By Dennis Gruending

The Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan is poised for sale to the highest bidder, and shareholders, not to mention company executives, stand to stuff their pockets from a deal when and if it occurs. The company has spurned as inadequate an offer of $38.6-billion (U.S.) from an Australian-based giant called BHP Billiton and has also been in talks with other companies, including two from China. The great and tragic irony for the people of Saskatchewan is that in 1989 a provincial government sold Crown-owned PCS for $630 million, a minute fraction of what it may sell for now. It’s like selling your house and having the new owner flip it for 60 times the price. What has this to do with a blog called Pulpit and Politics? Let’s start with the morality of greed, market fundamentalism, and the common good.

I was a young journalist with a ringside seat in Saskatchewan in 1975 when a government led by Premier Allan Blakeney took over half of the potash industry. I later wrote a biography of Blakeney called Promises to Keep and the potash story is told in that book. Potash (potassium chloride) is used as a component in farm fertilizers, which are in growing demand, notably in China and India, countries that have enormous populations to feed. Saskatchewan has the largest potash deposits in the world. (Read on …)

By Dennis Gruending

I spent two days in Toronto on June 26-27 during the G20 summit of world political leaders. I was doing communications-related work for a peaceful rally and march organized by labour and citizens’ groups (including some churches) on Saturday. It was a day that was to turn nasty late in the afternoon when a small group of people began to commit acts of vandalism. I took the photo shown here on Queen Street while upwards of 30 thousand people were marching peacefully in the rain. In the left corner of the frame, a young girl walks carrying an umbrella and behind her a man holds the hand of his female companion. In the centre is a banner that says people should come before profits and that public services essential to citizens must be protected. There are also people carrying flags identifying their unions – the Public Service Alliance of Canada, the Service Employees International Union and others.

The People First rally began in the pouring rain at Queen’s Park, Ontario’s parliament building. A group of dark-clad police officers were ranged in front of the entrance. They treated any demonstrators who came near to them in a friendly but non-committal manner. The event’s sponsoring organizations included the Canadian Labour Congress, the Ontario Federation of Labour, the Council of Canadians, Greenpeace and the Canadian Federation of Students. The march began after about 30 minutes of introductions and speeches. The route was to take about 90 minutes, although it was awhile before the crowd of thousands could file its way into the street. (Read on …)

By Dennis Gruending

I mentioned in my last posting to Pulpit and Politics that I am leading an evening class this winter for the Ottawa Lay School of Theology.  It’s called Faith and Public Life: Making the Connection. We met for our first class on Monday January 12 and it was perhaps not surprising, given the city involved, that a good number of the 30 participants are civil servants or are retired from government. Many said they want to know what links their religious faith to the work they do or have done.

I believe that such a connection exists and if it didn’t, as the saying goes, we would have to invent it. The Christian gospel calls on people to “love the Lord your God with all your heart”, but it also says, “love your neighbour as yourself.” That love is expressed through right relationships. We are, indeed, our sister’s and our brother’s keeper, as Barrack Obama had the courage to say in his speech in August 2008 accepting the Democratic Party’s nomination for the presidency of the United States. Our health, social and international development programs are an institutional way of putting these religious concepts into practice.

I think, for example, of Medicare in Canada. When I was growing up in a poor farm family in Saskatchewan, my mother developed multiple sclerosis and we were almost ruined financially by the doctors’ bills that we had to pay. It was a provincial government led by Tommy Douglas, a former Baptist minister, that conceived of a publicly financed health care system. Medicare was all-important to our family and many others, but it is more than just a program. Janet Sommerville, a former head of the Canadian Council of Churches, says: “The principles guiding our health care system have an unmistakable affinity with the love of neighbour urged on us by God’s word in Scripture.”

I am in good company in believing that there is a connection between faith and public life. Pope John Paul II wrote in a 1988 encyclical that, “The world then is the vineyard; this is the field in which the faithful are called to fulfill their mission.”

The Anabaptist writer Donald Kraybill has a popular book called The Upside Down Kingdom. He begins it with the Gospel writer Luke telling us what John the Baptist said, and John was, in turn, paraphrasing the prophet Isaiah: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth.”

