaurant to keep a roof over his head. Gwen, in Halifax Nova Scotia, is again at Dalhousie U and working at Starbucks. The Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky is still her favourite author; she loves studying his thought and its effects. Chris continues his work as a doctor just outside of Toronto!


Adventures

Alice and Mike.  That's Gwen behind the cam.

      We had some awesome family times. All five of us were able to get to the bi-annual Tacoma-rama family reunion – this time in the Rocky Mountains. Flying over Canada, driving through the Alberta prairies, through the foothills and then the mountains – amazing!  Alice and I on the way home spent a week lollygagging at Wasaga Beach on Ontario's Georgian Bay and were joined by many family members and a few friends from "former lives."


Involvements

Alice jetsetting in Fredericton.

      Alice continues to love her work as math faculty at the Nova Scotia Community College a few miles from where we live. The other day we went to the staff Christmas dinner and dance. (They had me open in prayer.) As for me, in January I started leading worship at a slowly diminishing church, Emmanuel United in the next village over, Kingsport. Somehow, things seem to be turning around. From the usual 15 on a Sunday morning we sometimes approach 50. Alice was able to start Kids' Time (Sunday School) after 20 years of there being none. We decided to have a Community Christmas Service and over 200 people came. That's a part time work for me – although it could be terrific if it became full time! So, I also took a contract chaplaincy position at a nearby youth correctional facility (a jail with lots of programs). The contract ends in March. But at this time that ministry is also going very well as far as I can tell!

      Our house in Canning got painted a soft green after many repairs to the exterior and the grading. Alice and I did lot of work to it. It's over 200 years old and hopefully this year we'll deal with the inside! And for the new year, we expect to have living us with a third cousin, or something like that – I can't really figure that one out – of Alice's. Tara Teune will move into our place for her next semester at Acadia University. She is studying music therapy. So we are sure things will be very pleasant around here for these next few months as she fills our place with music!

      God bless you all through 2013! - Alice and Mike




   

Reading the Bible with Neil Peart, Mick Jagger, and Sandy

People will often say to me that they tried to read the Bible but didn't get very far. This is totally understandable. It would be arrogant to think it is not. The writers didn't write for you or me. They were writing for people of their time. Yet, interestingly, what they said continues to ring true.

Really? Yes, and in fact that should not be very surprising. We often see this phenomenon in the history of writing. For example, Shakespeare wrote for the audiences of his time. Yet many still find truth in his words.

Yet, far be it from me to at this point to tell you to read the entire Bible. I won't ask for that much today. I will be thrilled if you, esteemed reader, for the first time, read just the first page. Genesis, chapter one. As they say, Is that too much to ask?

This is the chapter that speaks about the world being created in seven days. Therefore whenever people outside of Christian churches refer to it, they typically dismiss it. After all, no one except deluded fundamentalists takes this sort of creation mythology seriously, they confidently tell us. Believers look down at their shoes and hope not to make eye contact.

The first chapter of the Bible, though should be taken seriously as the starting point for life, yours and mine. If it is not we expose ourselves to peril. Take the opening line. It is magisterial. In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth. Think of these ten words as an announcement accompanied by thunderous fanfare – horns, other brass instruments, and percussion by the Toronto Symphony and Neil Ellwood Peart. 

This opening line firmly places God at the foundation of the world. Behold! The creator of this incredible stage, the designer of all the sets. And, although not the writer of every part of the script – as Sir Michael Philip Mick Jagger once sang, Satan too has opportunity to throw in his bits, as do you and I – God is nonetheless the creator of mind, speech, and every being, which in turn, beget more beings.

Next line. The opening scene. It's a storm on the high seas. Shape-shifting cold, dark, watery chaos. Hurricane Sandy. No place for living things. But the Spirit of God is there, hovering over the uninviting dark. Ready to energize and give order. And then, scene two, God speaks, like an ancient middle eastern king to his court. "Let there be. . . ."

