February 01, 2005
NACC Letter to MPs
Also available in MS Word and Plain Text formats.05-01-24
Dear Member of Parliament:
Re. The January 17 Letter of the Moderator of the United Church of Canada
Recently you received a letter from the Moderator of the United Church of Canada (UCC), recommending that you vote in support of the "same-sex marriage" legislation shortly to be introduced in the House of Commons. On behalf of the National Alliance of Covenanting Congregations, a renewal group within the UCC, I wish to emphasize that the NACC is not in favour of same-sex marriage or, as the Moderator terms it, "equal marriage". Further, we believe we represent a majority of United Church members (and Canadians) in opposing any redefinition of marriage.
Permit me to make the following points:
As the Moderator concedes early in his letter, the UCC is not a monolith. Decisions of the General Council (largely a self-selecting body) are frequently at odds with the church at large, and its decisions can by no means be assumed to represent all (or even a majority) of UCC members.
The UCC largely sees itself as a church very much in tune with the times. Given that, its membership would presumably hold views very close to those of the general public. If so, it is probable only about 39% are in favour of same-sex marriage. (See Ipsos-Reid poll, November 19-22, 2004.)
In his letter, the Moderator speaks of the role Scripture is playing in the current debate. He argues that in the past it has been misused "to support slavery, apartheid, and the exclusion of women." That may be true, but doing so required that the Bible be used selectively. This is not so in the present case, since the Bible speaks with unambiguous consistency against same sex relations.
It is ironic that the Charter is now being used in exactly the way the Moderator deprecates. A patently human artifact, the Charter is being presented as infallible, as "Holy Writ", so to speak. Hence the general reluctance to make use of the not-withstanding clause.
The Moderator describes the UCC as "Canada's largest Protestant denomination". Even if true, it is nonetheless a vanishing entity. At the end of 2003 (the last year for which the church has furnished statistics), membership stood at 608,243, down a massive 460,692 from 1965. The NACC believes this slump is largely attributable to the UCC establishment's having been out of touch with the general membership for decades, often making decisions those in the pews find highly objectionable. What that implies for those in political life should be obvious.
That the Prime Minister is not prepared to permit a completely free vote in Parliament (let alone a national referendum) echoes the emphasis on top-down control in the UCC over recent decades. In this case it is a commentary on the weakness of the arguments offered in support of same-sex marriage. In purely pragmatic terms, it smacks of political suicide. (Witness the hemorrhage of UCC membership.)
Some members of the House of Commons will be United Church members, so let me close by saying that we, like many in the denomination will have read the Moderator's well meaning letter with sadness. We are an exhausted, depleted church. Those who still have the energy to care, once again find themselves divided by controversy.
We need to confess that we are deeply broken as a denomination, that we have not managed our own house well, and that we have no warrant to suggest the Government of Canada follow in the footsteps of our General Council. In this matter, the NACC, like so many others in the UCC, has common cause with clear-thinking persons from virtually every faith group in Canada - and, indeed, with many of no religious faith. We stand with Canadians of almost every ethnic origin in affirming that marriage is what it has always been in this country - the covenantal union of a man and a woman into that miraculous unit that is the best guarantee we have for the creation and nurture of new life. Our conscience will not permit us to call it otherwise.
Finally, this letter should not be interpreted as uncaring of the needs of our homo-sexual brothers and sisters. They are much on our minds. Our first concern, however, is for the institution of marriage, already weakened by legislated change over the last century. Were the new definition to be adopted, we believe the arguments used to support the change will be used again and again until "Marriage" becomes a meaningless term, with profoundly negative consequences to the basic fabric of Canadian society.
Yours truly,
Geoff Wilkins, Chairman, for the NACC Steering Committee
(604) 987-9876
Posted at February 1, 2005 01:03 PM