Well, it's been a long time. Not sure how long exactly, feel free to tell me. I stopped or almost stopped writing on this blog because I found it so incredibly painful. And I still find it painful reflecting on divisive topics within my own culture. It's easier when you have a sense of distance, another time, another place, but when it's your own....(sigh), when it's where you live it's so incredibly hard. When it's people you know, and you find yourself thinking that you would rather be somewhere else...
And so I stopped or almost completely stopped writing on this blog a number of years ago. I felt like I had said what I needed to say at the time and I let myself move on to other interests and other concerns. Add to that, I found it very hard addressing two extremely controversial areas all at once, two painful histories, being the history of the far left and Islam and it's encounter with the West. But as I have found myself saying recently, it's like we become, or can become "strong at the broken places." Coming from a background of verbal abuse, maybe I can take more than the average person, but it's still hard, and I am still a very sensitive person by nature. But lately I've been thinking, while knowing that there probably would come a time when I would return to this, my first blog. I knew it because I've always known in the back of my mind that that is where my heart is, namely, I've always had a heart for those outside the church. I've always wanted to communicate something to them, perhaps as someone who doesn't really come from a Christian background myself, not in a consistently practicing sense, and having found something, a sense of meaning and purpose within the church, I've always wanted to try to bridge that gap, to communicate as a Christian across secular and other non-Christian spaces. And so here I am. 😊
So what brought me here this morning? We just had an election in my home city and I read an article from a CBC journalist and I thought (shrug), you can wait all your life to do things, right? I'm going to keep it simple, because I'm also learning that if you think and rethink everything you say, it's going to be a long time contributing to ongoing public discussions. I don't have all the answers. I know that. But I also see that there aren't a lot of people in these discussions who are trying to be fair to both sides, or to consider both sides, and I'm one of them. I have no interest in demonizing people who disagree with me. My heart in all of this is for ministry. That's why I went back at school at 40, after being out of school for almost 20 years, to go to seminary. I'm not running for office. I'm not seeking power in any earthly sense. What I want to do at the end of the day is to minister to people, where they're at (sigh). So, you can take this or leave this.
What I see in the following article is that this writer does not seem to have the concept that religious minorities have the right to disagree with him. If I am wrong, feel free to show me from the article why I should think that I'm wrong. Be my guest. And this is what I see from the far left, represented in what is supposed to be public broadcasting -funded by tax payers, including religious minorities, and is supposed to represent and presumably support all Canadians, not just the far-left. And it's not just him. This is what I see from these movements as a whole. There is a lack of acknowledgment that religious minorities have the right to be religious minorities. Whether it is conservative Christians or Muslims or Jews or Hindus or minorities of conscience generally: they have the right to say, we cannot agree with this for reasons of conscience, and that should be respected. Such minorities have the right to say, we do not want out children instructed in this, and we want to know if that is what is happening, because we want the right to remove our children as we deem appropriate.
Speaking personally, when my children were little, as a theologically conservative Christian, I didn't opt to send my children to a private Christian school. For one, I didn't think I could afford it, like most parents. But secondly, I wanted my children to learn to be "in the world but not of the world," to be compassionate people, to learn to work with and to love people that we might disagree with. I said from the time they were little, "we may not agree with everybody, but we love people."
My honest question, as a theologically conservative Christian, who is willing to give reasonable accomodation to other minorities including sexual minorities, are they willing to do the same? Are they willing to give religious minorities reasonable accomodation, when we disagree on controversial issues?
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ontario-school-board-trustee-investigation-1.6622705