Order replaces the chaos. Day and night. Sky and water. Land with vegetation. And then items to fill those places. Stars, moon, and sun. Fish and birds. All kinds of animals. And finally, as the pinnacle, humans. And to humans God says, "It's all yours! This is your home. Fill it with your tent dwelling tribes, nations, libraries, colleges, concerts, machines, and stories. Make your home even more blessed and beautiful than I have made it. Create with me. Give order to it as I have given order to it. Celebrate with me."

At our peril we forget that only God is God. Without faith in God, we place our faith elsewhere, anywhere. Where atheism grows, religion thrives. Without God we overplay the appropriate remembrance of the war dead and make a religion of the sacrifices of veterans. Without God we over-invest in ideology, placing our faith in capitalism, socialism, Nazism, revolution, the American Way, and the Canadian Way. Good luck with that. Or we overemphasize the importance of body building, individual rights, the stock market, real estate, hockey, the latest celebrity on offer, or just about anything else that moves us.

At our peril we forget why we exist. We exist to enjoy the blessings God placed on the whole human race; we exist to make our planet more and more a paradise, not an exhausted, depleted shell of its former self – which is where our present trajectory will bring us; we exist to enjoy the diverse cultures we are able to bring to life; we exist to live without fear and terror, and to live free from tyrannies of all kinds, including the tyranny of bullies who become politicians and the tyranny of modern economists who claim that they are the way, the truth, and the life.

Yes, we have messed up, as page two or three of Genesis teaches. Messed up from the beginning, all of us involved in the destruction. But that doesn't negate the other stuff, the prior things, the first things. In fact, they will never be negated. Jesus Christ was born, died, and was raised from the dead to bring them back "with a vengeance." But that’s another story, though one that can only be understood in the light of the Bible's page one.

Deeds of Renown: A Tribute to My Dad

Lammert Veenema, born April 29, in the year of our Lord, 1925 of parents Michiel and Baukje Veenema in the province of Friesland, the Netherlands. Father to us six children who shed many tears in this week of farewell but who also remember his many deeds of renown.

He ate his way through many large meals provided by his wife of almost 60 years and he loved her cooking. He was the provider of many roofs over our heads, of our educations, of the clothing we wore, and of the food we ate for decades without giving it a second thought.

He yodeled his way through the forests of Friesland and Nova Scotia, and through many construction sites in Ontario. His construction supervisors would ask him to yodel to announce coffee break and lunch time. 

When Dad was just 13 he would walk and bike to a rowboat, row down a canal in Friesland, and then disembark to take the bike yet many more kilometers to his place of work. Also in his early years, Dad was an artist. We kids still keep copies of his beautiful ink sketches in our homes. Sketches of windmills, winter scenes, fields, and woodlands.

Dad was the famed Nickel Man of the landscaping industry in the 1970s for he received five cents for each roll of sod he planted. In one day he would lay down the equivalent of a football field of sod, and no doubt that grass continues to grow today in backyards from Ancaster to Windsor. He was the constructor of the vast Century 21 Tower in the downtown core of Hamilton and of many lesser buildings throughout southern Ontario. People still walk, and cars still park, on the concrete he poured.

Dad sat us six kids on his knees, and if it were possible, he would have held us there all at the same time, and if it were possible he would have had six more. We kids, sitting on the top of his foot, would hang on to his leg as he would bestride the living room, the hall way, and the kitchen of the house.

He was the feller of trees. Even ancient, deeply rooted, 100 feet tall willow trees were no match for his axe. Even though he downed trees, he was a lover of things that grew, and the planter of beans and potatoes, of onions and tomatoes. He was the grower of chickens and the collector of their eggs. He cared for horses and cattle. He planted flowers and cleared brush. If he had been in the Bible story of the first human when “no plant had yet grown for there was no one to till the ground,” Dad would have volunteered to plant the whole world with growing things and tame every jungle. He would have had to be restrained.

