Trinity Western University is once again in the news, and for once, they’re not under attack. A graduate from the university was recently denied a job on the basis of her faith.
While the organization, Amaruk Wilderness Corp., claims that the student’s application was denied because she failed to meet the minimum requirements for the position, the e-mails that followed display an extreme anti-Christian bias, to the point where the company’s hiring manager, Olaf Amundsen, stated that if he “was to meet [God], [he] would fuck him.” Though it has since been revealed that Amaruk is not a real company, the e-mails and the discrimination are very real.
Sadly, this kind of anti-Christian bigotry is rapidly becoming the norm. Back in July, I wrote an article about the Nanaimo city council and their near-unanimous decision to ban a church group from using a public facility to simulcast a leadership conference, while equating the group with both organized crime and terrorism.
In both these cases, the reasoning behind the anti-Christian bias was based off of wrongs committed in the past; in Amaruk’s case, centuries in the past, as the e-mails reference the forced conversion of the Norse peoples to Christianity, which occurred around the 11th century. Both of these cases are clear violations of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which, ironically enough, are founded on the dual principles of “the supremacy of God and the rule of law,” in a country whose head of state is titled “defender of the Faith.”
Christians are often labelled as gay-bashing, hypocritical folks who favour faith over science.
In the name of tolerance and inclusiveness, Canada is becoming increasingly intolerant to the nearly two-thirds of the population who claim Christianity as their religion. While it would be foolish to claim that all members of this group are innocent of the alleged homophobia used by the Nanaimo city council to justify its ban, it is equally erroneous to state that all Christians are guilty.
Unfortunately, there are many people who paint all Christians with the same brush, immediately labelling all of us as gay-bashing, hypocritical, judgemental folks who deny science in favour of faith. This is despite the fact that Canadians seem to be able to separate the good from the bad in other religions, as very few people believe that all Muslims are terrorists.
But when the Prime Minister is accused of being a fundamentalist — those evangelical Christians characterized by their militarism, separatism and biblical literalism — for his private beliefs, while Justin Trudeau can visit a mosque with links to al-Qaeda and not have the media comment on it, we have a problem.
Canadians seem to be unable to accept the fact that there are Christians who follow Christ to the best of their ability — displaying the compassion of Jesus — while others fall short of the mark. Which makes a lot of sense, as conversion to the Christian faith does not automatically mean that one becomes perfect; mistakes will always be made in how faith is expressed.
We are not perfect people, nor should we claim to be. Have Christians made mistakes in the past? Of course. We are only human, and are no better or worse than anyone else. To my fellow Christians, I ask that we learn to be better representatives of the Christ we claim to follow, emphasizing compassion and grace. To the rest of our readers, I ask for your forgiveness for the wrongs mistakenly committed in His Name, and also for a chance to prove that we are not the people that the media portrays us to be.