Kraybill then moves to the Magnificat, the song of Mary when she learned that she was to be the mother of the Messiah: “The Mighty one has done great things for me, and holy is his name. His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thought of their hearts. He has put down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich empty away.”

Kraybill calls his book The Upside Down Kingdom because he believes the gospel message is just this: the valleys will be filled, the mountains will be leveled, and the crooked will be made straight. The powerful shall be put down and the lowly lifted up.

The Bible cannot (and should not) be expected to tell people how to vote but it certainly tells us that there is a connection between faith and the social, economic and political decisions that we make. This will be especially interesting to consider as Canada struggles to deal with an economic recession, and as unemployment, insecurity and suffering are bound to become more widespread. It was the Great Depression of the 1930s that spawned both the CCF and the Social Credit political movements and religious ministers were prominent in the leadership of both parties.

Ernest Manning, the longtime premier of Alberta and a lay minister, said this: “In my opinion, it is completely contrary to the Scriptures that Christians, who are intended to be the salt of the earth, should avoid the field of public life where the influence of their Christian experience is so desperately needed.”

There are many questions that we can ask: What examples can we think of where faith informed public life — for the better, or perhaps for the worse?

How do we deal with questions of faith and partisanship – for example, was the social faith of Tommy Douglas better than that of Mr. Manning; better than that of John Diefenbaker, or better than that of Pierre Trudeau?

Should religious faith and organized religion have a prominent role to play in politics — or are these decisions best left to what in Canada is a mature and secular democracy?

Are religions a force for public good as many of us have assumed, or are they to quote American writer Sam Harris, “leading us, inexorably, to kill one another?”

One reader of this blog is Alvin Hergott, a former Catholic priest who now lives in Brazil. He sent this question for us to consider: “I wonder whether your class will explore the reason(s) that individuals who appear to share the same religious faith differ so markedly in their social and political living of it.” We will consider this question and I also invite you as a reader of Pulpit and Politics to send in questions as well.

Next week our guest will be Peter Harder, a former deputy minister of Foreign Affairs and other Canadian government departments. He will talk about the connections between faith and public life, especially for those who work in the bureaucracy. If you have any questions for Mr. Harder, please post them in the Comments section below.

 By Dennis Gruending

Pulpit and Politics has won the 2008 Canadian Blog Award in the category of best Religious-Philosophy blog. Winners were decided on the basis of votes they received from readers, so thanks to those of you who voted. The Religious-Philosophy category was one of several in which awards were made. Others included Best Blog Overall, Professional, Career, Political, Humour, Disability.

I want to thank my friend and colleague David Blaikie, who helped me to set up the blog and who has been here to help every time that glitches have occurred. One of those was our inability to provide an RSS feed for people who want to receive the blog automatically in that way. We weren’t sure why it didn’t work, but after some tinkering it finally does work. So please register for the RSS feed on this site if you wish.  

Here is what some readers are saying about Pulpit and Politics:

“Ex-NDP MP Dennis Gruending has been writing Pulpit and Politics for just over a year now. He is now up for a 2008 Canadian Blog Award in the category of Best Religious-Philosophy blog, and has indeed reached the final round. The title pretty much says it all: Mr. Gruending examines the intersection of Canadian politics and both right and left wing political movements. Level-headed, scholarly, but always a good read. When the final round opens, he’s got my vote.”  — BigCityLib Strikes Back

“Dennis Gruending is a man who has worn a lot of hats and his blog Pulpit and Politics took 1st in the category this year. Dennis has been an MP, worked with the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, and was a print and broadcasting journalist. What comes through at Pulpit and Politics is his keen intellect, love of Canadian history and sharp analysis of the intersection of faith in society. Ethical and plainspoken scholarship represents this category well.” — Bene Diction

“If you would like to read more about the political differences between Canada and the United States and how that impacts on matters of faith, I have found that the blog Pulpit and Politics by Dennis Gruending, is very good at exploring these differences in depth.” — Eclectic Christian

The Bene Diction blog won an award this year, as it did in 2007, and I would commend it to your attention.