He and close friend Arend Smit planted many crops in the fields of Nova Scotia in the 1950s. While we lived there Dad stripped the bark off logs destined for pulp mills, loaded barrels of apples onto ocean going vessels and unloaded the fertilizer they brought to Port Williams.

He was the inventor of the Man Cave. Long before the expression was cool, Dad built a shed in the far reaches of his lands in Fenwick. He would invite the men of the neighbourhood into his cave and there they would discuss politics and the weather.

Dad was a lover of world history, of Lawrence Welk, of Jackie Gleason, the antics of professional wrestlers, and of opportunities that immigration to Canada offered him. He was the reader of World War II history and of tens of thousands of newspaper articles, and the watcher of as many news shows. He was the fabled singer of the Friesian bushlands who, with his brothers was renowned in the region of Beesterzwaag for striding through the woods raising their voices together in song. He was a member of many church choirs. 

Along with Mom and several other families in Kentville, Nova Scotia, he was the founder of the Kentville Christian Reformed church. He was the financial supporter of many churches and many efforts to help the poor in Christ’s name nearby and around the world. He joined with others to found Christian Schools without government funding. Those schools thrive today.

He astounded the medical profession with his defiance. Losing his hair to malaria while in Indonesia, he grew it all back and never lost it again. He had little patience with doctors. This was probably because they once told him that after his rheumatic fever he would have to take a desk job or risk heart attack. He rose up and did hard physical work for another six decades. In truth a desk job would have killed him.

Dad was a walking telephone directory, a reader of the Encyclopedia Britannica, and the keeper of many historical facts. He was a lover of jokes, and even to the very end could manage a little smile and a funny comment to John or one of the others who was at his bedside in his last hours. Even more, Dad was lover of his grand kids who often competed for the very coveted title of “favourite.”

Many years ago, Dad and Waltje fell in love. Dad was a handsome man with a great smile who, if he had lived in Southern California, could probably have had a career in film. And Mom was a beautiful young woman with dark hair and a great love for her family. Together they survived many difficult years, and some things that were heart breaking.

In earlier years, we did not hear from Dad’s lips the expression, “I love you.” But in later decades it was as if he was making up for lost opportunities. Every visit, every phone call, would end with him saying, “I love you,” and we treasure having heard those words many times.

Dad was a confessor of his sins – something I experienced from Dad when he was in despair. He would say that Jesus Christ was his Lord and Saviour.

Dad was a servant of the most renowned of all. The Lord of Lord, King of Kings, healer of the sick, rescuer of the downtrodden, Lion of Judah, Elohim, Yahweh, Judge of the Living and the Dead, Restorer of the World, Reconciler of all things, forgiver of sins, Creator of the world, first born in the resurrection of the dead, the destroyer of war, the Good Shepherd, the discomforter of all the arrogant, the comforter of all who are troubled and reach for him, the visible image of very God, the one who empathizes and sympathizes with all our weaknesses, the Prince of Peace, and the giver of joy.

Dad is in the keeping of his Lord, Christ, till the day of resurrection when we will see him in the renewed earth. We will see him probably with an axe in one hand and a horse bridle in the other. We will see him perhaps with Mom nearby, still admiring the man she fell in love with, who provided for us all these many years.

But before we see him, we will probably hear him. Yodeling.

Remembering Mom

This is what I said at the funeral for Mom, the morning of April 23, 2012 at Bethany Christian Reformed Church, Fenwick, Ontario.

Until a few days ago, our family was eight. Now we are seven.  Mom is the first person on the Veenema side of all our families to pass away. I've been asked to share some memories of Mom and what I have done is try to put together some of the things we have often talked about when we remember the years gone by.

