Re Ethnicity, Identity And Isolation: The Long Shadow Of Racism On The Church, April
In the article, various sources were quoted as being dissatisfied with the excessive Scottish influence in current Canadian Presbyterianism, and the inflexibility of our mainstream denomination in failing to change its identity in order to better accommodate the ethic-minority branches of the church. Readers who revere the core traditions of our denomination must have read this article with much trepidation, but perhaps in keeping with the main church complacency that Mr. Faiz mentions in his article, few have bothered to comment.
As an immigrant, I consider myself qualified to remind the author that the general expectation in this country is that newcomers to Canada come here with the intention of integrating into Canadian society, thus becoming Canadians (rather than the hyphenated-Canadians that unthinking administrations often classify us as). And if this premise seems logical in relation to social assimilation, then why shouldn’t it also apply to spiritual integration?
The Canadian Presbyterian church and it’s established traditions were here long before we latter-day immigrants arrived, so doesn’t it seem more than a little audacious to try to demand changes that merely serve our various ethnic desires (as opposed to “needs”)? And isn’t it reasonable that the mainstream church should resist the various forces that would have us going in all directions to try to satisfy a multitude of self-centered demands that risk the destruction of the church as we know it, and as we who have a broader viewpoint think it was meant to be?
It is my contention that the great religions and the great Christian denominations of this world have endured because they have resisted change when it constituted change merely for the sake of change. It is critically important in preserving the sacred tenets of our denomination that we never forget the critical difference between “change” and “progress:” only progress holds the promise of being universally beneficial.
I found Mr. Faiz’s article to be divisive, to consist of narrow, self-serving, shallow ethnic opinions, and to be an affront to the extremely accommodating Presbyterian Church of Canada that I have known since it first offered me a much-needed spiritual home.
