"God" in Our Constitution: Good or Bad?

John Stackhouse Jr., professor at Regent College, agrees with MP Sven Robinson that "God" should be removed from the preamble to the Constitution. In his regular column in Faith Today (Sept/Oct 99, p. 54), he wrote, "As a Canadian Christian, guided by principles of both Canadian citizenship and Christian neighborliness, therefore, I think we should delete the references to God from our Constitution and anthem."

His argument essentially is that since Christianity didn’t play much of a role in the writing of the British North America Act of 1867, because Canada’s founders had no driving sense of divine destiny in the founding of the country, Christians, to be good neighbors, shouldn’t taint public documents or rituals with anything Christian to avoid offending non-Christians.

Historians may dispute the role of Christian faith in Canada’s formation, but two recent prime ministers think otherwise. Prime Minister Trudeau, in an interview on 100 Huntley Street, said, "The golden thread of faith is woven throughout the history of Canada from its earliest beginnings up to the present time. Faith was more important than commerce in the minds of European explorers and settlers." To which Joe Clark added, "I ask that we never forget the faith and the vision of the people who originally brought this country together, the Fathers of Confederation, who from the depths of their own profound faith took as their guide a verse from the Psalms ... ‘We pray that God’s sovereignty over our Canada continues to bless and guide us.’"

Diminished by the shadow cast by our neighbors to the south, we forget that the "manifest destiny" vision of the United States, literally to take over the land and make it “Christian”, also was at the heart of Canada’s founders. From our very beginnings, be it Roman Catholics from France or Anglicans from England, the Canadian community began with a Christendom hope and view of what this new land would become. Canadian sociologist S.D. Clark wrote, "There are few countries in the Western world in which religion exerted as great an influence" in shaping the social and cultural life as in Canada.

For Stackhouse, the critical issue is: Is it fair and even Christian for Canada to have at its heart affirmations that are theistic? Are the secularists—and in this ironic hand-holding, John Stackhouse Jr. as well—right in insisting that all of our legal assumptions and public ceremonies should be devoid of anything alluding to God? Are we being Christian and thus fair to our neighbors by supporting our Constitution which is framed by this preamble: "Canada was founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law."?

Some argue that the principles of civility and community which have shaped and continue to shape this country are more rooted in the Christian story than in any other. This is not to excuse our history of abuses. But neither does it disprove the fundamental assumption which Canadians—including the framers of the Constitution—found as a common chord when it was penned in 1982. Trudeau showed no interest in promoting Christianity, nor did the others around the table. So if those framers in the early 1980s agreed that a belief in God reflects our heritage and most common assumption, why should we who believe it has value work to have it removed?

And what of the national anthem? The words, "God keep our land ..." are not sectarian. The canopy of this language is wide enough for most Canadians to find a place. The objection is that if there is even one who feels left out, as Christians we are bound by Christ’s call—to do unto others as we would have them do unto us—to eliminate what brings them discomfort.

Recently Canada has bent over backwards to give space and comfort to those of many faiths. The 1982 Constitution has provided freedom from discrimination on the basis of a number of characteristics including religion. This I applaud as fair and good. But to extrapolate from those principles that we must therefore strip every remaining expression of theistic affirmations from every public document or celebration is to admit that what we hold as basic and dear doesn’t really mean much to us at all.

A parent from Edmonton, commenting on Christian prayers in public schools, called in to As It Happens and said that as a person with a faith other than Christian he came to Canada because as a Christian country it offered him and his family the greatest religious freedom in the world. He concluded by saying that now that he was here, please don’t strip Christian symbols and values from Canadian life. In his view, those were what made Canada great, and if that historic faith were eliminated, Canada would become lesser not greater.

Last year the Prime Minister’s Office forbade the chaplain in Halifax from using the name of Jesus or from reading from the New Testament at the memorial service for the Swissair victims. What does one do? Bow to the lowest denominator of so-called neutral language and metaphor, or, with taste and sensitivity, offer to others the best of what we know to be true?

Keeping God in the Constitution or in the national anthem won’t save our nation, but it reminds us all of the hopes and dreams which can give us all an understanding that we do not live alone.