First of all I want to thank everyone for all you've done to make today happen. Our family is very grateful that so many of you are able to join us this morning to remember our mom and to say good bye to her. Among our family too: People flew in from far away. You took time off work. John and Demet bought Dad a very nice outfit. Barb made all kinds of arrangements for yesterday's visitation and for the services today. We're all very grateful for all that Barb and her family have done during the past ten years or so to look after Mom: countless trips to see Mom and Dad; and many, many hours of spending time with them, making sure they got to their appointments, and that they had all they needed. Reinie and John making many trips to see Mom and Dad as the months and years unfolded – spending many afternoons with our parents. And the grandchildren, often came to cheer up Pake and Beppe with a smile, a story, or a funny comment. Competing for who is the favourite granddaughter. These kinds of things are so important and all of us will always remember the kindness you have been showing to Mom and Dad and sharing with them.

My earliest memories of mom are her cooking over a wood stove in Nova Scotia, and of providing us with meals around the family table. As time went on, other memories accumulated. Many of them were of Mom struggling with poor health, frequent migraines and stays in the hospital. Dad and mom left Holland for Canada right after they were married in 1952. Sometimes we would joke that they were still on their honeymoon. And in this country, they had really, two sets of children. Three in Nova Scotia, and three here in Ontario.

Many of our memories of Mom are about how she was always there for Dad and how she took care of us kids, especially if she felt we are in trouble. Of course, there are the many meal times that we remember and also the dreaded houten leppel. Mom was generous. Up until the last days when Mom was still able to have her own apartment, whenever I would visit, she would make sure that I always left with a couple of oranges, a bun, or some almond fingers. She always seemed to have on hand some nick nacks or some used things, or things she had maybe bought in a dollar store to give away in case we needed it. Later in life I wondered if this is something that her mom, Beppe Rinske, always did too – having things new or used to give to relatives who might need them. Mom was a hard worker.

I remember that in Nova Scotia she cleaned house for my grade one teacher. This would have been probably 1959. The teacher's name was Mrs. Blenkhorn. I recall that one day Mom took me along to the house. When the cleaning was done, it was time to go home. Mom and I prepared to leave by the side door of the house. But Mrs. Blenkhorn insisted, "Use the front door to go outside. It's much shorter. You will be half way home when you step out the house." I thought this was going to be very interesting. To somehow end up half way down the street just by using a different door of the house. So, I was quite disappointed when we stepped outside and, as far as I could tell, we were nowhere near half way home!

In Ontario, Mom helped us to adjust to life. She made the large yellow house near Dundas into a clean and hospitable home for us. I still love meals with potatoes, green vegetables, gravy, apple sauce and over-cooked meat best of any. Sometimes while Mom was in the kitchen preparing supper, I would sit on the counter and talk and talk about new thoughts that were coming into my mind. She just listened. I think that one the very neat life lessons Mom taught us all was that the connections between people, especially family members, were very precious. I think she must have learned this from her own parents.

I learned in later years that Mom did not attend many years of school. She was often too ill to attend classes. And my feeling is that her mom and dad were very kind and affectionate to their little girl. The reason I say that is because Mom loved and respected her mom and dad enormously. If I am right about this, it explains why mom missed her family and the Friesian village of Beetsterzwaag where she grew up so very much. I will always remember how when her mom and dad, my Pake and Beppe came to visit their daughter in Canada for the first time. The tears of reunion, letting go of all the pain of missing her parents, flowed for a very long time when they saw each other that day in 1964.

One of the things I have realized during these past years is that it is good that whenever possible, family members remain close together, to be there to enjoy happy times together and sad ones too, but mostly to do life together, week by week. This is a value that mom taught us, and we should try to live it out as best as we can.

For my mom, the modern world was not a kind place. Ships took her across thousands of miles of ocean, separating her from her village and family. Canada, a country that embraced modern ways, had too much heavy traffic, and forced Mom's children to go to schools when she would have loved to keep us home a little longer. Mom looked to doctors year after year for relief from her migraines and didn't really get that relief.

Mom was blessed with [a husband who greatly loved her. And in her last years especially she was blessed with very good care, particularly during her final years at Shalom Manor. And although her last year she never really talked much, and never walked, as children we were always grateful that the manor was there for both Mom and Dad.

