Canadian Missionality: Two Updates
My good friend Brother Maynard dropped me an email giving me some very exciting news. It seems that Harry Lehotsky, our good friend who died last last year from pancreatic cancer, has been to the first rank of the Order Of Canada. As our nations highest civilian award, this acknowledgment of Harry’s missional commitment to God and his community is an exciting one. I am sure he would have not liked all the fuss, but it is well deserved. Check out the last couple of months of my Tuesday posts for samples of Harry’s former column with the Winnipeg Sun.
An interesting article was also brought to my attention, which is getting some good play in the blogosphere, at least within Canadian circles. It is entitled “How Canadians Can Save The American Church” by Earl Creps. It is worth a read, as well as the comments that follow. As a friend mentioned in an online forum, it might have been more aptly titled “‘Why Canadians Need To Save The American Church”, but it has some interesting insights.
While I appreciate Earl’s perspective, the danger of this kind of post is to create caricatures of both nations that can be too one dimensional and simplistic to be fair. It isn’t that the US church is in desperate need of our Canadian wisdom- or rather, no more so than any national or cultural expression of the church needs the diverse and objective insights of others. Given the power and influence of the US- politically, economically, spiritually, missionally, etc…- perhaps they are in great need of support, but not because they are somehow more deficient. As Canadians, there are areas to which the US church has great wisdom for us.
As a dual citizen, the interaction between Canada & the US is interesting to me. I have posted on this topic several times myself. That being said, I would be interested in hearing my American (and other non-Canadian readers) perspective. I also want to hear from Canadian, so all are welcome to weigh in.
I agree that Canadian Christians are much better at ministry in U.S. ‘blue-states’ than are Christians from Texas or Georgia. They understand a more secular, pluralistic culture better than do Americans from more conservative and homogeneous places. I also think some urban Canadian churches would be good models for urban U.S. churches.
Having said that, I think the article assumes that cultural drift directions are going to keep on happening as they have been for the last 50+ years. There was a time in which U.S. culture was moving in a European direction, only several decades slower and later, and Australia and Canada were half way between the more conservative U.S. and the more secular Europe. But I think things are now much more up in the air. Islam is going to radically change European culture–but exactly how is not easily discerned. Pentacostalism is also going to grow in Europe especially among non-whites and along with Islam it’s going to make it harder than ever to maintain a secularist basis for the state. It’s going to be a very wierd, rough ride for Europe over the next two decades. And the U.S. is also in a strange place. The U.S. is not moving in just one direction–it’s fragmenting. At any rate it is not simply going to become like Europe. I don’t think, then, we in the U.S. can really see Canada as ‘ahead’ of us anymore. I think old patterns are breaking up and we are just going to have to wait and see.
Tim,
Interesting insights. I am not sure I agree with them all, but with this we are on the same page- the issue is far more complex than the article allowed for.
Peace,
Jamie
Jamie. Tell me more. I’m not wedded very tightly to anything I said. What do you think?
Jamie,
I saw the article, and haven’t read the whole thing, but it did make me wince just a bit. As even Crepps admits, its overly generalized. And treating the totality of American Christianity and Canadian Christianity as monolithic strikes me as highly problematic without an analytic content to generalize from. To me this seems like the obverse of what some Albertan Americanizers like to do: see the US as an oasis for political and cultural conservatism. Straw men burn fast.
Tim,
Nothing major, just felt there were some large generalizations about the different nations you mentioned.
Peace,
Jamie
Ken,
Yeah, I had the same response to some degree. In the end, though, I think his heart is in the right place and it could present an interesting premise to explore.
Peace,
Jamie
Jamie–There’s a Pew Forum with Peter Berger that illustrates a lot of what I’ve been saying. Here’s the internet address of the transcript: http://pewforum.org/events/index.php?EventID=136 I think this shows how complex things have gotten.
Thanks Tim.
Peace,
Jamie
I think we Christians in the US may be able to learn much from our Canadian brothers in regard to ministry in a post christian culture, but my concern is that you can’t draw a Canadian, European, or Austrailian template over the US and expect it to work. American christians have done the same in other cultures and it has failed.
I don’t believe post modern culture in the US will look exactly like post modern culture in other places. There are real differences. Post Moderns in the US whether they like it or not have been influenced and impacted by the “modern” US culture, a culture which has had the US as a central world focus in many ways as an economic and military superpower. However much they may claim to disassociate from that, it’s still influenced much of their thinking (ie runaway consumerism… I want it now…whatever the problem,we can fix it…) I just believe it will look at least somewhat different.
What I am more interested in as a Christian and an American is hearing God and finding out how he wants us to proceed. As Christians we all to often try to use cookie cutters on the church trying to make it look like whatever the latest and greatest is.
Can we (all Christians) stop and actually seek the Lord hear his voice and discern where he wants to go whether with the church in the US, Canada, Nigeria, Brazil, wherever.
John,
Well said. I agree.
Peace,
Jamie