Last week Barb called us all to say that mom was no longer receiving food or liquids. She said that we should all come to be with her during her final hours. On Friday afternoon we were all there. After a few hours of all being in the room with Mom, we were somehow drawn into a circle of prayer. We held hands with Mom and Dad, we sang quite a few of the old hymns that Pakke and Beppe know so well. And we prayed that Mom would soon be allowed to go to God. A couple of hours later we watched her breathing change, sometimes counting the seconds between breathes. And then there was a deep breath. Forty seconds and still no inhale. Dad held Mom's hand and spoke to her.  He lingered with Mom for a long time.

So, now she is with God, and is in peace, waiting like so many others, for the resurrection of the dead, and the renewing of the heavens and the earth.  We love you Mom. And when we see you again, all the things that we should not have not have said may be remembered but will soon be put aside and maybe even eventually forgotten. And all the things we would like to have said can be said. Mom will be healed of all that troubled her, and so will we all. And all will be well.

For a number of years I would practice guitar upstairs in my room. I think it got quite loud downstairs. Mom would sometimes say to me, "You know, your playing is very nice, but could you play a little softer?" So, this song, Mom, will be a little softer.

Now the green blade rises from the buried grain
Wheat that in the dark earth many years has lain
Love lives again, that with the dead has been
Love is come again, like wheat that springs up green.

In the grave they laid Him, Love Whom we had slain
Thinking that He’d never wake to life again
Laid in the earth like grain that sleeps unseen
Love is come again, like wheat that springs up green.

Forth he came at Easter, like the risen grain
He that for three days in the grave had lain
Up from the dead my risen Lord is seen
Christ is come again, like wheat a-rising green.

When our hearts are saddened, grieving or in pain
By Your touch You call us back to life again
Fields of our hearts that dead and bare have been
Christ is come again, like wheat a-rising green.

The Trinity Matters - Here's Why

      Take your pick. There are a lot of concepts of God out there and you can choose the one that's right for you. Of course, the logic of this does not escape most of us. If there are a lot of God concepts, and if they are all quite opposed to each other (which they are), then one obvious conclusion is that none of them is true and we can jettison the whole project of deciding which God is real. None is.
      However, churches all through the world claim that not only is God real, but that he can be understood and described in a way that is helpful to all people. (In other words, although we can't know everything about God by a very, very long shot, we can know enough.) The core of the Christian understanding of God is that he is three persons, three, tri-, a tri-unity, or Trinity. This is why, for example, we see many churches named "Trinity." A church just down the street from me is called Trinity United. (Actually it's closed, and although that's important, it isn't for this article.)
      I think that understanding God as Trinity matters.
      But just before I elaborate on that, let me dwell a little longer on my opening sentences: Yes, there are a lot of concepts of God. In competition with the understanding of Trinity, for example, the Muslim understanding is that God is radically one. The Qur'an heaps criticism on those who believe God is somehow three. Actually, the Qur'an has a notion of the Trinity that Christians find bizarre. It assumes that by "Trinity" Christians mean God, Jesus, and Mary, the mother of Jesus. And Christians, along with Muslims, don't abide by that understanding of the Trinity.
      But in addition to the Muslim understanding of God as one there are many other God options. Native spiritual leaders have ideas of God, emphasizing God as creator. Made-in-the-U. S. A. religions such as Mormonism, Scientology, Jehovah's Witnesses, and many others have their own understandings of God. Celebrity spiritualites such as Oprah's have certain assumptions about God that would not necessarily fit well with the God concepts of others.
      Does seeing God as Trinity, however, offer a way of cutting through the many options, ending up with one that at a deep level, "feels right" to people. I think it does.
      First of all, the Trinity is a community. God is certainly one, but one what? At the risk of oversimplifying, I am going to state that God is one community. One. One community of three persons. (Some readers may want me to support what I'm saying by quoting the Bible. If you are one of those, just write me and I'll provide that. I need to keep this a short.)
      But how exactly is it helpful that God is a community? In two ways. First, God as a community supports the human experience that we are here to be community. I forget if it was Sartre or Camus who said, "Hell is other people." Perhaps he was having a bad decade or feeling mischievous. In any event he was mistaken. Our origin is rooted in a creator who is himself a community. This is no small matter because it properly relativizes our other urges to out-compete our neighbours or leave them twisting in the wind when they get in trouble. The Trinity delegitimizes violence and means the end of war. It deeply validates the pursuit of fair and just societies. Treat everyone well. No spitting on referees. The Trinity needs to be announced to everyone.
      Second, each of the three persons of the Trinity contributes to a balanced understanding of life and the world. Consider God as Creator (or Father). To see God as Creator helps us in seeing the unity of all things living and (apparently) lifeless. There is a oneness, a unity, a continuity in the fabric of the created world. This helps us value the planetary environment and gives us the goal of caring for all the world to the best of our ability. For obvious reasons this needs to be announced in today's world.
      Consider Jesus as God. This helps us work through something else. Yes, there is unity in the created world. But there is also disruption, breakdown, injustice, or in two words, sin and evil. This double-headed problem runs very deep. To address this problem Jesus was born, actively taught, was executed, and was raised from the dead (there's a lot more to this story, but again, space considerations). Jesus is God addressing an ugly situation.
      All is not well with the world or with us. We need forgiveness, healing, and restoration. The work of God as Jesus Christ provides a way forward where human beings can live with confidence before God, experience restoration, and look forward to the day when that restoration will be complete.
      Finally, consider God as Holy Spirit. This brings us into another area, the area of renewed life. While Jesus Christ carved out a path of restoration and re-union with the Creator Father, the Holy Spirit, also God, freely distributes a whole lot of good stuff. These include courage, trust, faith, hope, and above all, love. They also include healings and miracles. If you listen to the stories of Christians you will often accounts of prayers being answered concretely and impressively. And you will find many instances of people living purposeful lives that spread healing and hope to those with whom they have contact. The Spirit is God without borders. He is everywhere, opening people to God and renewing life wherever God is welcomed – and even in some places where he is not.

Aboriginal and Child Activist, Enemy of the Country

      Late in 2011 Canadians learned that the RCMP and others have been keeping surveillance on Cindy Blackstock. Blackstock is a noted children's wellness and aboriginal advocate.
      In 2007 her organization, the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society, filed a human rights complaint against the federal government saying that aboriginal children are not given the same benefits as non-aboriginals. Not long after she filed, Blackstock says, her relationship with the department of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development (AAND) "changed." When the department held a meeting with Ontario Native chiefs, she was barred from the room. A security guard was posted to make sure she complied.
      That event moved Blackstock to make a request under the Access to Information Act. Over a year and half later the surveilance file that AAND had gathered landed on her desk. It disturbed Blackstock to find that government staff had followed her across the country to over 75 meetings. One incident was particularly revealing to her. A government staff used their personal identity after hours to go on Facebook and photograph her profile page. This suggests to Blackstock that AAND did not want to use its own identity when looking for her personal information.
      According to one reporter, "This is the latest in a series of revelations about the government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper and its penchant for keeping tabs on its aboriginal citizens. Back in June, Mohawk Nation activist Russell Diabo, and Shiri Pasternak, a Toronto-based writer, researcher and organizer, brought to light similar surveillance that involved not only AAND, but also the RCMP. Such monitoring of aboriginal groups had begun with the advent of Harper’s first government in 2005."
      That the government and the police should monitor Canadians, including aboriginal leaders, where there is a reasonable possibility of violence is not something most Canadians would dispute. But what has Cindy Blackstock done that is so threatening?
      An article posted by the Ontario Association of Social Workers reveals her as a thoughtful worker for the integration of ethics and social work. "[Blackstock] calls upon social workers to actively engage in reconciliation, beginning with an active learning process informed by [aboriginal] history, and inspired by [aboriginal] values and vision. She notes that: 'It takes courage to understand that sometimes it was we, "the social work good guys", who were doing the harm. By engaging in reconciliation, we will be part of co-creating a social work profession nested within Canadian society where aboriginal and non-aboriginal peoples can co-exist in friendship with all their rights recognized.'"
      In one of her own papers posted online Blackstock contrasts cultural differences between aboriginal cultures and modern thinking. For example the modern world view emphasizes present and futuristic knowledge while ancestral cultures value knowledge that has held up for a long time in the past. Aboriginal cultures recognize their inter-relatedness with the natural world while modern people see humans as more or less independent of nature, if not dominating it.
      Aboriginal people look to integrated stories and practices to address specific issues. In contrast modern techniques emphasize breaking problems down into distinct parts with treatments administered by experts in a supposedly neutral, professional environment. While the aboriginal approach has its weaknesses, the modern approach can make the individual can feel confused and manipulated, more like a cog than a whole person.
      Blackstock has a great deal to offer the continuing dialogue between modern and native Canadians. Therefore we can wonder, along with reporters, why she has been treated as an enemy of the country.

This article is based in part on an article by Annette Francis of the Aboriginal People's Television Network, online postings by the Indian Country Today Media Network, and related video files.

The Real Jesus "Hates Religion"

      Jefferson Bethke, a young Seattle poet, believes that Jesus hates religion. It will surprise some readers that Jesus hated it because most of us think that he founded the Christian religion. Yet, that's exactly the point of Bethke's YouTube video.
      The four minute clip has gone viral and has spawned video variations such as "Why I hate religion and Jesus too," and "Why I love Jesus and religion too." Heavy hitters in North American media such as CNN have been paying attention to it too.
      So have critics. Fr. Dwight Longenecker writes in an online article for First Things that trying to cut Jesus away from religion is a lost cause. For example, as he notes, it is almost impossible to know anything about Jesus except from the New Testament (part of the Christian Bible), and the New Testament was written, collected, printed, and reprinted by the church, a religious community.
      What exactly then is Bethke's beef? In the first part of the video he tells us. The church has started religious wars. It builds huge buildings while neglecting the poor. It claims to be affiliated with the U. S.'s Republican Party. And it allowed him, once a church kid, to parade his righteousness while hiding his regular use of porn.
      Well, what about these complaints? First, Bethke equates church with religion. That's a problem, as we've already seen. But let that pass for now.
      Ok, what about the wars thing? Yes, wars in Europe during the 1600s were fueled by different understandings of Christianity or church, that is, religion. On the other hand, the strongest proponents of pacifism are Christians. Canada's James Loney, for example, practices his pacifism as a member of Christian Peacemakers. And Christian pacifism is promoted by officially recognized Christian groups, "religious" bodies, such as the Mennonite Church.
      What about constructing expensive buildings versus taking care of the poor? Well sure, there are expensive church buildings. The other day I visited St. Patrick's Catholic Cathedral in Manhattan. Big. Opulent, sort of. Expensive, no doubt. And within a few blocks I saw a poor woman, crumpled up on the sidewalk, alive, but barely. A clear example of the church's neglect of the poor and its greed.
      But really? That same church, I'll bet my Starbucks Christmas gift card, funds outreach to the poor of New York just as the churches of (fill in any other North American city) are helping the poor, providing food, volunteers, and space. You don't have to look very hard to see that the church is a leading, perhaps the leading, provider of assistance to the poor in the Third World.
      And of course, Bethke's use of porn when he was a teen was not good and hopefully he's off that. It seems a little odd though for him to blame his church for his teenage double standard.
      Still, I credit Bethke for trying to show what Jesus was all about. Definitely he was against the hypocrisy of the Jewish religious leaders of his day who, while talking up the law of God were plotting to kill him. Incidentally, the fact that Jesus and most of his original followers were Jewish means that discrimination against Jews has no place among Christians; admiration would be more fitting. Jesus did not reject the poor or people found to be in sexual or relational difficulties. He sought them out, welcomed them, and gave them a new path. He did not ask his followers to build buildings but he did show the way for people to love each other even though such love can be very risky, very costly.
      Bethke is off base about some things. But he is right on to try cutting through some layers of confusion to get to the real Jesus. Jesus is the one to watch and the controversial video may help spark some needed clarification.

Religion and Canadian Politics

People often say that religion and politics don't mix. When they do, there is often a comment about the "separation of church and state." Or if the speaker has a knack for history, there might be a statement or two about the Wars of Religion that made Europe a less-than-five-star tourist attraction for some decades.

To be accurate, we should remember that the "separation of church and state" is an American mantra that here, a few kilometers north of Washington, we seem to have picked up by osmosis, or from American media; one of the two anyway. And the religion people have in mind in the "separation" as well as in the Wars of Religion is not just any religion. It's Christianity.

As I consider what Canada has become though, it seems to me that it is not possible to imagine the country without the traditions specific churches have brought. Consider the tradition of Presbyterian orderliness, the social justice currents of the Catholic Church (probably three quarters of the past members of the Liberal Party were Catholic), and the values of community and inclusion one sees expressed in the United Church of Canada.

Nevertheless, as with our friends south of Windsor and west of Port Huron, Canadians don't go in for political parties being aligned with churches. Ditto for mosques, synagogues, temples, and sweat lodges. And most Canadians have no patience with wars fought in the name of any religion.

Having said that, Canadian politics, and education too, have a long history of personalities who were inspired by their Christian religious views to lead the way they did. Most of the universities in this fair land were started by Christian ministers. Look up, for example, the roots of the University of Western Ontario. Or consider the person credited with founding Canadian health care and the NDP. He is none other than a Baptist church minister, Tommy Douglas.

Christianity has, in fact, generated quite a number of people who, here in Canada, have been able to avoid mixing the institutions of church and nation while at the same time figuring out how to integrate their Christian faith with their political life.

Roman Catholic, Paul Martin, past prime minister of Canada, became well known for his attempts to define how his faith and politics relate. He acknowledged that in some areas, homosexual rights for example, the Catholic Church's views might not win the day. But that did not stop him from hoping to give good leadership to the whole country. Elizabeth May, current leader of the Green Party, has made public her attempts to integrate her faith and her politics. She is a clergy of the Anglican church.

Up until recently – well, until 2008, which to some readers seems recent and to others not so much – one of Canada's leading Members of Parliament worked to integrate his religious perspectives and his political life. And he did pretty well. William Blaikie was an NDP member from 1979 to 2008, making him Canada's longest serving MP yet. Then, up until 2011 he served as NDP member of the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba. He is also an official minister of the United Church of Canada, the largest Protestant (non-Catholic) church in the country.

According to the online newsletter of Emmanuel College, the United Church's theological school, Blaikie has worked hard to find a language that makes Christian views understood in public discussions. At the same time he has championed opportunities for those who have different commitments to also make their contributions.

What difference, though, you might ask, could a religious voice make in public political discourse? Well, take our relationship with political power itself. We typically have two alternatives. The first is to buy into the political power structures without asking serious questions about the way politics seems virtually wedded to economics, by which I mean large business. The second is to join protest movements, to write off politics and business and condemn both houses.

Influenced by his Christian theology, Blaikie writes that he wants to avoid both accommodation to the powers that be and withdrawl into protest mode. Instead, his approach as a political leader has been two-fold: to encourage respect for all voices in our institutions of power and to seek common core values and the political goals those values suggest.

Blaikie is a long-standing example of how many Canadians have attempted to bring their faith to bear on public policy discussions. He joins a national tradition advanced by those who work to integrate Christianity with public life. Go Bill.